Posts Tagged ‘hong kong’

This latest excursion to Hong Kong was originally supposed to be a quick 3 day business trip.  But due to circumstances it ended up lasting over a week and included a few interesting experiences.

This time around I opted for air travel, since I was a bit more pressed for time and train travel does take a bit of time.  Here are some photos of my early-morning flight from Xi’an to Guangzhou, as well as my bus trip to the Guangzhou East Train Station and the train trip from there to the Shenzhen border.  I actually took the train to Lo Wu, but since I was going to Jack’s it was much easier to take the Shenzhen subway to Lok Ma Chau (Futian) and cross there.  Then I could just catch a $10HKD bus straight to his front door.

Here are some pictures of that trip (By the way, all photos were taken courtesy of my new cell phone.  I didn’t bring any other camera with me to test if it was a good solution for trip blog photo taking – seems to have done the job decently … ):

I arrived the day before Jack was leaving for the U.S. to attend a friend’s wedding so we went out to grab a bite to eat at “China Land”, a restaurant close to his home.

But the fun was short-lived since I had a lot of work to do at the North Point office where I would be stationed for most of my occupational duties.  While working there I thought it would be a good chance to experiment on different ways to make the commute from Tin Shui Wai to North Point.  The fastest ended up being the 969 bus to Sheung Shui (although it goes all the way to Causeway Bay) and then the MTR to Quarry Bay station.  Less than 90 minutes (for around $28HKD).

But by far the most pleasant way was to take the 269 bus to Hung Hom ferry pier and take the ferry across from there to North Point and walk a few blocks to the office, however it took the longest at just around 2 hours (for $25HKD).  The 269 bus is nice too because it also goes through TST, which is pretty convenient.

I took pictures of my various travel methods which you can check out here:

A few highlights from my trip were checking out a showing of Kick Ass with Khalil, Davina and Yuklan, spending the night in an office in TST while setting up a computer network (which I ended up having to re-do a few days later – ugh!), Checking out a super late showing of Iron Man 2 in Mongkok on my last night in Hong Kong, catching coffee with Ryan at Starbucks, eating dinner at a really fancy restaurant located in a clothing store, going computer equipment shopping in Wan Chai, and getting some great expense tracking software for my HTC Touch Pro 2.

Here are a few highlight photos from the rest of my time in Hong Kong:

On my way back through Shenzhen I got my wallet picked from my pocket at the Futian Border crossing.  That would have sucked way worse if I actually had anything vital in there.  Just an ATM card for one of my Hong Kong banks and about $60HKD.  All of my vital stuff I keep in my travel belt wallet that goes securely under my shirt and pants waist.  So aside from some inconvenience it didn’t create any super horrible situations and I was able to make it to my subway / train / taxi / plane / bus back to Xi’an, where I arrived home, safe and sound, just an hour or two before Cindo de Mayo.

This will be my last trip to Hong Kong until at least sometime in June.  It will be nice to spend a bit longer at home, since I’m up to my neck in a backlog of work and tasks that need completing.

Some big news and information about my future plans on the horizon too, but it is still premature to talk about that, so for now you can just keep your eyes peeled for the post in the coming weeks.

Its been a while since I provided an update on my life in Xi’an.  There have been a whole lot of photos taken from the various activities that have happened since the beginning of the year.  As I recall the last time I blogged about the happenings in the Walled City was waaaay back around my birthday.  So here are some of the highlights since that time. (You can click on a thumbnail to view the full image).

January

January was a cold month.  I spent most of the time focusing on my wushu.  In fact, it would be one of the last time I really got a good amount of training in this year (so far!).  This was also the month Charisse was staying with us prior to our February trip to Hong Kong for the Family Reunion and Vision that Inspires Conference.  We had a visit from Mejdi and his son (he’s been in China for a loooong time), I got to visit the Sports University, get my health card and a bunch of other stuff.  We also went on a day-trip to YanLing to visit some Friends.  Here are some highlight photos for you to check out:

February

We were gone 3 out of the 4 weeks of this month.  Hong Kong was calling so we headed down.  I posted a ton of photos from this on my Facebook and Picasa albums, so you can check those out.  Click here for my favorites.

