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Born in DC, Lived in SF for 12 years, then Japan for 2 more. Been in HK since Summer 06. Take a look around, feel free to leave a comment!

我可以懂日文和中文。私の日本語下手じゃないけど、中国語のほうが上手よ！日本語分かったらコメントをくれて下さい！

ps - For security and privacy reasons, please feel free to 'become a fan' but don't friend request me unless you know me well.

Korean Romantic Comedy - Mr. Handyman

Thursday, Jul 24, 2008 8:20PM / Standard Entry / Asian Movie Review / Members only

The other night I decided to go home after work and make dinner, so I popped in one of my many as-yet-unwatched DVDs in to watch... I have at least 10 more movies to go, mostly Korean comedies that I bought a long time ago but haven't gotten around to watching.

This one was called 'Mr. Handyman' in English (and the super long title '어디선가 누군가에 무슨일이 생기면 틀림없이 나타난다 홍반장' in Korean). Its a relatively standard romantic comedy formula: after some comedic episodes and some akward moments, the guy and girl get together at the end (of course)... but at least the premise is a little bit unique. Mr. Handyman is told more from the perspective of the female character - played by Eom Jeong-hwa. She plays a single 30 year old dentist from Seoul who loses her job and ends up moving to a rural town to set up her own denal clinic. By necessity she meets Kim Ka-Yeon's character, the local handyman for the town. He's the jack-of-all-trades that does everything, construction work, real estate, filling in for people when they're sick at the super market, bar, etc.

It takes some time for the short tempered, upwardly mobile, big city girl to realize, but eventually she falls for laid back small town guy who's going no where. I'll avoid giving too many details away, but they build up the romantic tension and throw a few twists and turns into the story... The movie is well done even if its a bit flat (maybe I'm too used to the raunchy Korean sex comedies or the action comedy ones...)

I'll give it a 6/10 - Probably a good date movie (especially if you're an underemployed country guy with a heart of gold and you're chasing some big city girl who's out of your league).

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6th Floor Rear Flat Part 1: Truth or Dare

Wednesday, Jul 23, 2008 9:04PM / Standard Entry / Asian Movie Review / Members only

6/10

Movie:

Truth or Dare: 6th Floor Rear Flat (2003)

I picked this one up a few weeks ago while in TST for about HKD$25. I was familiar with the film because we had attended the premiere of '6th Floor Rear Flat part two - The Happy Funeral', but I hadn't had a chance to see the original til now.

6th Floor tells the story of a bunch of HK young adults who are trying to find their way in the world... they live together in an apartment where all they seem to do is party and play 'Truth or Dare' with whoever happens to be available (including the police officers who come to tell them to be quiet). Each of the main characters (including Karena Lam and Lawrence Chou) gets their own subplot, one girl is trying to juggle two boyfriends, the other girl is in love with her never-yet-seen editor.... one of the guys is in love with girl #2, etc... (actually not all of them get equal attention... definitely too many subplots and not enough screen time or character development to go around).

The film tries to connect them all into a bigger plot of a dare - achieve their goals in a year or face unspeakable acts... but this doesn't get enough screen time to feel like a strong plot for the movie really...

The nice thing about this movie is that somewhere along the line the characters and their stories (some of them at least) end up being kind of interesting and endearing... and the story is a nice departure from the typical cheesy, sacchariny sweet happy ending cliched stories you find in most youth-oriented HK films. Apparently it was a bit of an underground hit because of this...

In contrast to the sequel... I'd say I liked the 2nd one more... I felt the plot was 'tighter'... but I got kind of annoyed at the slacker attitudes of the characters in that one too, so its hard to call it. ;-)

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Biking Afterparty - Lok Ma Chou! 落馬洲の初め！

Wednesday, Jul 23, 2008 3:09AM / Standard Entry / Hong Kong / Members only

自転車で死の山後、僕は上水駅で自転車を止まった。中国の深圳市の羅湖区で安マッサジしたいけど、今回新所も行きたから、違電車を乗った、ロクマーチョウ（落馬洲）の新入境へ行って見たかった。

After biking the hills of death and living to tell the tale, I rode back to Sheung Shui station and locked up my bike. Despite all the riding I wasn't actually that tired or sore.... I had planned on going across the border to get a massage in Shenzhen, so I brought my passport with me. When I got to the station I thought "why not try Lok Ma Chau for once?"

For those who don't know, Lok Ma Chau is a new station and border crossing on a 5 mile spur line that was added to the KCR (now MTR) East line last year (opened last August actually). I had wanted to check it out, but never had a chance... now I did. :-P

The reason for this spurline is straightforward, the traditional train line crossing, Lowu (羅湖) is on towards the east side of Shenzhen, so it takes a while to get over to the western side once you get across. Lok Ma Chau is a shortcut and also a pressure relief, since Lowu is apparently the busiest border crossing anywhere in the world.

