circling

on hold for now. Real life overtakes virtual life. Too many events going, but in short, the MFA writing has taken the lead, as well as various life changing events.

I'll be occasionally blogging on another blog, which, if you know us, should be easy to find.

Anyway, Hong Kong for now is the psuedo-home, until nyc reclaims us.

You say tomato, I say grapefruit

I say potato, you say solanum tubersum.

A more substantial, informative post with photos coming post-phuket vacation. But, three weeks of teaching down. Three weeks.

a quick note

It's been a little over a year since Anny died, and I just wanted to say to her, thank you for being a good student and a caring person. I still think of you all of the time, and I always will.

Once more, with feeling

Well, a few weeks into teaching and I'm starting to remember what it was like last year. Yes, that confused, fuzzy look staring back at me from all angles. Grading and powerpointing late into the night (currently working on 'marketing mix--pricing methods' a must read for all A-level Business Studies students!...in my class). Teaching Shakespeare and Mary Shelley to Korean and Hong Kong kids? Er...No, no. Can't resort to Leo and Claire Danes version. How to explain "her chastity was well-armed?" or "I'll chop off their head, or their maidenheads."

I'll have more photo fun time w/ my school and kids but since half of them are native speakers, I might have to be a bit more discreet, lest they find this rarely read blog (hi, my five readers!).

Anyway, times are a' busy here. Still honing sharpening my completely inappropriate submission materials to the MFA. Is using "motherf'er" in a personal essay about writing craft a good idea? Wha? No?

Well, at least in a week I'll be returning to Thailand! This time with cole in tow for our Chinese New Year vacation. Gong hei fat choy folks. Happy year of le tigre.

cole, crocheting a scarf for me, on the flight from New York to Beijing

A race to catch up, and then lag behind again

"I don't like Thai food," I told cole.
Let's start there; it's as good as place as any to catch up to the last 2-3 months.
"What am I going to eat?" I continued on. And that wasn't the only problem with going to Bangkok for a month.

Actually hold on, before that let me quickly say that look here:

my dad visited us! That's him on the right. To his left is Aunt .... and Uncle ..... (I'm horrible, but the names don't really translate), then my grandmother on my mom's side, then Uncle Kenny (or Uncle #2), cole, and me--all out to dinner in Kowloon somewhere, though I remember the name of the restaurant was Sportful Garden.

Ok, back to where I was:

So after my dad's visit, I told cole:

"...and not only that, but doesn't Bangkok have the potential to be really awful?" for all the reasons that you're probably aware of. But there wasn't any other choice really. To have a chance of teaching in Hong Kong, I needed a CELTA, and the closest cheapest option was Thailand. I applied to the program, got in, booked a serviced apartment (more on that later), got a flight, and off I went.

These are the types of places I remember most. On the street, sweltering at a humid 90 even during the night, chilis and lemongrass simmering in curry, the most tender hainan chicken rice, grilled meats, perfectly fried eggs. 30 baht or so for a meal, less than a dollar. Alright, so I like Thai food now, just not pad thai.

This picture pretty much sums up my experience in Bangkok: Down-to-earth, friendly people (honestly, the friendliest of anywhere I've ever been), oppressive ridiculous heat, and in general much much more than I expected, in just about every way. But...

Two blocks to the right on this street food?--Patpong: ladyboys, pingpong shows (need I elaborate?), smartly dressed men handing me cards while addressing me in Japanese (because in Thailand, I look Japanese). Wandering through--groups of scumbag expats, and yes, there are many, and it can all be so much of a soul-sucking, anger-inducing wasteland that you have to just remind yourself that this isn't it, not really, and next time, remember to take the long way around to the ramen shop, because this is just the 0.1% that ruins Bangkok, and it's not that hard to avoid it. Yeah, the gogo bars aren't going anywhere, but at least if I pretend they don't exist, then Bangkok can stay amazing in my mind.

