hotel’s in hong kong are expensive, well, most are.  by expensive, i mean $100+ per night, whereas a hostel will only cost around $20/night.  it’s very similar here in taipei.  anyway, we used hostels.com to find a hostel in hong kong for 2 nights.  it’s a very legitimate site, which lets you reserve, review, and look at pictures of the place you want to stay at.  we thought we had found a very nice hostel, good price, clean-looking and we even had our own bathroom.  almost all the reviews were positive, with the only negatives being room size and a few street peddlers on the bottom floor.  room size was no big deal for us, we were only going to be there for 2 nights and only had one suit case between the both of us.  we didn’t think the street peddlers would be a very big deal, but man, we were so wrong.

after reserving the room online, i got a confirmation email from the hostel that had a paragraph dedicated solely about the people on the 1st floor of the complex.  we were instructed to not make eye contact, conversation or listen to any one down there. it also clearly stated that these people would try to trick us into thinking that they worked at our hostel, only to have us blindly follow them into their own hostel, or elsewhere. what we were supposed to do was ignore everyone on the bottom floor take the first elevator to the 11th floor and we’d be in the good.  i read another review on hostels.com saying that although the people on the first floor were annoying, it was very easy to just ignore them at proceed to our room on the 11th floor.

we arrived on friday night, around midnight. the hostel was in a place called the Chung King Mansions.  click through to see the wikipedia entry.  calton had asked me if we were staying there and i said no, because i was under the impression that Chung King Mansions was the name of some other hostel in tsim tsa shui.  the reason why he had asked us was because he wanted to make sure we WERE NOT staying there.  i highly recommend you read the wikipedia entry.  in a nutshell, the mansions are a giant building, with several blocks (almost like a tiny enclosed city), that is infamous for illegal immigrants, drug trafficking, prostitution and really shady foreigners, oh ya, and of course, cheap hostels.

on with the story, so we arrive around midnight and we see the mansions. outside the steps there were around 10 nigerian, chinese, indian and middle eastern people outside.  i don’t mean to sound rascist, i’m just trying to tell the story as vividly as i can.  it honestly doesn’t matter WHAT they were, all that mattered was that it just FELT shady.  they were, of course, trying to get people to go into their hostels, just like the email said.  except they were really in our faces about it. we hadn’t even entered the building yet. we ignored them as instructed and entered the building, and as a side note, there was urine on the ground, INSIDE the building.  we walked straight to the elevator, which had a very long line.  the elevators themselves were small as hell and could only hold like 6 people at a time.  while in line, some guy was trying to speak to us about something i had no idea about, and he was getting mad that we weren’t responding to him.  luckily for us, it was our turn for the elevator so we could get away. the elevator ride was also a nightmare. we shared with a few, let’s just say, shady looking dudes.  i literally stood with my back to the door in fear that they would try and jack our stuff.

we finally arrived at our hostel which didn’t look that bad.  the owner was really nice and helpful, she also spoke mandarin which was nice.  the room? totally NOT what we saw on hostels.com. it looked like a room in an insane asylum.  whenever we flushed the toilet, water would just gush out on to the floor. it was disgusting. we only had 2 sheets to sleep on and no blanket. no windows either. there were also these little holes throughout the room, so we had this weird feeling that someone was looking at us. after our experience on the first floor and the disappointment that was our room, we went online on our iphone/ipods (luckily this place had wifi), and read up on the beauty that is the Chung King Mansions. after reading all of it, we decided that we needed to get out of there, pronto. that night, we couldn’t sleep at all. every little sound that was made, i was super aware and in full defense mode.  morning came, we gathered our stuff and told the manager we had to leave and she thankfully gave us half of our nightly rent back. we went back to the first floor and realized that the entrance wasn’t as scary as it was a night, but it still wasn’t cool.  while very glad we were out of there, we also found ourselves homeless in hong kong.