Basically the line goes right up to the banks of the Shenzhen river that forms the border. On the HK side, the station building connects right to the immigration station, which connects to a footbridge over the river. On the China side, known as Huanggang (黃崗) there's an immigration building that has a Shenzhen Metro station in the basement.

You can see there's also a vehicle crossing here. You may have read the blog from May 07 where I actually rode my bicycle near here... but you can't bike up to the border crossing apparently.

Here's the view when you get off the train:

Thats Shenzhen over there... 　これは深圳です。

A bit less menacing than the last sign... but still:

I guess I better go across the border then... don't want to be in contravention! (British English... bah!)

Actually I was in contravention here with my surreptitious photo taking of the immigration control...

That's the HK immigration exit check point on the other side of the ticket gates... in the last few years HK has implemented a super awesome automated immigration clearance system... so nowadays the immigration point is mostly just rows of gates w/ ID card readers and thumbprint scanners... it only takes about 20-30 seconds per person! 改札口の反対は香港の出国ゲートです。

Ok, technically i took that picture from inside the train station... so maybe its ok...

The next one is even more contraventional:

There's a long walkway across the bridge over the river. Lowu's bridge is relatively short, this one is like 3-4x longer, hence the moving sidewalk. It was pretty empty...

(actually there 'no photos' sign wasn't posted until you get to the China side, so maybe its ok here in the middle...)

From the China side, I was able to exit the building and walk down to the river bank (or at least the chain link fence next to the river bank). Here's a view of the footbridge from the China side. Bottom deck is entering China, top deck is leaving China. 　中国法がから撮ったの写真。落馬洲-黃崗の歩道橋です。上階は香港まで、下階は中国まで

I ended up taking the metro to Lo Wu and crossed back from there after getting a nice 45 rmb massage (cause Etchy is a big tipper). :-P

That's it for today.... I have a bunch of pictures from Shenzhen saved up from the last several trips I've taken... I'll upload them sooner or later. ;-)

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Weekend Biking - Sunday - Hills of Death...　殺の山

Tuesday, Jul 22, 2008 3:23AM / Standard Entry / Hong Kong / Members only

OK, I'll admit something - the main reason I decided to still go biking up to Taipo late on Saturday Night was actually to get my bike in position for Sunday's ambitious ride...
日曜日午後もう一度ＮＴで自転車乗った。今回とても壮図だった、粉嶺(ファンリング)と深圳(シンゼン)の間の山の上の通りを登った。オンライン地図サイトで直りました。

I read online about a small concrete path along the ridge of the mountains that separate Fanling from Man Kam To... It offers views of Fanling and Shenzhen across the border....

Well I checked some online mapping sites and found the path they mentioned, while doing that I found out they now have topographical maps for HK on google maps now too!

Just what I need! Here's the path -

They said it was steep but the views were worth it... 一寸乗り難いみたい！

ok, how hard could it be? REALLY HARD, thats how hard... 　実は本当乗り難かった！

the really hard part is labeled... :-P    http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2096303

So was it worth it? Actually it was!   Check out some of my pics -
難けど、本当張り合かった！写真を見て下さい：

I rode from Taipo to Fanling and then to Ping Che, busted out the map i printed from centamap's map and tried to triangulate the proper path... I followed some random side streets full of scrap yards and truck repair shops til I found a random concrete path going up a hill... no signage at ALL...   一寸見つけ難かった、看板全然なかった。

I quickly realized that this was the right way... and that it was frickin STEEP!

There was this random abandon guardhouse on the way up... it looked like 100 years old.   I'm not sure exactly why they needed a guardhouse... but we are close to the 'Closed Border Zone'... you can kind of see the angle of the road compared to the verticle walls of the booth though to get an idea how steep it was here... and this wasn't even the worst of it.

I made it about 50% of the way up and finally gave up and walked the bike up the rest of the way... this would be a common theme this day... ride down, walk up... :-P

After the first crest of the hill I stopped to catch my breath and get a few photos:

Boy the scrap yards look much more peaceful from up here... (looking to the SE towards Ping Che)

There was some sort of surveyors marker here... (looking SW towards Leun Wo Hui). By the way, that alivenotdead sticker was already there when i arrived, i SWEAR...

Note the weird stick with red flags on it... hmm, I wonder what that could possible be? [read on to find out!]

By the way, all over the hills around here, there were things built way up on the hill sides... can you guess what they are? I guess everyone wants a room with a view. :-P

Oh yes, i forgot the other half - the North side of the hills -

At the base of the hill were some small towns (with humorous names like 下山雞乙 and 上山雞乙)... but in the not so far distance you can see across the border to Shenzhen, which as I've mentioned a few times here - is quite a big city, with a larger population than all of Hong Kong (and most of it is concentrated along the border, whereas the border area is the least populated part of Hong Kong (as you can see!)