A few other highlights was getting to meet Kevin Spacey and having a waaaaay-in-the-distance-hard-to-see walk-on extra role in the film that Dayyan was making with Kevin and Daniel Wu (and Gong Beibi, of course).  Can’t wait to see if I’m actually visible or not.

February is also when Ayyam-i-ha, the annual Baha’i holiday, is held.  We had a nice little get together in our home to celebrate (nothing too big – just a few friends) which just happened to coincide with the Lantern Festival which brought a great fireworks display directly outside our window.

Also on the schedule was the celebratory dinner for the end of Carmel Consulting, the company that Ruhi was general manager of.  It only took half a year to close the company.  Welcome to China!

Some photos from February:

March

March was the Fast, which is the 19 day period from March 2 – 20 when Baha’i’s do not eat from sunrise to sunset.  Not too many photos from March due to my constant hunger (hahaha) but I did manage to get a few here and there.  I did take a quick 2 day trip to Hong Kong though around the 26th, but there isn’t too much to write about that.  Ruhi started school in March so she was pretty busy with her studies.

March in general was a low-media month for me and I didn’t really take that many photos. Actually a lot of my media was video, which is a pain to edit, so no pictures to share. Maybe next time.

April

Well, April is still going on, but it has already been pretty chock-full of stuff.  My friend Lisa paid a quick visit to Xi’an and I took her to my favorite noodle/dumpling place near our home.  I got to practice the arts with some calligraphy and sculpting, and I spent a week in Hong Kong (and am going for another trip on Monday!).  I didn’t make it to the Wushu competition in Hangzhou, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be the last one.  Since Xiao Yu qualified for the next round I have a feeling I’ll still be able to shout and scream for my friends and training mates in the coming months.

Here are some photos from this month so far:

I am currently sitting in my train just having passed through Zhengzhou station in Henan Province.  Come to think of it, this is the sixth time I’ve gone through this station in the past year.  I wonder if Liu Hai Bo is near here …

The shanty town I just passed reminds me of Haiti.  Although unlike Haiti there are high rise apartment buildings just beyond them. Lots of construction in Zhengzhou.  More than most cities I’ve visited in China.  I guess that Shaolin money is doing its job.

Anyway, after a week in Hong Kong filled with meetings, meetings, work and some stress, I’m finally on my way home.  And boy do I need a trip home.  I will have to soak it all up though because I’m coming back to Hong Kong on the 26th for 3 more days.  What happened to my wushu training?  I haven’t been to wushu in a month or so if seems.  “Out of shape” does not even begin to describe things.

Some highlights …

Where i bought my new cell phone: HTC Touch Pro 2

On the bus

 

MBDF

 

Hold on!

 

 

 

Jack

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All photos courtesy of my new cell phone!

So, if you couldn’t guess from my Twitter Feed or Facebook or wherever else I have an online presence, I was not able to make it to Hangzhou for the wushu competition. A little bummed about that, but not much that can be done about it.  Instead I’m heading back to Hong Kong for a business trip.  In fact, I am at the Xi’an train station as I write this.

I picked up a 3G USB Wireless Modem at the DianZiGuangChang in Xi’an and signed up for a trial package to see how it works.  The 3G stick includes a slot for my 8GB MicroSD card too, so it acts both as a modem and a memory stick (8GB MicroSD was 115 RMB or around $20 USD).  The USB modem was 320 RMB and I signed up for 3 months of the lowest nation-wide access rate plan, which includes 60 hours of online 3G access each month up to downloads to 15GB.  If this proves to be helpful there are plans that allow for unlimited use.  I think the best deal was unlimited nation-wide use for 2800 RMB / year.  That comes down to around 200-something RMB / month, which is only around 100 RMB more than I’m paying for this plan.

Anyway, the plan is 100 RMB / month but you have to get a 3 month block.  So I paid 300 RMB for that.  Around 735 RMB all together.  Not too bad.  I have 3 months of 3G wireless access for a little more than $100 USD.

The other reason I got this was because next month (assuming this works well) I’m planning on attending the Duilian competition being held in Tianjin.  Yeah, it isn’t your normal wushu competition, but I feel bad about not attending this one so at least I can provide some interesting duilian footage from Tianjin.  I hope to Tweet from the competition too and if that works well, then you can be sure that, come Nationals in the fall, I will be there with my laptop giving you the up-to-the-minute play-by-play.  Will even try to post some pictures from the event too, if possible.  And even video, you ask?  Well, who knows?  That is entirely possible.

