Employers utilizing employees’ time in Hong Kong? Fat chance.

Okay, last time I wrote was 20 days ago. So much for promising myself that I would write more often…

 

Few things going on with life recently –

1. Work

Not too bad; nice colleagues and manageable workload (i.e. I get off on time-ish). If only I were a fifty year old spinster with a bigger paycheck, this job would be perfect. Still looking for work though and I get the occasional interviews.

 

Two weeks ago I had dinner with a few high school classmates: Tannessa, So Ling, Joey and Janette. Despite their late start of job hunting, they all managed to find one with a sizable organization and pay I thought impossible nowadays (I think I have been looking at the wrong places… or the wrong fields…).

 

So Ling was talking about how people in Hong Kong are sleep-deprived, paid pittance for their labor, no extra pay for overtime and have basically no life (apparently her three-month-holiday in Paris was an eye-opening experience). She thought (and I agree) that it was such a display of bad time management from both employers and employees that working overtime in HK is such a norm to the point when the job description says 9 to 6 it actually means 9 to at the very least 9.

 

Not too soon to nod my head on how Hong Kong is the worse place to lead a life, I told them my thoughts on how it was less about HK’s poor management but more about the abundance of human labor in the area that allowed employers to see no reason to utilize employees’ office hours; they could always hire someone else willing to work overtime for free. As the saying goes – if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.

 

The same inefficient use of resources happens all the time in other countries as well, like those where “Space” wasn’t a problem (my thoughts during my time in Europe); that people didn’t make use of the available space because there’s no shortage, if not plenty. In Hong Kong, we have drawers under beds, dining tables folded when not in use, washrooms with the size of a cubicle… as I couldn’t stress hard enough, it literally takes a few years worth of savings before you can afford your own standing space; the latest calling price is HKD$70,000 per square foot in TST (boy were they serious when they say every inch of earth is covered with gold around Hong Kong…).

 

All five of us agreed we couldn’t really imagine ourselves settling in a city where shops closes in mid afternoon for naps at three (*cough* Athens *cough*), or shuts down right before dinner time at 6 (like many areas in Europe), but we could live without the 24-hour McDonalds and Park-n-shop supermarkets. Employers have too much bargaining power, and employees of the older generation have no life to begin with (so no complains there), while we, the spoiled Gen-Ys, by seeing the world with our own eyes occasionally or simply by surfing the internet, are getting a better picture of how other cities operate, hence making a comparison and are inevitably discontent with certain living conditions… there really is nothing for us to do but to relocate if we don’t want to sell our youth for money but end up having no time to spend it.

 

Ah, the trade-offs…

 

 

 

Graduation Trip Day 4 – Chania, Crete Island, Greece

We landed at Chania airport at around five in the morning. It was sort of amazing to me how small an airport could be; get off the plane, take a bus to the airport terminal, enter room to get luggage, exit room and see a parking lot with buses lining around. We didn’t know which bus to take to the coast so we asked around. The drivers did not understand a word of English; basically just by opening our mouths made them shook their heads. Fortunately there was this lady who could speak in Greek and English so she helped us find our bus. After it left the airport, a conductor of some sort slowly asked the passengers for the bus fare. Since I was one carrying all our money and keeping track of our expenses, I gave the guy our fare. The guy stared at the note, with this are-you-kidding-me look on his face, and then Carman pointed out I gave the guy Pounds instead of Euro. I had already separated the two currencies, but out of habit I took money out from the same purse… he must be thinking “stupid Japanese people” in Greek when he handed me back my change.

 

Finally we arrived at the bus terminal. Since I didn’t know anything about Chania or anything about our plans in Greece because that was supposed to be Janette’s area, I couldn’t help with the asking-around; where were we or how should we get to our hostel and anyway the three of them were working on it. Naturally I was pretty angry with Janette; it was six o’clock in the morning, we were completely lost and no one speaks English or Chinese, she didn’t have the address of the hostel, basically had no clue how were we supposed to get there from the bus station… finally we found our way to the old Venetian Harbor. Then we realized that Janette didn’t even have the name of the hostel, which she thought I would have printed out because she sent me the email between her and the hostel staff as I said I would print out all our hostel bookings, which were all done by me except this one, and I’ve send her the list of address and info on the places we were staying, we checked all the printouts at the HK airport and she said nothing… I decided to let that go, while she was holding her PDA walking around, trying to see if she could use WiFi and check her email. Finally she produced a name, so Amy and I went to search for the hostel by looking at the names in front of the buildings, leaving Janette and Carman to guard our stuff. Fortunately it wasn’t far and I found it, yay.