annie took a little video on her iphone of our place and put it on her blog. i really wish we could have filmed everything else, like the entrance and all the shady people, but in all honesty, i really feared for the safety of our equipment and more importantly, us. click through to view the video.

now on to the rest of the blog entry….

after leaving that hell hole, we met up with michelle for some dim sum.

we ordered 12 dishes between just the 3 of us, and we managed to finish all of it!

michelle was telling us about how ever since she was little, her mom would tell her to, by all means necessary, avoid the chung king mansions.  stories about drugs, murders, gang activity…all that good stuff. if the locals are afraid of that place, there is absolutely no reason why you should EVER find yourself there, unless you really want to see it first-hand.

now on to story number 2.  after lunch, michelle had to attend classes which left annie and i to look for a new place to stay for the night. she had recommended some good places to stay at for decent prices, but they were all booked for the weekend.  at that point, we were desperate. we were meeting up with some friends later that night in wan chai, so we decided to go to the area and just start walking into any place we could find. we stumbled upon this nice little hotel on the 2nd floor of a building that looked decent. just to be sure though, we asked the hotel guy to show us the room we’d be staying in, and it looked alright. the price wasn’t bad so we were going to book it. annie asked him if they took credit cards because we didn’t have enough cash, but they only accepted cash. the plan was to go the atm, get some cash and book the room, but as we were leaving to the elevator, a man and woman, who was CLEARLY a prostitute walked in and bluntly asked if they had hourly rates, in which the hotel guy happily said YES. needless to say, we didn’t go back to the sex hotel, as our friends like to call it.

it seemed we were doomed to spend the night at the airport, which was honestly the only place we knew we’d be somewhat safe. we even went to the hong kong marriot, which we found out was $400US+ / night, not exactly in our budget. annie had this tourist map that listed about a dozen hotels, so we pretended to be guests of the marriot to use their free phones. we luckily found this nice little hotel in wan chai that was only about $150/night, which was basically the cheapest we could find. we figured, let’s pay the extra $100 just so we can feel secure. the room was VERY nice.  almost too nice.  it was seriously a godsend. a huge weight off our shoulders and now it was time to actually start enjoying hong kong.

annie’s favorite thing about hong kong : 許留山

it’s basically a fresh fruit drink (our favorite was mango), mixed with some coconut milk and TONS of assorted jellies.

after settling in to our new place, we decided to take a little 20 minute boat ride to lamma island and grab some fresh seafood. it was a little expensive, but totally worth it. we can get decent seafood here in taiwan, but it’s just not as good as cantonese style seafood.  this was one of the only things we really looked forward to eating while in hk.

so glad to be out of the chung king mansions.

i put all the pictures of the food in one picture, haha.

clockwise from top left: steamed crab w/ garlic, fried prawns (these things were huge, like mini lobsters), shrimp fried rice and steamed fish with green onion.

after our ginormous meal, we went out with meiwa and thomas for a night of drinks, dice and new friends.  we went to this little bar in wan chai which was a really cool place.  almost reminded me of the f- place here in taiwan or even crazy hook in LA.  i prefer this place rather than LKF, where it’s all foreigners and expensive drinks.  besides, hanging out with the locals is always more fun.

dice dice and more dice

always a good time with these 2

next few pictures are of us making random crazy faces

a really fun bunch

a good night

i’d also like to add that every single one of these people we met were all very surprised we survived our night at the chung king mansions. like i said, even the locals are deathly afraid of that place.

next morning, obligatory post-drinking dim sum.

thanks to thomas for purposely taking the picture when i wasn’t ready.

after eating we walked around causeway bay, of course stopping by 許留山 for a drink. before we knew it, we had to head back to the airport to catch our flight back to taipei.  but before flying, we showed up super early just so we could have this!