In the end though, 99% of my time was spent here:

Doesn't look like much, and the same holds true for the inside, but this was the Celta training center. I would get up around seven every morning, shower, get dressed, take the sky train two stops, from Surasak to Sala Daeng, grab an egg sandwich from a guy on the street (20 baht), and then start my lessons at school. Our lessons lasted all morning, then we had lesson-planning, lunch, and the afternoon was spent on teaching practice.

Here's me in action, teaching the different types of future tenses I think. Our students, a mix of refugees from Cambodia and Sri Lanka combined with Thai university students, were the best behaved bunch I've ever taught.

This block is where I lived, holed away from the traffic and noise of the city. You can't see here, but this path gets even narrower, and in the morning, an endless procession of moterbikes, cars, wild dogs, and pedestrians all fight for space.

This is where I stayed, not the best of rooms. Take a thin sheet and put in on the floor, then lie down on it, and you begin to get an idea of what this bed was like. Add in the run-down chic of the place, complete with its very own cockroach-in-the-fridge (hi little guy!), and well...I probably should have just spent another hundred bucks to live in relative luxury. Still, it was fine. I liked how it was hidden behind a maze of elusive corridors, which at night, you would almost have to navigate by feel. In the mornings the same three shirtless men drinking their morning beers would hang out in front of the only convenience store in the neighborhood and say hello to me. Every now and then, I would buy a grilled drumstick from the stand next to my apartment, and it would be better than any barbecued chicken I've ever had. So yeah, it could have been worse.

A drink stand near the ferry to the Royal Palace.

Grilled banana? Plantain? Nicely tart. 5 baht.

I only had time to see one site the entire time I stayed, and that was the Royal Palace.

Sometimes, not often, a place so far surpasses my expectations that I become almost dumbfounded with how incredible it is. The Great Wall, Hiroshima, Meijima Island, the hike over the Tai Tam Reservoir in Hong Kong, a short walk from 3rd ave to A along 10th street in nyc. Add the Royal Palace to that list. The sheer opulence of the place is almost too much to take in at once; no really, the gold and jewels literally blind you.

In the end, I would say that Bangkok was worth going to. I met a nice bunch of people (the above seafood dinner was in Bangkok Chinatown, I didn't eat anything that day because I was too sick...tragic), actually learned quite a bit about teaching, and realized that Bangkok and Thailand isn't at all like what I thought it would be. The first thing I said to cole though, when I got back to Hong Kong was, "I will never leave you again for that long. Never."

Because really....

Never again.

Almost immediately after I returned, cole's dad came in for a visit, since he was on a whirlwind China tour for work anyway.

Standing on our balcony overlooking Aberdeen Harbor.

Cole's students were running a holiday fundraiser. Here's dad playing the game.

Standing on the Kowloon side looking over to the Hong Kong Island side.

Finally we went home for Christmas. On the day we arrived, New York had its first snow storm of the season. We landed just before it hit, but then my dad, who was picking us up, got stuck in traffic for over an hour. He eventually showed up, and we made a quick visit to my family in Queens.

By the time we were ready to leave, I hadn't slept for about 20 hours, and it was time for me to drive from Queens, NY to bergen county, NJ. In a snow storm. Oh, and did I mention that I hadn't driven for over half a year?

We made it home safely. Christmas was wonderful. Being home, as usual, was strange but comforting and then strange again. Sometimes I wonder about when we come home for good, if we'll only feel right either in the city (meaning new york), or in Flushing, Queens--the closest facsimile to Hong Kong outside of Hong Kong.

But regardless of the odd sense of straddling two or three cultures (American? Minority not minority? Hong Konger? Ex-pat?), seeing our families eases away possible identity issues.

And then, we're back in Hong Kong again, back to our little corner of Aberdeen. Thanks to cole's sister, Amy, and her parents, I now sport a kindle. Despite my old school publishing tendencies (real books will never die!!), I'm finding that I carry around the thing everywhere. Reading food and travel writing has never been so convenient. It'll take awhile though, for me to make that leap to reading fiction electronically.