 

Hostel: Ifigenia Center

We’ve booked a 4-person room with a sea view. Considering the room cost 90 Euros per night split between four, it was a bargain. The room wasn’t ready yet and the owner was so eager to prove to us how great the place was. He showed us up to the balcony beside the roof, which all four of us quickly decided not to visit again because of the wobbly stairs leading up to the balcony. After a few minutes, the room was ready. The owner unlocked the door and proudly said “Welcome to Paradise”. It was Paradise – there were beds and a bathroom. Then slowly taking everything else in, it was a very nice room: two single beds and one double; windows overlooking the whole harbor; teeny tiny balcony cramped with two miniature chairs but very cute; a fridge; a bottle of unidentified alcohol and champagne; and a Jacuzzi. Half of me was happy that Janette found this place, another half worried that the other places will appear dreadful after our stay here in Chania… We all were desperate for a shower, so we spent two hours in our room before going out (note to self, don’t let Janette shower first again if possible, because she needs an hour, me half an hour, Amy ten minutes and Carman five…).

 

Naval Museum

The first place we’ve gone to was the place that has the word “museum” in front of it, was right next to the hostel, and free of charge – the Naval Museum. There were a few artifacts, a few black and white pictures and that was it. I think there was a session that you pay to get in, but we didn’t think it was worth it. Right up the Naval Museum is a fortress of some sort, and we get to see the whole coast from above. The weather was heavenly; just enough sun to make it a great summer day without the feeling of being roasted; the cool breeze might be a bit strong for some people, but I absolutely loved the wind and found myself laughing just because I felt the wind on my face… I looked down the fortress and see a line of school children, walking with their hands on the shoulders of the kid in front of them, the line moving like a colorful caterpillar. Looking at them sort of reminded me how it was like playing under the sun with my brothers… it’s funny when even though you don’t necessarily want to go back to the life then, you still sometimes miss just being a kid.

 

The line of school children

Just outside the museum we were trying to take pictures of all of us and another tourist come over and offered to help. He spoke a few words in Cantonese and it shocked the hell out of us, haha… turns out he and his wife are from the UK but has lived in Hong Kong for a couple of years, are now retired and wanted to travel for a bit. We’ve chatted for a while, talking about places we planned to visit and places in HK like Tsim Sha Tsui and Causeway Bay…

 

The coast

Streets and Shops along the coast

Since we get to use the kitchen back at the hostel we decided to cook dinner ourselves and so we looked around to see where we could get the ingredients. I think it was the sunlight that made ordinary things looked extra pretty and nice; there were a lot of interesting little shops with crafts, paintings, jewelry, ceramics… etc. The only girly shopping that I do like is shopping for jewelry, and not the plastic or the bling bling kind, but rather has a certain style to it (primitive / raw / combination of colors / design / the material…etc.) … and there were so many jewelry shops with great designs. However, because there were too much to choose from, I ended up deciding not to buy any until either the price or the piece is absolutely perfect.

 

We were looking for a place to have lunch when we ran into the English couple again at an outdoor restaurant. They were almost finished with their meal and the guy said the food there is good, so with the recommendation and the price was reasonable, we tried it out. We were still pretty unfamiliar with how restaurants work; they gave us bread and butter while we weren’t exactly sure if we would be charged extra because of that; when they knew we weren’t going to order drinks they gave us water, which also made us wonder if we would be charged for that too… after our meal we asked for the bill, and together with that the waiter gave us our desert, a small bottle of transparent liquid and mini jugs. Not sure what it was, we asked our waiter what it was.

 

“Water. Don’t smell, just drink.” he replied with a grin before getting back indoors.

 

We knew it was alcohol of some sort, but wanting to try everything at least once, Amy poured everyone a jug full and we drank… Carman took a sip and choked. I finished my jug at one go; it tasted as strong as XO though I doubt it really is I didn’t feel warm or blushed or anything; and I’ve decided that small jug is enough to make me stay away from it in the future. Janette, who apparently has loads of drinking experiences throughout university, embraced this new alcoholic beverage and she convinced Amy to drink with her… and to reenact the scene where the waiter said “Water. Don’t smell, just drink”. They took a few takes so they pretty much finished the whole bottle. They were laughing pretty hard and kept on repeating the phrase I thought the waiter might think we were making fun of him rather cruelly, since he didn’t understand what we were saying in Chinese, sigh… maybe I’m just overly sensitive.