we’re now back in taipei, still recovering from our night of no sleep at the mansions. at the time it was scary as hell, but now it has turned into an interesting story we can tell all our friends!  it’s always nice to see all our HK friends.  soon, calton will be one of them, which is another reason why we’ll be going back even more often! hope you guys had fun reading about our adventures.  i’m in no way a “writer” so hopefully it all made sense.  i’m sure i’m missing a few details but whatever. in the meantime though, michelle, thomas and meiwa~you should start planning your trip up here so we can take you guys out!!!!

actually, i should really start thinking about what i need to pack for our vacation to the states

these 2 left taiwan not too long ago.  andrew and leslie, both from texas.  we never really got a chance to hang out too much or get to really know each other, but whenever we went out it was always a blast.  if any of you 2 are reading this, know that if i ever find myself in texas at some point, i expect a crawfish boil and vice versa, if you’re ever back in taiwan (which i’m sure you will be), see you at spark.  haha

oh yes, and this girl needs to come back more.

more pics from that night

not so proud about this one

a completely non-related picture…watching glee and binge eating/drinking with calton and juliana (a common occurrence)

took some of juliana’s friend out to darts

juliana with two very handsome cantonese men

then off to opus

earlier this week, annie and i experimented making salsa, tortilla’s and carne asada.  remember that ingredients, especially for mexican food, are not very easy to come by over here.  our experiment worked out pretty well, so we decided  to have juliana and calton try it out last night.

the complete product

then calton brought this really fancy chocolate cake from this place called awfully chocolate

only having this 50mm to shoot with is getting pretty annoying

after stuffing our selves silly with carne asada and chocolate cake, we decided to watch paranormal activity which may or may not have contributed to my lack of sleep last night, haha ><  if you haven’t seen it, it’s pretty creepy, so go watch it if you’re into that kind of thing.

so why is this entry called “counting down”? well, next week annie and i will be in hong kong, taking care of some passport issues before going back home for august!  for the sake of nothing at all, let’s just say that we’ll be home in the next few weeks! exact dates aren’t important, right?  either way, we are counting down the days until we can see all you cuties back home!

unlike our spring scream trip, we took the high speed rail. it was amazing. we got to our destination in about 3 hours, compared to a 9 hour bus ride from hell.

beanie time

we arrived at around 1am, so all we did was check in to our hostel and sleep.  we were so used to waking up and seeing cloudy skies and rain, but not here.

oh, and my nice wide lens broke on me.  so i used a 50mm the whole trip.

first thing we did? get scooters

annie can drive now!

on our way to find annie’s dream beach

first beach was called white sand beach…but the sand wasn’t very white AND it wasn’t annie’s dream beach

cute dog

bashing coconuts

so annie’s dream beach. when we were here for spring scream, annie kept talking about this one beach with nice sand and clear water.  we tried looking for it back in april but had no luck.  this time she was determined to find it but clearly, this one wasn’t it. look at all the crap in the water that hit us!

scooters sitting pretty

off to see the richard nixon rock

i lost my sandal

a very mosquito infested area

the most southern tip of taiwan

glorious

oh, and yes, calton and i are wearing trendy taiwan trucker hats. they were like $3! we’re so cool.

like that one painting

not being creepy

all of us not being creepy

lighthouse!!

one thing i wish we had in taipei

i think this may be my favorite night market in taiwan

woke up the next morning and decided to continue our mission to find annie’s beach…and WE FOUND IT.

pretty happy

i look naked ><

tide pools too!

she also found the yo gabba gabba towel she wanted!!

it was a short but very sweet little vacation.  it was super nice to just go down there and hang out. don’t get me wrong, spring scream was a blast, but it was also very stressful.  let’s see, what else is new……oh, our record is done mixing!! it is waiting to get mastered and we’re currently working on album artwork etc etc.  i think we’re aiming for a Fall release.  we’ll also be home for august so i’m super excited for that!!