I’ll keep this short.  I have more stuff to blog that I’m a little behind on, but I’ll save that for when I am able to plug in my computer.

BTW, I’m putting together an FAQ here on wushuzilla so that all of the (constantly repeating) questions I get will be searchable through the website.  You can ask a question here if you want it included:

As I mentioned before, I have a trip to Hong Kong planned for this week.  Actually, I’m sitting at the World Famous “Flying Pan” restaurant in mid-levels as I write this.  But first let me start at the beginning …

Leaving Xi’an

Inspired by my last trip to Hong Kong where I did a poor job of packing, I made sure that this time around I was the epitome of efficiency.  Everything I needed for a 6 day train trip to the South of China was in one small bag strapped across my back.  More on that later, but first a little bit about the trip from Xi’an.

I had booked a train ticket (soft sleeper upper bunk) leaving Monday, March 22 at 17:06 from Xi’an train station.  Normally I would have caught a bus from home to there (1 RMB on the #14 or #40 bus) but I was running a little late so I opted for the taxi (23 RMB).  I made it to the train on time and settled in to a nice bunk along with my 3 other cabin-mates.  During the whole trip I took video footage from various locations so instead of giving you the play-by-play, but unfortunately the video from Xi’an to Hunan didn’t turn out okay.  But I was able to get some video of a good chunk of my trip, so here is the video for you to enjoy:

As you can see, I finally made it to Hong Kong and as I mentioned before I am sitting at the “Flying Pan”, I had a sandwich and I’m doing a bit of work while waiting for Pat to come home. 

Packing Light

But before I sign off I just had to show you my packing video.  This shows what I packed on this trip and how I keep my travel quick and light. 

To be honest, I think I could have packed even less (I don’t really need the book, since I have the audio book too, but I did end up looking at it a lot) and I really should have brought a different pair of shoes (can’t beat my waterproof merrill’s) but packing is a constantly evolving art and each time I learn something new.  Hopefully you find this interesting:

I pack differently for different types of trips.  This summer when I go back to the U.S. for 2 months I will most likely pack a bit differently.  And naturally at that time I’ll be sure to share all the details with anyone who is curious (i.e. you?).

Tomorrow I have meetings all day and I have some on Thursday too.  Thursday night I might cross to Shenzhen and stay there overnight so that I am not rushing too much to catch my train in GZ by 11:00 a.m.  But we’ll see how things progress and I’ll keep you all in the loop.

- Mark
Hong Kong, 1:47 AM

Last night Ruhi and I had a wonderful dinner with Khalil and his mom at their home.  While there he showed me these videos he made that were quite funny and I thought you guys would appreciate the martial arts humor.  There are three of my favorites.  Enjoy!

I am still in Hong Kong and will return to Xi’an on the 24th.  I will blog and provide photos and what not from my trip once I have had a few days to reacclimate to home.

Just a quick update to let you all know where I am and what I’m up to.

After a busy week Ruhi and I flew down to Guangzhou on Sunday afternoon/evening. We’ve been running around a lot and I’m going to write another more detailed blog later on when I have time, but here are a few highlights from the past 3 days:

• I met Kevin Spacey on Monday afternoon.  I almost didn’t wash my hand again.
• I did some background acting/extra work behind Daniel Wu and Kevin Spacey on Tuesday evening.  I hope I don’t end up on the cutting room floor.
• I’m going to be attending a conference in the New Territories for the next 2 weeks.  Tonight was the orientation and tomorrow the sessions begin.

So, I might not be online too much, depending on our schedule.  And anytime I am online I might have to be working and can’t really blog too much.

But I’ve been taking some videos and pictures so you can look forward to things later on in the future.  Until then … bye!

When last I blogged I had gone to Monday’s wushu training with the Hong Kong wushu team and then went to dinner with Gao Song his wife and a good friend. In the evening I grabbed the MTR back to Tin Shui Wai and headed to bed.

Tuesday I had a lunch meeting with a client in TST. We went to an Indian Restaurant called “Gaylord”, that had a very nice buffet. Got some good work done at the meeting and are on track with two projects. After the lunch meeting I headed to Hong Kong Island and had some pages added to my passport at the U.S. Embassy. It wasn’t just because I was running out of pages, but I plan on getting a student visa put in there before my next trip to Hong Kong so I needed space for that.