Later we learned that it’s Raki, a very common local alcoholic drink which is much cheaper than water (so that’s the unidentified alcoholic drink in our room ^^).

 

Indoor Market

Amy and Carman tried to locate the museums and local attractions but gave up after the first museum seemed more suited to be a shop and there were so many other things to see just by walking around. We paused at a shaded spot to reapply sunscreen which I thought would look pretty comical if I saw four tourists so concentrated on rubbing themselves on the streets. Janette had plans for us to go to the Elafonissi beach the next day so I kept an eye for a summer flowery dress my mom told me to get. We went into this shop and bought a plain blue-green dress from this hard-looking couple (considering the price and other things I really should have saved up and bought jewelry instead, sigh, but never mind). I guess I was too tired to think straight, because when we were at the cashier to pay, the owner asked where were we from, and after answering, I returned the question, asking where was he from, which shocked him and his wife. His wife arched her brow when she answered “From Greece.” Janette quickly came to my rescue, saying that because their English was so good, they didn’t sound local, which pleased the owner tremendously and began telling us he studied in England for awhile… after leaving the shop I thanked Janette for getting me out of trouble. She asked why did I ask such a question. I didn’t really know why, but I guess it was more of a reflex, asking where someone’s from…  

 

We found an indoor market, but it was already three o’clock… most shops close for around two hours in the afternoon (to take naps?!?!!), and opens again at half past four or five… then they close at six or seven. Fortunately there were still a few shops opened, so we bought souvenirs (bought a jar of honey for my mom, but had no clue what to get for my brothers… olive soaps?), postcards and some herbs to cook pasta. Then we headed to a travel agency to get bus and boat tickets, and the supermarket to get the other ingredients for our dinner. On the way there were so little people on the streets I wondered where everyone has gone to… do they really take naps in the afternoon??!

 

Lighthouse

We took a rest in our room before leaving for the lighthouse to see the sunset. The three of them took a small nap while I recorded down our expenses and checked if everything was okay money-wise (and if I’ve slept, no way am I ever going to wake up). At seven, we slowly head for the lighthouse.

 

A tiny fraction of what I saw in Chania

The weather was fantastic; the royal blue sea… everything was so picturesque. I always loved the sky and sea… I’ve always thought that the images on postcards were edited with Photoshop and hence the brilliant contrasts and heavenly colors… but I saw for myself that the postcards were no exaggeration… in fact they didn’t do the view I saw justice; it was breathtakingly stunning. If I were on my own I would sit there for hours just staring at the sky and sea, waiting for night to fall… and it brought me back to the night I sat at the pier in Tai Po, feeling both overwhelmed and at peace at the same time… I was utterly in love and I promised myself to return someday so I can properly take in everything. 

On our way back to the hostel, I thanked Janette for making me coming to this trip. I originally was hesitant about going; whether I should spend almost all my savings on something that wasn’t necessary; that I should stay in Hong Kong and find work as soon as possible… and people have asked us why would we go to Greece as the ticket going there costs a lot more. But since we had to get our tickets before mid March, and because Janette insisted that she wanted to go to Crete Island and Santorini, I had to make a decision. As I didn’t have much of a preference, I let Janette choose the cities we visit. She said very few people in HK knew about Chania; it was only because some Taiwanese came and highly recommended the place that the only Chinese who went there were Taiwanese.

 

It was already 10 when we finally got back to the hostel and start preparing dinner. We found there were no stoves and the lights in the kitchen were so dim. We asked the hostel staff for help; he managed to produce a small but wobbly stove and helped us light it (and nearly burned himself…). After enthusiastically suggesting that we should cook dinner ourselves, it didn’t occur to me that Janette didn’t know how to cook… we later realized we forgot to buy milk to make the sauce and there were only sugar in the kitchen, no salt… fortunately I’ve saved up the packets of salt, pepper and milk from our meals on the plane (also butter, jam, and utensils…), which caused them to start calling me “Mom” (Me keeping accounts and Janette asking me for money to pay for stuff doesn’t exactly help things either).