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on the way to shrimping…sitting in the “privileged” people’s seats

sitting in the trunk of david’s car to get to the shrimping area

place of shrimping

the inside

so basically how it works is…you have a pole, a line and a hook. you put some little shrimp on the hook (how you catch shrimp, using shrimp is beyond me), then when you see the bobble thing move, you yank up as hard as you can to hook the guy and there you have it.  unfortunately, yanking up as hard as you can creates chances for live shrimp to face smacking, like what happened here, when annie caught one.

yea!

eric saw one climbing up our net and decided to go all john locke and use his bare hands

the pictures make it look like we caught a bunch, but i basically took a picture for every one we caught -_-

i don’t know why, but i just couldn’t get near the shrimp.  they were moving all crazy and i’m just a wuss when it comes to that stuff.  as with killing bugs, annie unhooked all the shrimp we caught

nothing better than fishing, friends and beers

she caught the most shrimp out of all of us

altogether, we all caught about 25 shrimp total, which wasn’t that bad.  so what did we do with the shrimp after we caught them?

collected our nets

jam some sticks through them and cover them in sea salt

stick em in the bbq

we wait

turning pink

all done!

mmmmm

mix with some fried foods down the street and we had a nice little meal

aw eric, you look so happy

shrimping wasn’t exactly what i thought it would be but it was still super awesome fun!

i can still dream though

before going to spark

doing the calton dance

first time clubbing together i believe

on the dance flo

then we went to CKS memorial

they look so little

so windy

failing at counting the steps

after hearing suzing say “i like those pictures where i’m staring out at stuff”

took her to the roof of our dorm with a great view

took her to play some darts, but first some good old street drinking

hanging out in our very, VERY crowded private room -_-

then moved to a new darts place with a bigger space

late night eats

the last day suzing was here was perhaps one of nicest days i’ve seen in taiwan. it was bright, sunny and not too humid.  we had been waiting for an excuse to go up to the 101 and it seemed like the perfect opportunity.  they had just opened the 91st floor so we hopped on our scooter and went.

such a clear day

up to the 91st floor!

yea!

and this was the last picture i took before my beloved lens broke

the 101 will always be the tallest building in the world to me

getting our hair did!

the only picture i could find from our set, if anyone has anymore, let me know, thanks!

in other news, we’re finally done recording our record! it’s currently being mixed and mastered, and hopefully it’ll be done in the next month or so!

i’ve been trying to slow down when speaking, but it’s really hard.  you know that look when someone gives you when you’re not getting your point across? that “god, please finish what you’re saying so i can talk” sort of look?  i get that a lot here.  i’m assuming it’s because i’m chinese.  i’m at the point now where i can basically understand everything, if i’m really paying attention.  what i’ve come to realize is that my mind tends to wander a lot more these days.  there’s just so much going on in our lives that it’s hard not to just zone out sometimes!  see, even now, i’m going off topic.  anyway, what i’m trying to say is that i feel like a giant idiot a lot of the time when people speak really fast to me because they assume i’m fluent…and while i can understand everything they say, it’s hard to try to respond with the same speed.  i always start off ok, but then it becomes this giant train wreck of horrible pronunciation and a total disregard of proper grammar. i’ll try to start slow, but then they end up speaking on my behalf. it’s basically the “you’re speaking too slow so i’m just going to put some words in your mouth so you don’t have to suffer through the rest of this sentence” people here must be psychic because more times than none, they say exactly what i’m trying to say.  amazing.

so, with that being said, i think i’ve improved quite a bit. i can get around to doing just about anything without having to go with someone who can speak better than i can.  i can carry on a decent conversation with a friend that is patient enough to let me drill out some sentences. my vocabulary has increased exponentially, some words come a lot easier than others, but it’s just something that i’ll have to keep building on.  i still find myself speaking english a lot of the time because, well, a lot of things are just funnier in english.  people often ask,”why don’t you and annie just speak chinese 100% of the time?”  and our answer usually is “well, because 1) we’re used to speaking english to each other and 2) about 95% of the humor that we enjoy, is in english.” we plan to live out here for quite a while, so i’m positive that my chinese will be pretty good in a few years.  i hate to sound vain, but i feel like pick up on things fairly quickly…except when it comes to language.  so at least i expect it to come slowly.