I did a little putting around the IFC, looking through book stores and what not, and almost went to see Sherlock Holmes but decided against it.  In the evening I headed back to TST and met up with Jack, Joanne and Boon for some evening Hot Pot.  While I was waiting for them I saw a place called “Chococat Cafe”.  I had some time to kill so thought I would go and get something to drink.

It turned out that this was a pretty unique place.  When I sat down I was given a menu.  There wasn’t a huge selection, but I asked for a drink.  Then she said “Okay … lets go make it”.

Say what?  It turned out that at the Chococat Cafe you pick things from the menu and they they show you how to make it!  They have some pasta, chicken wings, salads and a few various drinks.  I got a pineapple, orange drink and so she took me behind the counter and showed me hot to make it.  I could add as much or as little of each ingredient as I wanted.  A pretty nice concept.

Be warned though.  If you have allergies to cats, don’t go there.  They have a few (super friendly and relaxed) cats who hang out there as well.  Not sure about the health code violations of having pets in a restaurant, but none of the customers or people working there seemed to have any issues with it.  I suppose if you have a cat in your home, then having a cat in a restaurant isn’t necessarily a huge leap forward.

There is one in Causeway Bay too.

Hot Pot was pretty good.  I haven’t had hot pot in a while but it was quite tasty.  And it was nice to hang out with Boon again, since I haven’t seen him in a while.

Wednesday it was time to head to Guangzhou.  Around 11:30 I left Tin Shui Wai, grabbed some flash cards at the stationary store, and grabbed the 276 bus to Sheung Shui and then the MTR to Lo Wu.  After a quick border cross I made my way to the Shenzhen Train Station and grabbed an express train to Guangzhou East.  I had made a reservation at a reasonably priced hotel on Long Kou Xi Lu (龙口西路) named 龙口明珠大酒店.  It was okay, but the head in the rooms was terrible and it was rather cold.

I spent the afternoon preparing for my meeting with Dayyan Eng (伍仕贤 ).  I’m helping him with a facelist to his production studio website, colordance.com, as well as his wife’s professional site, gongbeibi.com.  He was in Guangzhou directing his newest feature film, ‘Inseperable’, which stars Daniel Wu (吴彦祖), Gong Beibi (龚蓓苾) and Kevin Spacey.   You can read an article here.

It is great to have various friend involved in such a nice project.  It is a great get for Dayyan because he is directing one of the biggest stars in Asia and it is the first time a two-time Oscar winner is involved in a Chinese production.  It is great for Dan because he will be getting some major U.S. exposure, acting across from Mr. Kevin Spacey himself, and it is great for Kevin Spacey because he gets to hang out with cool peoples in China.

The next day, before heading to the airport and catching my flight back to Xi’an, I dropped by the set to check things out.  I haven’t been on a film set in a few years — not since one of Jet’s U.S. films, come to think of it — so it was neat to be in that environment again.  I had an hour to watch Daniel’s scene.  I won’t get in to specifics, but he was in a car.  I think the most interesting part was the local Chinese Look-E-Loos who act way different than the ones in the U.S. (naturally).  Much more gawking and walking back and forth over and over again.  After I saw the same group of people walking down the sidewalk for the 10th time I was thinking “Okay — you aren’t fooling anyone.  Why are you even pretending to be busy?  You obviously have nothing else to do today …”

I got to say Hi to Dan as well, which was nice.  I’ve never actually seen him acting before so that was a change of pace.  I got to see Dayyan doing his thing too, which was also kind of neat.  It is one thing hanging out with someone socially, but when you see them in their professional environment you see a different side to their personality.

After an hour of that I caught a cab to the airport, flew to Xi’an, took the bus to Gao Xin and another bus home.  Charisse, Ruhi and I grabbed lunch at Bacchus Restaurant and then I got to bed at a reasonable pre-midnight hour.  Its nice to be home!

As you may have read on my facebook feed or my previous blogs, I’m in Hong Kong for a few days to renew my visa and meet with a few clients.  But while I was here I thought I would check out the Hong Kong Wushu Team’s training.  Gao Song, one of the HK team coaches, originally from the Liaoning Wushu Team, was kind enough to let me work out with them too.