A zoom shows the skyscrapers of Shenzhen... thats the Shun Hing Square's tower, which, at 1260 ft (384m) is ALMOST as tall as HK's 2 IFC (at 1362ft / 415m) - making it the 9th tallest in the world right now -- (click for a list of the tallest buildings in SZ)

I soldiered on, this part was tough because it was pretty much just uphill, then flat, then uphill again...

On the 3rd or fourth peak, I stopped to catch my breath and used an old plastic stool that was left there as a camera stand for a self-portrait (w/ some of SZ in the background)... you can't see that I'm dripping in sweat and pretty exhausted.

About 2/3 of the way through the path makes a sharp right turn and looks down at this big open valley with a nicely manicured open, flat area surrounded by hills... what is this place?

Upon closer inspection I quickly guessed...

Its a frickin' firing range! and not just for pistols or rifles... let's look at those markings on the hill-side:

You can kind of see some bullseyes marked in white on the hill side... i'm guessing that's for something bigger than just a hand gun. :-O

Here's a panorama I stitched together from several photos:

Its about 150-180 degrees of the view. Zoom to get it in full glory.. ;-)

I kept going... to a site i hope I don't have to see again:

The firing range from the wrong end...

Well you can be sure I made sure it was empty before I got this far... but funny enough as I came up to this point I saw the VERY FIRST bit of signage on this path:

Its obviously a bit out of repair, but I could make enough out to tell what it said:

"DANGER: MINISTRY OF DEFENCE RANGE. KEEP OUT WHILE RED FLAGS ARE DISPLAYED"

ok... very confusing... first of all there hasn't been a "ministry of defenCe" for HK since 1997, right? and regardless, why hasn't anyone kept this sign in a readable condition? the sign may be abandoned, but obviously the shooting range is still well maintained... :-?    no red flags here, but then I remember way back at the first hill I passed that stick w/ the red flags (remember?)

so either I'm about to be shot... or they forgot to remove the red flags... :-P

Actually at this point the path got harder -

You can't really tell from the photo, but its super steep downwards... too steep to ride down safely. i had to inch down as slow as possible and keep the brakes clamped just enough to keep from flying down at deadly speed... but not so hard to lock the wheels and skid and fall on my head... (all that lovely potential energy wasted!)

I used my Casio's 'sunset' setting to get a good sunset photo of SZ before the last hill:

actually this is cheating, this camera setting puts a heavy orange tint on everything...the view wasn't quite this rosey, but I didn't feel like waiting another hour on the hill top to get the real-deal... (going down super steep slopes in daylight was bad, doing it in pitch black dark would be worse)

Some extra photos:

On my way to Ping Che i accidentally turned at the first traffic circle instead of the 2nd one, as I came around that wall on the right I was surprised to see a PLA soldier holding a machine gun standing guard at the gate (PLA = People's Liberation Army, aka Mainland Chinese army)... I realized immediately that this was a Military barracks that was turned over from the British to the Chinese army...   oops!

On the wall on this side I found the old British name of the barracks:

It says 'Gallipoli Lines'... very British... I guess the PLA wanted to change the name (its now just called the San Wai Barracks)... but they left the old sign there for historic value.

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Weekend Biking - Saturday night...

Monday, Jul 21, 2008 3:57AM / Standard Entry / Hong Kong / Members only

I decided to be a bit anti-social this weekend... instead of going to Lan Kwai Fong on Saturday evening, I went to the NT to do some more late-night bicycling (actually i went shopping with a friend in Mongkok in the late afternoon and didn't finish til 9.. so thats why it was so late ) :-P
土曜日晩ランクアイフォンへ行かなかった。運動したかったから、ＮＴで夜自転車を乗ってした。シャティンからタイポまで行った時、一寸写真を撮った。

Went from Shatin to Taipo this time. I kept my camera handy for some more pics -

Shing Mun River Channel.... the super bright lights on the right bank are stands for the Equestrian course for the Olympics! (you know they're doing the horse stuff all here in HK, right?) only a few more weeks to go, they're working on Saturday nights to get it all done in time i guess. ;-)

Even though it was about 9:30pm by this point, there were a lot of hardcore riders still out (who like me prefer staying out of the daytime heat and sun... ) You can see their headlights as they go by...

It got emptier as i rode up past the HK Science Park:

Looking across to Ma On Shan... my old apartment is over there... there was a full moon occasionally peeking out from the clouds.

Infinite corridor of lights.... next stop Taipo...

(to leave my bicycle for Sunday's ambitious ride! Stay tuned for the next blog!)

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