I can't ever say "I never win anything" anymore.
Friday, 9 December 2011
Tuesday, 6 December 2011
www
| Options | iCable | PCCW/NOW |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Starts from 75 HKD/month | Starts from 218 HKD |
| Bandwidth | 10 MB*, 50 MB*, 110 MB* | 8 MB |
| Contract | 18 months | 18 months |
| TV | i-Cable TV - Has EPL | Now TV - more expat friendly |
| Others | Reputation for Bad customer service | Horrible Now TV UI |
The main difference between the two providers is that i-Cable can decouple their Internet from their TV offerings, whilst PCCW you have to get both. The other difference is, the bandwidth, this is not as simple as comparing apples to apples. PCCW offer a dedicated ADSL line to each customer. Whereas, i-Cable offers a fibre service to the building that is shared among all i-Cable users within the building. The draw card is that there is the "potential" for a larger bandwidth.
So heeding the warnings and opting for the higher bandwidth service I sign with i-Cable hoping that I will never have to deal with their customer service. For those who are interested, I signed for 50 MB line with Cable TV, initial Hong Kong server speedtest.net results are above. Online! Time to clear that backlog of blog posts.
Update:
- London server: Ping 632 ms, Download - 1.30 Mbps, Upload - 0.42 Mbps
- San Francisco server: Ping 174 ms, Download - 1.94 Mps, Upload - 3.58 Mbps
- Seoul server: Ping 91 ms, Download - 2.54 Mbps, Upload - 7.68 Mbps
- Sydney server: Ping 345 ms, Download - 1.34 Mpbs, Upload - 0.65 Mpbs
Connection can be intermittent - still undecided if I made the right decision going with iCable ...
Sunday, 4 December 2011
Curtains
The impending news of having visitors and guests at my new place has prompted me to begin the non-essential furnishing of my apartment. Everything outside of Bed is qualified as 'non-essential' in that I don't really need it. The first thing that comes to mind is sorting out the curtain/blind situation in my apartment. For the longest period I have been flashing my junk to the world as I step out of the shower, so curtains in the bathroom. The second place is the living room and some kind of privacy and more importantly blocking out light.
Whenever I need to get anything done in Hong Kong I follow the common Google query, "Something something in Hong Kong" and voila! This Time "Where to buy curtains in Hong Kong" pointed me in the direction of Queen's Road East, Wan Chai. This particular stretch of Wan Chai has at least 10 different curtain stores, with consistent prices. I eventually ended up at a curtain store in Yau Ma Tei where prices were a couple hundred dollars cheaper than the Hong Kong Island stores. From there I ordered two sets of venetian blinds and a piece of material.
Piece of material I hear you say? Just the material I hear the Curtain lady say? So after ordering the two venetian blinds I figured I might as well inquire about the small 50 cm x 70 cm curtain that I needed made for my bathroom. 220 HKD, for her to run a piece of cloth through a sewing machine four times? I had just bought a 150 x 150 cm and a 80 x 120 cm set of venetian blinds for 1200 HKD. I usually have an instinct for getting ripped off, and this reeked of highway robbery.
"How much for just the material?"
"100 HKD"
"Good, I'll take just the material."
"Just the material?"
"Yea, I'll make the curtains myself?"
This was met by confused looks and what can be best described as shock. "Ok ok, two hundred"...
I look at the material lying on the floor wishing I had just paid the hundred HKD and wasn't so stubborn and begin to investigate how to "sew" things without a sewing machine. The answer is Liquid Stitching or Fabric Glue, both which are impossible to find in Hong Kong. Thankfully the arrival of my dad from Sydney also brought with him the required tools to assemble my curtain.
The best part is, with that fabric, I ended up making two curtains for a hundred HKD. Win.
Whenever I need to get anything done in Hong Kong I follow the common Google query, "Something something in Hong Kong" and voila! This Time "Where to buy curtains in Hong Kong" pointed me in the direction of Queen's Road East, Wan Chai. This particular stretch of Wan Chai has at least 10 different curtain stores, with consistent prices. I eventually ended up at a curtain store in Yau Ma Tei where prices were a couple hundred dollars cheaper than the Hong Kong Island stores. From there I ordered two sets of venetian blinds and a piece of material.
Piece of material I hear you say? Just the material I hear the Curtain lady say? So after ordering the two venetian blinds I figured I might as well inquire about the small 50 cm x 70 cm curtain that I needed made for my bathroom. 220 HKD, for her to run a piece of cloth through a sewing machine four times? I had just bought a 150 x 150 cm and a 80 x 120 cm set of venetian blinds for 1200 HKD. I usually have an instinct for getting ripped off, and this reeked of highway robbery.