If you have been in the “loop” you have probably seen the Hong Kong team’s training facility on various videos.  It is located in the Sports Complex out in Ma On Shan in the New Territories.  The practice was at 3pm so I headed out from Tin Shui Wai around 2pm via bus to Sheung Shui, Train to University Station and Taxi to Ma On Shan.  I made it just a few minutes after 3. Here is a map of the route:

View Hong Kong Wushu (1/11) in a larger map

Red Line = Bus from Tin Shui Wai to Sheung Shui
Blue Line = MTR from Sheung Shui to University Station
Green Line = Taxi from University Station to Ma On Shan

Gao Song was also nice enough to hook me up with a pair of shoes to train with.  A little tight to start with, but they stretched out quite nicely during class and now they are very comfortable.  Great slapping sound too.  I think these are the default shoes the HK team trains with.

The class was pretty good.  It started off with the team members playing soccer on one carpet and I did some jogging and my own warming up on another.  The head coach was there, along with Gao Song and another coach, as well as Hei Zhi Hong, formerly on the Beijing Team, but a coach/athlete with Hong Kong too.  No Colin, I’m afraid and He Jing De was back in the U.S., but I was able to see his wife, Ya Qing (Christine) after class, as she coaches the younger kids at 5:00.  Nice to see her again as it had been a year or two since we last met up.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself a bit.  Back to the class…

After warm ups and stretching it was time for basics.  Of the 9 or 10 athletes training, 2 of them were nanquan people.  I would follow along with whatever nanquan basics they did in the line.  After basics the rest of the class was all small combinations from forms, which turned out to be perfect.

The one thing I have to say about the class is that Gao Song, who was the main coach for the practice, is a really, really good coach.  He is able to provide some really great feedback that gets to the heart of one’s wushu deficiencies.  The corrections he gave me were spot on and its going to give me things to work on for at least the next several weeks.  There are only a few coaches (I can count how many on one hand) that provide that level of helpful instruction, so if you ever get the chance to train with Gao Song, I totally recommend taking advantage of the opportunity.

I wish he lived in Shaanxi.  Because even though the coaches and athletes in Xi’an are wonderful and very helpful, it isn’t quite the same level and I feel like I would really improve very quickly if I had more opportunities to train with him.

Unfortunately while I’m in Hong Kong for 2 weeks next month he will be up in Liaoning visiting family for New Years.  Which is sort of a bummer, but can’t be helped.  It almost makes me want to head to Liaoning.  But … I’ve been to Liaoning in the winter and it ain’t for the faint of heart.

Since it was my first time training there and I didn’t want to make a bad impression I didn’t do any pictures or recording of the practice.  However, I was able to take a little video of Gao Song and his wife at dinner that you can see here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RsgmFWUtRA

I hope that I have the opportunity to come down and train with them again in the future.  It was very educational and quite beneficial, both in terms of wushu, and also because I got to hang out with some good friends.

After a very quick trip (around 48 hours) to the south of China I am back in Xi’an. Nothing major to post up, but just wanted to let everyone know that I am back and should be blogging regularly again soon.

I went down south to renew my visa. I flew down on Thursday afternoon to Guangzhou, took a bus to the Futian border crossing in Shenzhen, and then took another bus from Lok Ma Chau to Tin Shui Wai in Hong Kong where I stayed with Jack, actually not sleeping at all the whole night.

I left off at 9:30 AM and took a bus to Sheng Shui, the MTR train to Lo Wu (Luo Hu) and then the express train up to Guangzhou where I met up with Ruhi and caught an overnight train to Xi’an. I slept a solid 12 – 14 hours during the trip and we just arrived this afternoon.

Since spouting out names of locations don’t mean much if you aren’t familiar with them, I made a few maps to demonstrate the route …

All in all it was a pretty good trip.  Mainly because I didn’t get any illnesses or get snowed in anywhere.  But also because it all went according to plan.  Yay for plans! (Mark likes plans)

Tomorrow morning Ruhi and I are meeting Yue Xiao Yu to go shopping for a bicycle.  I am going to see about doing some video-ing of our excursion too so you can enjoy that. After that I am meeting my tutor, Ada, for an hour of Chinese learnin’ and then I believe Ruhi and I are meeting some new friends in the evening.  A jam-packed day to be sure.  Yay for Sundays!  (Mark likes Sundays)