Mid Autumn Festival

Tonight is the full moon, and the Mid Autumn Festival was celebrated in Hong Kong. This holiday dates back to the worship of the Moon Goddess, and is now a time for gathering family and friends, lighting Chinese lanterns and eating moon cakes. Moon cakes are a kind of strange pastry with an outer pastry crust, and a lotus seed paste filling, and a hard boiled egg yolk in the center. Well I took all my family and friends to Victoria Park tonight for the festival. It was easy to arrange cuz there’s only one of us. Anyway, There was a display of giant lanterns of all different shapes and a ton of people gathering in the park to see them. It was a cool little adventure, and the pictures came out pretty cool as well.

The really cool part of all this is it really is a holiday, so I’m off work tomorrow. Not only that, Friday is Chinese National Day, or Unification Day, or something. The point is I have Friday off as well, so I have a three day weekend. I picked up plane tickets today, cuz I’m going to Thailand for the weekend. Wooooohooo!!! I’m going to Harvey’s house in Pattaya to hang out with Paew and On. Cool Huh?

Mid Autumn Festival At Victoria Park.

A Giant Lantern.

Does this one look familiar?

Disney had their castle there as well.

A Giant Dragon Lantern.

Rockets and Planets.

Sailboat and fish.

Hong Kong at night.

The Peak

I took myself to dinner tonight at “The Peak”. It’s the highest point on the Island, so it has incredible views. Dinner was really good, and the company was really pleasant as well. I’m doin my best to enjoy my off time in Hong Kong, hopefully that will help me get through the next two months of my stay here. I’ve been here one month, and I said I’d stay three, so I have two left. I think I can do it…..

The view from my table.

Topping off the Castle.

Yesterday was the topping off ceremony. We put the highest tower on top of the castle, and they had this big media event. We are not finished by a long shot, but they needed to get some publicity, so there has been this big push to get the castle looking like something by this week. Actually a lot of what’s up there is gonna have to be taken down, because it’s not up to specifications, or in crooked, or just a really shitty part. They don’t really have any experience with fiberglass over here, so these people are real beginners. I guess that’s why they brought in Scenario. I’m starting to get acclimated to working here, and if I can get enough time off, I think I just may be able to hang in with it. This was Steve’s last week, so the guy who administers our contract here took us out for drinks, and last night we went out to dinner with some of the Disney folks. It’s definitely a lot better here when I don’t just sleep and work. I’m gonna work on keeping that up. I’m so beat after work, that I just wanna crash. That may be good for my body, but I don’t think it’s good for my head.

Hey Robert, there isn’t anything underground here but pipes. So what you see is pretty much all there is.

Harvey should have a bunch of pictures to show you guys. I sent all those disks out like ten days ago, so they really should have arrived. Well, I hope all of you are doing OK.

We topped off the castle today.

Sage: I can't see pluto, but I can see Goofy, mickey, and Minnie.

It's so big.....

Getting Better.

Well I haven't completely recovered from the cold, or whatever it was I got, but I'm back at work. Woooohooo. I'm trying to hang in here, but I'd still much rather be in Thailand, or with you guys for a Friday night, but I'd wanna be in Thailand on Saturday morning. I read an article online that talked about the first couple months of working overseas is the hardest, so maybe I'll get over it.

When I was in Bangkok I bought a new Nikon camera. It has super high resolution, and I've been really happy with it. The only problem has been I didn't have a fisheye lens for it. Well since I'm now in one of the best cities in the world for buying that kind of stuff, I went and tracked down a fisheye lens for my new camera. I tripped out when I saw it cuz it's huge. The glass on the front has to be four inches across. I've never seen a lens like it. I'll be sending some new pics using it soon. The picture of the castle, and most of the pics from my last post were from my pocket pc/phone/camera. I've had it a couple weeks, and it's great. It's as fast as my first laptop, and the pictures aren't that bad either. It's also a tri-band phone, so I don't have to carry a bunch of different electronics all the time....well I still do, but I use that one the most. Hong Kong is at least a really good place for me to find toyz.....

the castle....

looking toward Central

night view on race night

daytime view

19th floor looking down

a room with a view

high rise digs

My third week.

I've been working here since the first of September, and I already wanna go back to Thailand. They work six days a week at Disneyland, and it's a bit much for me. I think that's how I got sick. I'm home sick with a cold. It might just be the cold talking, but I don't like it here. Hong Kong is a bit like LA. Everyone seems to be running themselves into the ground. In the morning on the subway, everyone looks like they've been up all night. Half the people are falling asleep. Then at lunch time I see some of the people in the office, just put their heads on there desk and pass out. Same thing on the evening commute, people dead on their feet trying to get home. There's not a lot of smiling faces in this crowd of the weary.

On the lighter side, I am getting a lot of reading done, I've read five books in the last three weeks. Jamie's right, public transport give you a good opportunity to get some reading done. I'm so happy that I got the Gutenberg project on my computer.(www.gutenberg.net it's free!) I have 709 books on it. I download them on to my pocket PC and read them in the taxi, subway, and bus everyday to and from work.

I'm happy to hear you all had fun last Friday. Who got the shirt that said something about internet pedophiles on it? That one was really freaky. Why would they write that on a shirt? I think most of the people that wear those shirts don't read English, so it doesn't matter what it says on it.

I posted some pictures of where I'm living. It's a small room on the 19th floor of the hotel. I have a cool view. The green spot in the middle left of the window shot is the Happy Valley racetrack. I can actually watch the horses run from my window.

I hope I didn't whine too much. Take care of yourselves, especially you Jamie....good luck.

