Year of the Snake

It's nice having something to look forward to. Despite only being back a month earlier, I was excited to returning to Sydney once again. Namely, seeing family, seeing friends, catching up on sleep and hopefully experience a little more of the amazing summer. Thankful that my job isn't that important where I need to co-ordinate leave with other members of the team, and to date haven't had major push back to any of my scheduled annual leave. I return to Sydney with a large suitcase full of snacks. The flight back has me carrying a near-empty suitcase.

The 9 days, as expected went by rather fast. A 100 day celebration, Australia Day BBQ, 40th Birthday, 39th Birthday. Chinese New Year, long run, more Chinese New Year all featuring a healthy amount of eating. It was also an excuse to renew my passport. Which expires in July, but actually is really only valid up to 6 months prior to the expiry. Note, express passport, via Rapid + 2 day processing 712 AUD. Processed on the same day, pick up in Central. Not cheap, but not bad.

Left the house hold with non urgent whooping cough scare. Back to Hong Kong.

Year of the something Dragon

I have come to terms with not having any annual leave, I really have. With the four day long weekend I headed off to Sydney. It's funny to talk to people from Sydney, and they hear that I fly back every couple of months "Don't you get tired?" yet when you talk to people in Hong Kong, they don't even bat an eyelid. Sure, I'm a little tired when I arrive in Sydney and promptly send myself to bed for a couple of hours. I have figured out how to maximise my sleep, it requires and isle seat in the middle section (although I have been re-thinking this stratagem), an eye mask, ear plugs and a neck rest. This formula, not always, but for the most part does ensure some level of sleep before waking in either Hong Kong or Sydney.

2024 is the year of the Wooden Dragon. Chinese New Year, family time, however this year's CNY would be slightly different. Meeting her whole family. The previous sentence isn't short for any reason other that emphasis. I had met her sister and some of her nephews but this was the whole family, siblings, in-laws and parents. Meeting her whole family. There were some nerves, but quietly, I was given a lay-up. Gifts were pre-prepared, heads -up on attire, games for the kids. It would take a monumental stuff up to make a bad impression. Sorry not interesting end to the story other that it all went well. Gung Hei Fat Choy!

Camping

I'm trying to recall how many times I've been camping with a tent. Most recently was in 2015, for Burning Man and "Carnival of Mirrors". I've used sleeping bags in the past, but sleeping in an actual tent, maybe once when I was a child with Chris and Jenny. In any case, the number of times that I've spent a night in tent is most likely under 3 times in my entire life. So as we head into the four day Chinese New Year weekend, an opportunity to camp in Hong Kong arises. A friend's birthday, and the only way to facilitate a group gathering is to host on the beach, so why not spend the weekend camping, too?

I've had friends who have camped in Hong Kong in the past, and I've probably been invited camping 3 or 4 times. Each time, I've had an excuse or a reason not to participate. My main objections to camping have been: 1) my lack of camping equipment, 2) the weather and 3) my general lack of interest in camping. So this weekend, where do we stand on each? 

1) I borrow a friend-of-a-friend's tent, I also borrow a friend's sleeping bag. 2) the weather for 2021 has been great, with this Wednesday being the first day of rain this year. This weekend would clear up for a warm winter's weekend. 3) I honestly have nothing else to do. So for Chinese New Year, I embark on my first Hong Kong camping trip.

The weekend plays out as follows: Friday morning we catch a taxi out to Sai Kung Pier. We managed to book a 12:30 pm speed boat (150 HKD) which takes 25 minutes from the pier to Long Ke Wan. Sai Kung itself has multiple camp sites, with varying levels of facilities. Long Ke Wan is one of the more popular day trip destinations, but due to lack of shower, shop and restaurant facilities is less popular when it comes to camping, especially compared to say Ham Tin Beach. We were initially worried that we would have to hike to Long Ke Wan, which is a short 30 minute walk, but we were carrying supplies such as tents, sleeping bags, ice, water, food but thankfully the speed boat service was running on the first day of the lunar new year.

Long Ke Wan, is busy, there's around 100-200 people camping which is fairly busy considering that there's only one unisex toilet. There are a lot of families and students, and there's a cool vibe. We setup camp 50 metres from the shore, in the middle of the beach. Our first port of call is to setup our tents, collect some firewood and get prepared for the evening. The crew that I'm with have brought a portable bbq, a gas burner, a Yeti, portable speakers, and some deck chairs.; They're very prepared. There's a good selection of wine, nice cheese, salsa, chips, eggs, sous vide steaks, Boerewors and Braaibroodjie (one of the guys is from South Africa, well Namibia).

However there are a couple of take aways from this experience, spend more time collecting various types of firewood (ie: dry twigs, heavier logs, medium textured wood), bring more fire starters, bring charcoal for cooking. Secondly, bring an inflatable bed. Sand is not actually that soft. Finally, do a little more preparation around food and utensils, ie: pre-crack eggs, pre-open items so there's less by product waste, consider transferring liquids from glass bottles to plastic bottles.