"How much for just the material?"
"100 HKD"
"Good, I'll take just the material."
"Just the material?"
"Yea, I'll make the curtains myself?"
This was met by confused looks and what can be best described as shock. "Ok ok, two hundred"...
I look at the material lying on the floor wishing I had just paid the hundred HKD and wasn't so stubborn and begin to investigate how to "sew" things without a sewing machine. The answer is Liquid Stitching or Fabric Glue, both which are impossible to find in Hong Kong. Thankfully the arrival of my dad from Sydney also brought with him the required tools to assemble my curtain.
The best part is, with that fabric, I ended up making two curtains for a hundred HKD. Win.
Friday, 25 November 2011
Thanksgiving
"I'm thankful for ..." her attempts to get the the "Give thanks" process under way was met by stiff resistance. It oozed thick, gooey sappiness and people were scared of the openess of the forum it was to be delivered to. After all, a lot of the people here had only met each other this evening and I could already see people diving into the recesses of 2011 searching for a list of items to be thankful for. In the end, we never gave thanks, I think this relieved the 20 odd person crowd. I was secretly kind of hoping to see how this cringe moment would unfold. It looks like I'll have to keep my 'thanks' private for at least another year. I had my list ready, I say list because the rule is, you're not allowed to repeat what somebody else has given thanks for.
I find it difficult to sit and type this entry. My breathing is laboured. I'm not drunk, although it is a similiar form of over consumption. I've eaten too much. My first Thanksgiving in Hong Kong, actually ever, anywhere in the world. This Thanksgiving was hosted by a couple of American friends and what a memorable Thanksgiving it was! Turkey, stuffing, gravies, sauces, pumpkin bread (oh, that divine pumpkin bread), pumpkin pie, pecan pie, apple pie, ice cream and brownies. It's an affair riddled with food, drinks and laughter. Bliss, I can see why it's such a big thing State side.
Anyways, my thanks would have gone a little something like this: Im thankful for the delicious pumpkin recipes, seriously you have to try the Pumpkin Bread. I'm thankful to be spending my very first Thanksgiving with such a great group of people. Sappy yes, true yes. I'm thankful to be settled here in Hong Kong, a new chapter and new adventures. Finally, I'm thankful for great friends old and new and family thank I now see more in Asia than I did after 3 years in the UK.
What I'm not thankful for is the really uncomfortable feeling from overeating. I've burped at least 10 times and each time a little bit of food resurfaces from reflux. Gluttony, we meet again. Happy Thanksgiving!
I find it difficult to sit and type this entry. My breathing is laboured. I'm not drunk, although it is a similiar form of over consumption. I've eaten too much. My first Thanksgiving in Hong Kong, actually ever, anywhere in the world. This Thanksgiving was hosted by a couple of American friends and what a memorable Thanksgiving it was! Turkey, stuffing, gravies, sauces, pumpkin bread (oh, that divine pumpkin bread), pumpkin pie, pecan pie, apple pie, ice cream and brownies. It's an affair riddled with food, drinks and laughter. Bliss, I can see why it's such a big thing State side.
Anyways, my thanks would have gone a little something like this: Im thankful for the delicious pumpkin recipes, seriously you have to try the Pumpkin Bread. I'm thankful to be spending my very first Thanksgiving with such a great group of people. Sappy yes, true yes. I'm thankful to be settled here in Hong Kong, a new chapter and new adventures. Finally, I'm thankful for great friends old and new and family thank I now see more in Asia than I did after 3 years in the UK.
What I'm not thankful for is the really uncomfortable feeling from overeating. I've burped at least 10 times and each time a little bit of food resurfaces from reflux. Gluttony, we meet again. Happy Thanksgiving!
Sunday, 20 November 2011
Dance Flashmob
You can't teach an old dog new tricks. It's so true, the older you get, the harder it is to pick new things up. Sure there's those activities that simply lend themselves for adoption, Bingo, lawn bowls, Tai Chi, but seriously, they're not really new tricks. So at the tender age of 29 I take my first lesson in dance. I can genuinely say that I have issues learning how to dance especially in the contemporary format. It's a strange outer body experience dancing in front of a mirror watching the instructor, then watching yourself and your non-compliant body. Smooth, beautiful dancing. Rigid, disobedient moving. Learning to dance at this age is a strange phenomenon as you will your body to do things that is just completely foreign. Actually, it's probably more because I'm unco-ordinated but it has taken me two rehersal sessions to get the 4-5 second dance routine memorised.