Cool bridge...huh?

Riding home

Commuting pictures

When I go to work every day I take a taxi, then a train, and finally the Disney commuter bus out to the site. It goes over some amazing suspension bridges on the way. These are a couple pictures of them. The pictures are kinda crappy cuz I took them out the back window of the bus, and it was pretty dirty. I'm sending them anyway. Hope you like them.
Hey Harvey, I sent the CD ROMS out today airmail. It's still gonna take 5 or 6 days. I sent you all the pictures we took....well almost all of them. I hope ya all had fun last Friday. I was thinkin bout you. It wasn't such a bad day at work though, I went out to dim sum lunch with a bunch of the Chinese guys. After that I went out clubbing in Wan Chai....drinkin way too much, and spending way too much money.

Friday night.

Well it’s Friday night in Hong Kong, but I gotta work tomorrow so I’m stayin home. At least I have cloves to smoke, and Budweiser to drink. I’m burning disks of all the photos Harv and I shot during our travels. I’ll be sending them on to Harvey shortly. Maybe another reason for you all to get together. I can’t believe you guys need an excuse to party together. From here partying with the gang sounds really great.

I think I’m doing well at work they assigned me the rest of Fantasyland to supervise the fiberglass installation. I guess that means they like what I’m doing. Too bad I don’t like them as much as they like me. Disney folks are a bit arrogant. Geez… I hope none of them read this. It’s true though. They call themselves Imagineers, and they are very cliquish. Today they asked how long I was staying, and I told them I signed up for three months. Actually Steve and I have a running joke about when they are gonna say thanks you can go. The joke goes “ whaddaya have to do to get fired around here”? I think I just miss bein on vacation, and my girl in Thailand. It’s cooled down a bit, so all the walkin, and climbing around on the castle is getting a lot easier. Hopefully I’ll be able to go to Thailand soon. They are filming a commercial on the 23rd that involves them installing the top of the castle. We put it on today and it fits, so they should be able to do that without me. Hopefully that means I can go to Pattaya and hang out with Paew and On for a few days.

So to answer your questions from the comment section on my last post…..

Sara: I’d love too see pics from the party tomorrow... or tonight…whatever.
Sage: Had a few TsingTao’s while I been here, but over here Budweiser is exotic imported beer, and I’m that kind of guy. Anyway, cheers mate, I’ll have one for you.
Jamie: I’ve been out of cloves for around eight days, so no big deal, and yes that’s my address unless they send me to China.
Jenny: I’d love for you to come out here. I don’t know if they do the halloween thing though. You reminded me of how freakin incredible last halloween was. Damm I miss you guys. Specially when the fungus is amungus.
Alex: I miss you too. I know you all will have fun without me tomorrow, or tonight…whatever. BTW I had room service bring me a cheesburger about two hours ago, so I still get what I want.
Ryan:Sorry bout the soft handle…:), I’ll work on some more juicy stories as soon as I get away from the mouse.

I Love and miss you all.

Work…work…work…

I been kinda quiet on the web log lately. You guys are writing on it more than I am. I think that’s really cool. I’m a little jealous of Harv going home. It would be so nice to see all my friends again. Hong Kong is a great city and all, but for the most part I’m just working and sleeping. It’s been so hot here that by the end of the day, I just want to relax. Last Saturday night I went out with Steve and Paul and his wife to Lan Kwai Fam. It’s a party area in Hong Kong with bars and restaurants. It reminds me of City Walk at Universal studios with a little bit of Rodeo drive thrown in. Hong Kong has a very strong upscale feel to it, well at least the central district does. The architecture is very impressive, like a very clean New York City with better design on the buildings. It is also really expensive in that area. It’s really shocking when you hear the prices of things, or read the prices. The exchange rate works out to around 7.5 HK dollars to each dollar U.S. That softens the blow, but when a beer is 80$HK that’s still a ten dollar beer. That’s the upscale places. There are plenty of bars in the neighborhood I live in that aren’t that expensive, but like I said I haven’t been going out that much.

I’ll be thinking about you all next Saturday at work. When its noon here you guys will all be gathering up at Harvey’s for the great tee shirt festival. I’ve seen the shirts, and they range from cute to incomprehensible…..and at least one of them is downright shocking! Have fun, and drink a few for me.

Main Street

Space Mountian

Castle close up

Tom Sawyer's tree house

Fantasyland

Snow White's Castle

Harbor and ferry landing.

Skyline

Life with Mickey.....

That's Mickey the rodent not me. I'm kinda tired so this is gonna be a short post. I really only wanted to do it cuz I took some cool pictures tonight. This was the first sunny day I've experienced in Hong Kong. It's rained every other day I've been here. It really didn't make much difference, because I was still soaked all day long. I'm sweating my ass off over here. One of the guys told me he lost 25 pounds the first three months he was here. Maybe that's why most of the Chinese are so thin. I'm working away....trying to get as much progress as I can done on Snow White's Castle. I'm starting to make friends with some of the people I work with. They're gonna make me a sticker with my name written in English, Japanese and Cantonese for the back of my hard hat. I think that means they like me. I guess that depends on what they write. Is that my name, or "kick me" in Cantonese? No pictures from the site yet. Every time I get the camera out of the office it fogs up too much to use. The difference in temperature causes some nasty condensation on the lens.

Hey, Harvey wrote a rather long comment on my last post, so if ya haven't read it go back.....Harv I miss you too we made a good team, on the road as well as on the pool table. At least you got the girls....I get a mouse...well, and a bunch of money;)