So what else? Ah yes. The whole professional-life-you-mean-I'm-supposed-to-be-doing-something-with-my-life? thing has gotten a nice kick in the ass, in the form of a real teaching gig at an international school. That's right, teaching actual English classes, not esl. Who knew? They even gave me an A-level class (like AP in the US but not really)--Business Studies.

And soon I'll be a grad student at Hong Kong University to study for my education degree. (oops, check that, didn't make the cut. Not native enough perhaps?? still waiting on the mfa --ed, aka d-ah, feb 12,2010).

And after that I'll maybe/probably start my MFA (masters in fine arts in creative writing) at the City University of Hong Kong, the inaugural class.

So much stuff, and things. Two words I remember my high school English teacher hating, ni hao Senor Dunn.

Ok, that's it. No promises on future posts. I'll try.

British Sea Power and er...um...those other guys

October 10th, in Grappa's Cellar, an Italian restaurant of all places, we finally got to see our first show, meaning concert, in Hong Kong. It didn't start off so hot, since we were made to wait two and half hours before the um..."openers" took the stage. So yeah, these guys, who looked like they were sixteen years old and sounded like they've been playing guitar for maybe two weeks, and just learned how to program a crappy two-beat drum machine track, yes they get to open for British Sea Power. Alright, where's my guitar? Those chords, I still remember them. Can't be that hard to be a Hong Kong rock star right? 1, 4, 5 progression? check. power chords. yep. tight jeans/silly outfit?....hmmm alright, not quite there yet.

Anyway, this duo was by far the worst act I have ever paid money to see. Words cannot express, so this video must do:




Luckily, we didn't have to wait long for British Sea Power. Honestly, before this, I wasn't their greatest admirer in the world, but I had all their albums, and liked most of their songs.

As for band availability in Hong Kong (slim pickings in general), I knew this was about as good as it was going to get, so despite the ridiculous ticket price (really? almost $50? that's like going to see Billy Joel at MSG in 1997 or something [I'm looking at you cole], or what I imagine the ticket price for a reunion Pixies tour to be, or even a 90s era Dave Matthews [I'm looking at...me?the shame]).Anyway, the place was full of brits w/ a strange mix of locals and misc foreigners. Still, the vibe was decent, and by the end of the night, after multiple stage dives and encores by the band, I was a much bigger fan of British Sea Power.




A short clip:

Conks visit

Friend conks visited us last weekend; our first visiter in Hong Kong! Here are some updated pics of our place, this time with furniture.

It was National Day.

In Victoria Park.

Our convertatable bed for conks.

Contemplative on the cable ride up to the big buddha.

Hi again, large buddha.

Next day it was off to Cheung Chau Island, about 30-40 minutes away via the fast ferry. On the beach.

I decided to read on the beach instead of swim. Cole and conks on a floatie.

Hiking around Cheung Chau

Cheung Chau had a boardwalk type vibe, what with the beach and all the snack food. These were some of the best fishballs I've ever had. The first one has a curry sauce on it, the other one some kind of sweet sauce.

Hike near Quarry Bay.



For the final night, we took conks to the Peak. There we were trying to figure out what to eat...um $300 for two pieces of sushi? no thanks. Burger King? maybe not. Bubba Gump Shrimp....hmmm.....really....ok why not. And there, I wish I took some pictures, because I had one of the best fish n' chips ever. Battered and fried mahi mahi, a bit denser than cod. Sooo good, but also made me feel kinda sick later because of all the oil. Worth it though.

Anyway, it was fun having a friend visit. Hopefully we'll get to show more people around HK in the future.

missing, oh new york shows

yes, there are many things I miss about new york, but this one is about the music, how every band passes through at some point or another.

missing this one hurts. rural alberta advantage. catch them at bowery on oct 7th, or just buy their album.