You might ask why am I even going to dance school? Why? The answer is simple, to realise my dreams and feature as an extra in a Pop Music Video! That's right! Backup dancer, me! It's laughable but an enjoyable day with the highlight being apart of a mini flash mob in the middle of Hong Kong. We crossed one of the busiest roads in Hong Kong on a Sunday morning, only to break out into a choreographed dance routine.
9 am to 7 pm, those are work hours and for a lot of the film and stage crew this was work. All the filming, break time and retakes were an eye-opener to the industry. The chores of shooting and re-shooting, from different perspectives, with different lighting, and most importantly, different angles. It was a long day featuring three main shoots:
1). Flash mob Dance Routine outside Sogo on Hennessy Road, Causeway Bay.
2). Street scene, random dancing on a side street.
3). Club scene - typical Hip Hop club video, models, bottles and of course plenty of smoke.
No animals were harmed in the filming of this clip although the agenda for such a music clip is to promote the the upcoming 2012 movie, Supercapitalist. Watch this space, I'll try to find a cut of the final music video.
You might ask why am I even going to dance school? Why? The answer is simple, to realise my dreams and feature as an extra in a Pop Music Video! That's right! Backup dancer, me! It's laughable but an enjoyable day with the highlight being apart of a mini flash mob in the middle of Hong Kong. We crossed one of the busiest roads in Hong Kong on a Sunday morning, only to break out into a choreographed dance routine.
9 am to 7 pm, those are work hours and for a lot of the film and stage crew this was work. All the filming, break time and retakes were an eye-opener to the industry. The chores of shooting and re-shooting, from different perspectives, with different lighting, and most importantly, different angles. It was a long day featuring three main shoots:
1). Flash mob Dance Routine outside Sogo on Hennessy Road, Causeway Bay.
2). Street scene, random dancing on a side street.
3). Club scene - typical Hip Hop club video, models, bottles and of course plenty of smoke.
No animals were harmed in the filming of this clip although the agenda for such a music clip is to promote the the upcoming 2012 movie, Supercapitalist. Watch this space, I'll try to find a cut of the final music video.
Monday, 7 November 2011
Can you tell me how to get ....
Hong Kong is one unbelievably efficient city. The city's public transport system hums like a well-oiled machine with tires, tracks and engines purposefully pumping people around Hong Kong like blood through the arteries. I would go as far as saying that Hong Kong is spoilt with transport options. Trains, buses, mini-buses, private cars, ferries, trams, the trusty Crown Comfort Taxi and finally not forgetting that there's a bloody escalator pushing pedestrians up and down a mountain; like a factory conveyor belt. It comes as no surprise, that it takes less than 50 minutes from sitting at my office desk to be sitting outside the Gate 22 of Hong Kong International Airport waiting to board my flight.
My first time to Jakarta. Reminds me a little of Malaysia. The best thing about it all is that they have an abudnace of US food chains: Kenny Rogers, Krispy Kremes and Dunkin' Donuts; Junk food I've sorely missed.
Part of the reason to visit is because I've never been, but also to visit a close university friend and his young family. It's his daughter's first Birthday and all the Hong Kong uncles were making a stop over for the Sesame Street themed gig. As with most weekend trips, this would include the regulatory weekend nightlife exploration: Blowfish, Stadium and Immigration some of the local haunts we headed to. It's a strange feeling to have a friend tell you he needs to go home because he "needs to wake up early to look after his daughter" and it becomes more apparent when there's two of you sitting outside the hotel vomiting in front of the security guards. The real juxtaposition is the Saturday morning, balloons, cakes, giant cut out Seasame Street figures, mothers, screaming kids and us; a bunch of hungover uncles. That period of my life just seems so far away.
"Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Seasame Street?"
My first time to Jakarta. Reminds me a little of Malaysia. The best thing about it all is that they have an abudnace of US food chains: Kenny Rogers, Krispy Kremes and Dunkin' Donuts; Junk food I've sorely missed.
Part of the reason to visit is because I've never been, but also to visit a close university friend and his young family. It's his daughter's first Birthday and all the Hong Kong uncles were making a stop over for the Sesame Street themed gig. As with most weekend trips, this would include the regulatory weekend nightlife exploration: Blowfish, Stadium and Immigration some of the local haunts we headed to. It's a strange feeling to have a friend tell you he needs to go home because he "needs to wake up early to look after his daughter" and it becomes more apparent when there's two of you sitting outside the hotel vomiting in front of the security guards. The real juxtaposition is the Saturday morning, balloons, cakes, giant cut out Seasame Street figures, mothers, screaming kids and us; a bunch of hungover uncles. That period of my life just seems so far away.
"Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Seasame Street?"
Wednesday, 2 November 2011
Moving day
This apartment hunt has dragged me to all the nooks and crannies of Central Hong Kong. It has been an adventure that has led me down urine spilled alleyways, up the stairwells of nameless walk-up properties and countless journeys on the Mid-levels escalator. The upside is that I now have a familiarity with Hong Kong and the various stairwells, streets, buildings and shortcuts in and around Central.
My conversations have, for the most part followed a typical schematic. It started off with "Have you found a job?", eventually moving to "Have you found an apartment?" to finally "How's your new place?". It's funny, but you would think that after sleeping on a couch for such a long time I would have moved out immediately. This has not been the case. Despite having the keys in my possession for over a week I still haven't moved into my new place. The truth is that I have been waiting for the delivery of my mattress so I have a place to sleep (as opposed to a pile of clothes), but also deep down I know that I'm having stouts of separation anxiety. Anxiety derived from having to say goodbye to my friends and the living room that has been nothing short of hospitable over the last seven months. I take a look at the room that has housed me and say goodbye to the friends that I have seen almost every waking hour. There's a sadness and an appropriate slowness as I collect my belongings and leave.
I quickly snap out of this melancholic daze as it dawns on me that my apartment is not even a 10 minute walk away. I enter my new apartment block and take the lift up to the eleventh floor. I approach the door which has a lightly brushed oak finish, to be honest, I hardly recognise it, it's been some time since I was last here. I turn the key, there's no click, no chambers moving, I turn it the other way, still nothing. This leads to some frenetic jiggling. My bag slides from my shoulder and I use two hands to work the key into the keyhole. Just as I'm about to prop my leg up against the door frame the door opens. A head sticks out from inside "Can, I, erh, help you?". A reasonable question. Especially considering that I'm bent over with my key in their door. "This isn't Apartment C is it?" I ask. "Nope, C's that one." indicating to the adjacent door. That explains everything, "... Hi, I'm your new neighbour!".
In other news, my housemate this week found out that his company MF Global after 250 years has filed for bankruptcy. It's alarming that a company whose roots date back further than the discovery of Australia can be taken down in the space of a year. The 8th largest Bankruptcy in history and the first US casualty of the European Sovereign Debt Crisis. So as the the Greeks head into referendum and the world slowly falls apart I look forward to nothing more than sleeping in my own bed.
My conversations have, for the most part followed a typical schematic. It started off with "Have you found a job?", eventually moving to "Have you found an apartment?" to finally "How's your new place?". It's funny, but you would think that after sleeping on a couch for such a long time I would have moved out immediately. This has not been the case. Despite having the keys in my possession for over a week I still haven't moved into my new place. The truth is that I have been waiting for the delivery of my mattress so I have a place to sleep (as opposed to a pile of clothes), but also deep down I know that I'm having stouts of separation anxiety. Anxiety derived from having to say goodbye to my friends and the living room that has been nothing short of hospitable over the last seven months. I take a look at the room that has housed me and say goodbye to the friends that I have seen almost every waking hour. There's a sadness and an appropriate slowness as I collect my belongings and leave.
I quickly snap out of this melancholic daze as it dawns on me that my apartment is not even a 10 minute walk away. I enter my new apartment block and take the lift up to the eleventh floor. I approach the door which has a lightly brushed oak finish, to be honest, I hardly recognise it, it's been some time since I was last here. I turn the key, there's no click, no chambers moving, I turn it the other way, still nothing. This leads to some frenetic jiggling. My bag slides from my shoulder and I use two hands to work the key into the keyhole. Just as I'm about to prop my leg up against the door frame the door opens. A head sticks out from inside "Can, I, erh, help you?". A reasonable question. Especially considering that I'm bent over with my key in their door. "This isn't Apartment C is it?" I ask. "Nope, C's that one." indicating to the adjacent door. That explains everything, "... Hi, I'm your new neighbour!".
In other news, my housemate this week found out that his company MF Global after 250 years has filed for bankruptcy. It's alarming that a company whose roots date back further than the discovery of Australia can be taken down in the space of a year. The 8th largest Bankruptcy in history and the first US casualty of the European Sovereign Debt Crisis. So as the the Greeks head into referendum and the world slowly falls apart I look forward to nothing more than sleeping in my own bed.
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