The scene on the beach is chilled. Most campers have elected to setup camp closer to the vegetation where there's a little shelter from the wind and less moisture. After sunset, the beach is littered with campfires, some play music, some have fireworks. The sky is clear and the stars are about as impressive as you can get in Hong Kong. The evenings are cool and damp, with condensation forming on the sides of the tents. The sounds from within the tent are foreign to me. The constant sound of the ocean crashing against the shore, the gentle rustle of the wind against my tent and the sound of nature, or silence. 

Overall, a pretty fun experience, so much so that I may even consider buying some camping equipment. That being said it is nice to have a shower and be back in my own bed.

Chinese New Year: The Year of the Metal Ox

One service that is unique to Hong Kong and other parts of Asia is that around the start of the lunar new year you can contact your local bank branch and reserve new bank notes for Chinese New Year. What does that exactly mean? Well, the New Year tradition is to give red packets or 'Lai See' with fresh, or new bank notes. These can be in any denomination from 10, 20, 50, 100, 500 dollar bills. There are typically two services that banks provide: (i) Newly issued bank notes, (ii) Cleaned and re-flattened notes, which make old notes look new (although I have not seen this come up this year). 

This service is provided to people who issue red packets. The main demographic are those who are married. Married couples in Hong Kong can generally can issue anywhere between 30-100 red packets each year, depending on family size, social circle and closeness with colleagues. Recipients ranging from relatives, friends, colleagues and kids of all the above. Outside of family it is common to extend red packets to anybody who you might interact on a constant, reoccurring basis. This can include service people (eg: store owners, helpers, hairdressers, nannies, personal trainers, fitness studio concierges, etc). During graduate school I'd seen married students handing out red packets to other university students. As you can imagine the cost and number of individual notes can become quite large, hence the need to make reservations for the new notes. 

For me, I generally reserve anywhere between 2500-3000 HKD worth of notes. 500 for the tea lady at work, my hairdresser also gets that amount. 200 for my apartment doormen and doorwomen, 100 for my Laundromat and then 20 for the miscellaneous interactions (office cleaners, gym cleaners etc).

Thanks to my colleague for writing this personalised New Year Couplet.

CNY Precautions: The year of the Rat

So turns out there's some mystery virus going through the Mainland. The fear in Hong Kong is real, albeit perhaps unwarranted but it's still too early to say. Masks are a hot commodity, as are anti bacterial wipes, as well as food supplies. 95% of people in Hong Kong are wearing some type of mask, ranging from medical masks, to dust masks.

I managed to procure a box of masks (which I have not been wearing).

Year of the Pig

Year of the dog done. All things considered, if the year of dog was supposed to unlucky, I'll take it. First night hike.

2018: The Earth Dog

"That is the idol you need to pay your respects to" the lady explains to my friend. My friend holds the joss sticks with two hands and bows deeply three times, she then inserts the incense into a large ceramic pit so that it's standing upright amongst the other burning offerings. Periodically, the temple staff come and clean up the burnt our joss sticks. The small temple is tucked behind Soho. Despite the size, it's busy and there's at least ten or more people paying their respects. The monks are chanting and singing, their demeanours show no emotion; they're just doing a job. My friend is directed to the main altar and she lights a larger more impressive incense, again she bows.

"Is it over?" I ask. My friend looks at me, she looks at the lady, who has already gone off to help the next person, and then my friend looks back at me "Uh, I think so. Are you sure you don't want to pray? It's supposed to be a bad year for me, it's supposed to be an equally bad year for you, too". I shrugged. 

I'm a dog, in the year of a dog. I don't remember the last time it was the year of a dog. I know my age. I was 24 years old. I don't remember it being a particularly bad year; Then again, at 24 you view things through a much different lens. Sometimes I wonder if I need more spirituality in my life.

The loot

It's a little absurd that I still receive red pockets at the age of 34. Particularly when the people who are gifting it to me are younger than me. Happy year of the Rooster!

Monkey 2016

It's that time of the year! Where Hong Kong feels like a normal, uncrowded city with a lot of closed shop fronts and when I thoroughly clean my apartment and try not to infringe upon the Chinese Traditions. Given my last few years, I'm pretty sure I'm not doing it correctly. Although the notice in my building seems to suggests that everything will be fine as long as we don't produce any trash or takeout the trash on the first day of the year.

The weather this past weekend has been amazing. Hong Kong you have truly outdone yourself. Happy Chinese New Year!

Chinese New Year

Just started podcasting and reading again. Forgot about the simple pleasures of learning and imagination. I have a good feeling about this year.

Chinese New Year in Hong Kong - I don't really have any obligations when it comes to Chinese New Year. I'm not married so I don't have to hand out Red Packets. Although that being said I do give a red packet to my building concierge. 500 HKD for this year.

So what's my Chinese New Year for 2015?

Dumpling making and wine session with friends here in Hong Kong.