anyway, just wanted to post up some pictures of our last day of spring quarter.  met some really awesome people. pretty sad that a lot of them won’t be returning to school next quarter but we all hang out on the weekends now, which is awesome!  ok ok, enough writing.

eating some spanish egg thing, which was apparently pretty tasty

last supper at an italian restaurant nearby (which wasn’t THAT great)

all of us with our teacher

actually, ya, i’m very sad that i won’t be in the next class with any of them (because i am moving down a level — i guess that’s the reason for this whole post).  why am i moving down a level? this class was way too hard for me…and a lot of the subject matter wasn’t very useful in daily conversation (which i need improvement on). it was really frustrating at times knowing that i was at the bottom of the class.  hopefully next quarter i’ll do better ^^

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2002 @ band banquet dinner

james liu, pictured on the right, was one of the first friends i made in marching band.  for those of you who knew us back then, james, mike, dave and i were otherwise known as nchync, as racist as that sounds, we were still in high school so give us a break!  at every band function, school dance etc., we would always request “it’s gonna be me” and proceed to wow (or embarrass) everyone who was fortunate enough to watch us do the whole dance verbatim to how nsync did it.  i really wish i had pictures of us doing the dance but unfortunately they’re all in a photo album at home.  one of my fondest memories was at band camp, when mike and i were listening to nsync in our room and you came in and knew ALL the lyrics to “it makes me ill”

at jamba juice – 2000 (10 years ago!)

*edit: i found a picture of us dancing

after our junior years, we kind of dropped the whole pseudo name and went on to just hanging out outside of band. from the classroom to the PC bang we went.  nights of diablo II and counter-strike are all i can really remember. oh yes, and DDR, oh god, the DDR. i remember that time when we had a band trip to disneyland and we just played DDR the whole time.  it was awesome. we even had a little crowd going for us.

after i went to college, i feel like we had a little bit of a falling out…due to some stupid post-high school drama that i’m sure you were sort of just dragged into.  it didn’t matter though, because a few years later we saw each other again and it was almost as if nothing happened.  that’s how good our friendship was. i would occasionally go down to UCI to visit you and everyone else and we would have a blast just hanging out in your room, watching shitty online videos or reminiscing about the ridiculous things we used to do.

@ uci, 2004

after 2004, we sort of went our separate ways.  last i heard was that you moved out of PV and that you were still working at disneyland (which i heard was a blast).  i really wish i could have seen you in action, working at the indiana jones ride you were always talking about.  we talked occasionally online to catch up with each other but in reality, i don’t think i had seen you since this last picture, which makes me pretty sad.

james, you were a great friend and person.  a lot of my favorite memories from my past involve you and i’m so grateful that you were there whenever i needed you.  you will be missed.  i dedicate these last words to you:

“i was hangin’ with the fellas, saw you with your new boyfriend, it made me jealous. i was hoping that i’d never see you with him, but it’s all good cuz i’m glad that i met him, heh, cuz now i know the competition’s very slim to none, and i can tell by looking that he’s not the one. he’s not the type you said you liked, his style’s wack, clothes are bad. c’mon girl, let him go, i want you back”

oh wait, it WAS someones building getting ripped apart by the arm of a crane… (11:00am)

the clearest shot i could get was from our shower window…so i stood there for like 30 minutes just watching.

he knocked down a giant piece of the wall, picked it up, and started using it as a tool to knock down more stuff!

yea!

what i would pay to just spend a few minutes controlling one of these things………..

update #1: 4 hours later….(3:30pm)

update #2 (4:30pm)

can’t stop watching………..

update #3 (24 hours later)

update #4: i think they’re about done.

and that is how you properly demolish a building in 24 hours!

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probably not the safest idea but yea

we thought it could only end 1 of 2 ways…1) take an amazing picture or 2) end up beneath a couple million taiwan beer bottles.

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