I recently found out that Handsome Furs (the side project of Dan Boeckner [of Wolf Parade fame]) was in Hong Kong a few weeks ago and I didn't know! oh the agony. Seeing British Sea Power later in October helps, but hk has a long way to go before indie can even begin to peek out from under the all-encompassing canto-pop.

a neat clip of handsome furs:

Hong Kong so far...

What can I say about living in Hong Kong these almost two months? Even though I'm not from here, I strangely feel more at home here than just about anywhere else, with a couple areas in New York City and Tokyo being the notable exceptions.

Finding a job wasn't that hard; finding the right job has proven to be much harder, with many educational hoops to jump through, and my current rate of movement is closer to a kind of awkward forward tumble.

But Hong Kong...I'll try to do the abbreviated version, because really, all we've been doing is furnishing our apartment the last month (for that, see cole's blog).

So, here goes:



Actually this is a bit of a jump, since this is the building that we live in now, and will live in for at least the next two years. Not the largest or tallest, but it is newly renovated and located in the old school neighborhood of Aberdeen.

The view of Aberdeen Harbour from our first apartment here, the serviced apt/hotel. Aberdeen used to be one of the largest communities in HK, especially before the Brits arrived. Even these days, there's still a fishing village of sorts.

Taken during a scouting trip for cole.

All of a sudden, my birthday crept up on me. Oh twenties, you're leaving so soon.

Perhaps the best mango cake I have ever had. From Taipan Bakery, which has branches in New York, but the ones here don't resemble the ones back home that much. For one, they don't serve milk tea (oh the milk tea! probably the only reason I haven't become a gaunt, wasted away shell. I will devote at least a couple posts to HK milk tea) and their buns taste different. Still good, but different.

Cole's first day of school

A ferry ride...hmm...where. Maybe to Lamma Island.

At this point I was still interviewing for jobs, and I had some free time so I borrowed the hotel's xbox 360 and played Tiger Woods Golf all day. Here is the electronic golfer version of me I made. Eerie.

The elevator door of a place where we like to get pho. Yum cigarhotdog.

Yangzhou fried rice at a cantina in Causeway Bay. They serve the one of the best chicken congees I've ever had.

The view from our new apartment.

One day, we decided that we needed to get out, and by out meaning out of the Hong Kong Island vicinity. Since the Hong Kong Culture Museum is located in Shatin, it provided us with the perfect opportunity to leave our little daily enclave.

The history of the New Territories was actually pretty interesting. All of these giant planned communities, created either out of literally nothing (with reclaimed land) or total wilderness.

Shatin was also where I used to spend my summers with my family when I was younger. Back then, there wasn't as much around, but now there are all sorts of malls and parks. Even so, the quiet and peacefulness of the suburb was striking in comparison to the usual activity we see on the main island and Kowloon.

The clarity of the water, the blue surrounding us, above and below. Everything coincided, and I realized that there was a very real chance that we may never leave Hong Kong.

The serene scene was broken up by this outdoor karaoke party. People sitting, dancing spontaneously (the man pictured dancing with his little Pomeranian), all to popular Cantonese songs from the sixties and seventies.

Sushi place in Shatin, near a bus terminus.

That night I think, the sky turned violet. For ten minutes our apartment was pink hued from the strange light streaming in.

Then, it rained, and lightening flashed near us, so near that cole, with a yelp, leaped from the balcony onto our coach, a distance of at least four feet. Perhaps the most impressive athletic feat I've ever witness from her.

I'll finish this with our first "home-cooked" meal, meaning we bought dry soba and boiled it up, and I picked up some salmon and cucumber maki rolls from the local Park n' Shop. It wasn't much, but it was good, and it was the first meal that we had made and eaten together in our new apartment.

(sorry about the long delays between posts. "serious" writing is taking up more time, and work and going back to school [of all things]. i'll make sure to update at least once a month).