CNY: In... China

My first experience of Chinese New Year in Asia was during my 3 month Asia-extravaganza-end-of-university holiday. I remember way back in 2006 we traveled to Shanghai and would be disappointed by the, well lack of Chinese. Coming from Sydney, we were cautioned about the sheer density of the Chinese Population, to our surprise, it was rather sparse and pretty lacklustre considering the enormous population. Unbeknown at the time, this would be my first experience of a major Asian city grinding to a halt during the Lunar New Year. A large percentage of the population comprises of expatriates either looking to return to their "hometowns" or to take advantage of an extended vocational stoppage period which accounts for the quietness.

This would be my second Chinese New Year in Hong Kong. The first one was interesting, that's an understatement. Hong Kong residents can be afforded up to 3 days public holiday (depending on the year) which can equate to up to 5 days off work! After 2 days it gets pretty quiet by the end of the second day. Heck, it gets so quiet that it becomes boring! Nobody is in town and the social scene doesn't have the legs to continue for more than 2 days straight. This predicament is exasperated by the fact that any flight out of Hong Kong during a public holiday period demands at least a 50% premium on regular flights. The bottom line is, pay extra or stay in Hong Kong. The frugal are left with the standard options of Macao or Shenzhen; the later being the break in our monotony.

With a train through to Lo Wu, some confusing border crossings and a friend's apartment we finally ended up in the southern Guangdong city of Shenzhen. The impetus was Phil's drive, he is due to leave Hong Kong soon and wanted a trip to China to show us the wonders of a city. I had been there before but the promise of seeing "a side of China that you normally wouldn't see" was the alluring factor. I interpreted this to be dodgy massages and Karaoke bars. Instead it was a on-the-spot visa, no massages, hanging out at the apartment, visiting cocopark and wandering into what can be best described as Shenzhen's equivalent to Sega World's Crush. The trip was short and punctuated by a disgraceful grasp of Cantonese and Mandarin, excellent Cantonese cuisine, the discovery of KFC's Peking Chicken Roll and the unanimous decision that we were glad to come back to Hong Kong.

Year of the Horse

The 2014 Chinese New Year date happens to fall on the weekend. This moon cycle behaviour has a lot of local residents upset that their regular five day public holiday has been reduced to 'only' four days. Despite this, Chinese New Year remains one of the most profitable periods for airlines and hotels with customers force to pay inflated rates just to make the most of the public holiday schedule.

The average cost of flight from HK to KL booked 6 weeks in advance of the departure date is priced at approximately 2,000 HKD. I paid, nearly double that with a budget airline. In actual fact, the cost to fly from Sydney to KL during that same period with the same carrier is cheaper than flying from HK to KL. Despite the inflated price, I was looking forward to catching up with family and getting away for Hong Kong. It was also my first trip since being off crutches and very excited to test out the ankle abroad.

The best part was that I got to see my parents and close relatives in Kuala Lumpur, it had been a while since I had seen them all together! I constantly harp on about the magnitude of our family festive gatherings. The two major calendar events for our family are Christmas and Chinese New Year and it has been a while since I've attended either. The sheer volume of food and consumption is quite shameful and both events can be best described as 'excessive' and 'gluttonous'.

If I could describe a typical day it would read as follows. Wake up. Breakfast. Read, chat. Sleep. Lunch. Read, chat. Sleep. Dinner. Read, chat. Supper (optional). Sleep. Trip highlights include: Eating, garish tattoos, food poisoning, mee rebus, resuscitated creme caramel and Nasi Lemak.

Currently reading: "Switch" by Dan and Chip Heath.

Musings of the Dog

If you're somebody who subscribes to the Chinese Zodiac, you would know that being a Dog in the year of the (Water) Snake is best described as "unlucky". Me, being a Dog I can't help but muse back on the year to date. I can think of a handful of moments that from a certain perspective can being considered "unlucky". The instances that instantly come to mind are: The death of our family dog, turning 30 and leaving the innocence and immaturity of the twenties behind and of course, my redundancy.

I don't really see the coming of age and the proverbial career-reset button having to do with bad luck, but almost a rite of passage. Which makes me wonder, if that was indeed my "bad year". What does 2013 have installed for me? Will I still be in Hong Kong? Still unemployed? Still single? Still healthy? Still working in Finance? Still blogging?

I don't consider myself superstitious. Despite this, I've managed to clean the apartment and wash my hair before midnight - why tempt fate? So here I am. Saturday evening 11:59 pm. The penultimate minute of the Chinese Year, I sit here re-watching The Wire. Suffice to say, unless there's a power outage in the next 50-odd seconds, I expect a very satisfying start to the new year.

CNY/Australia Day

Not to harp on the issue but as previously mentioned the hardest part about being overseas, isn't being overseas but having the status quo torn away. I've also noticed that yearly festivities just aren't the same. It's only really become more apparent during the last couple of months. Birthday, Christmas and New year have been acknowledged but not in the same granduer and braggodacio of previous years. Which brings me to another annual get-together that left a distinct lingering feeling of dissatisfaction. January 26th 2009.

1933. For those who care that was the last time that both Chinese New Year and Australia Day crossed paths. Does anybody really care when the last time these two days coincided? Festivity wise there's probably no better combination. The food and family of CNY combined with the friends and laid back celebrations of Australia Day. Both quite obviously absent from London. Hum, think I'll either go to the temple or down to the pub...