 

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Just before bed, I looked outside the window for awhile and climbed into the covers, suddenly feeling so contented.

 

Chania...

Graduation Trip Day 3 – London, going to Chania

At some point I realized there are way too many things I want in life and they are impossible to coexist…

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So apparently not waking Janette up yesterday night was a big mistake. She never thought that I wouldn’t wake her up because she was wearing contact lenses when she lied down on the bed. So she nearly had to go though a surgical procedure to have the lens removed from her eyes this morning. I told her all I knew was how tired she was so I let her sleep; not needing contact lenses myself, taking it off wasn’t the first thing that reached my head when deciding whether or not I wake a person up. Only half jokingly, I also told her I was afraid she would slap me if I woke her up.

 

I continued to help Edith translating her piece before we go out and find Apple and her sister. Yesterday night I was so tired that after I washed my hair I went straight to bed. So this morning I had head hair. Edith lent me her hair curler and I tried my best working around it without a mirror, basically turning a flat mess to a big mess. While I was typing away on the keyboard Janette helped me with my hair (that’s how horrible it was). So when I was finally done and got up and look at the mirror, my immediate reaction was “I look old @@” meanwhile the other two told me how feminine I looked. … .. . So on our way to go to meet Apple and Rainbow I kept on pulling my hair to straighten it… which was smart because Rainbow was in fits of laughter when she saw me; I reminded her of our ceramics teacher in high school, and that got the other two laughing with her (Oddly, not the first time I’ve heard people say I looked like her).

 

Hyde Park Corner 

After walking around for awhile and not finding a supermarket, we decided to head back to the park and finish whatever Apple has in her bag first, which included bread, cucumber, salmon sandwich spread, ham, and actual apples. We found a nice spot to sit and began our picnic. Again the feeling of being in a holiday was very strange; all I had to do was to take my mind off things, relax and have fun (Hmm… how do I do that?).

 

It was extremely cold in the open area and someone out there was having some sort of a barbeque (I thought you weren’t allowed to light a fire in parks?). So after polishing everything edible we played games that involved jumping around, loads of laughing at each other… to keep ourselves warm. We were having so much fun that Janette and I were reluctant to leave. But we had to go back to Edith’s place to pick up our luggage and catch our bus to Stansted airport.

 

Bus Stop (Baker Street)

We were running late… and we didn’t know the exact location of the bus stop. So Janette was running, looking for the bus and I followed, trying to keep up. Finally we found our orange EasyBus, but we were five minutes late… fortunately the driver said it was okay for us to take this bus instead without extra charge. It was a three-hour ride… and I spent all that time listening to the radio and falling asleep. Finally we got to the airport and met up with Janette’s roommates Carman and Amy. We were just in time to catch our plane. Ahead of us were a five-hour flight to Athens, a three-hour wait at the airport, and then a two-hour flight to Chania of Grete Island, Greece!

 

On the plane, Janette and I were admiring the stewardesses (e.g. strong features which takes make up extremely well; perfect 1:7 head to body scale… I remember for a time I’ve been staring at people and realize most of us have a 1 to 6.5 ratio instead). I watched Bride Wars starring Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway, and was extremely grateful that I didn’t pay to watch it because it was boring, stupid, has no actual storyline (kind of a disappointment because I always liked Kate Hudson…) and ended up with the conclusion that since women getting married = women going crazy and immature, so maybe they shouldn’t get married after all.

 

Athens Airport

We decided to check if our bags weren’t directly transferred to the plane as we requested back at Stansted airport. However Janette saw how many people were waiting along the luggage belt and suggested us to stick around for awhile, just to make sure. Fortunately we did, because it turns out that Janette, Carman and Amy’s luggage were all there, except mine. One of the staff, who saw we were the only ones left waiting, helped me check. Then this lady kept on assuring us that they didn’t lost my luggage, they lost Amy’s (and all four of us stared at the luggage next to Amy); technically it’s mine because on the tag was my name. Anyway they finally located “Amy’s” stuff; it was the only bag that was directly transferred to our next plane. To make sure nothing was lost in transitions we decided to get it back.

 

Most of the seats were pretty much taken except for two. Carman and Amy decided to walk around the airport, while Janette and I wanted to get some sleep. Sitting on the chairs, I suggested that both of us to keep one leg on each of our cases so one of us won’t have to stay up to look after our stuff… then when I woke up and caught the old couple who sat across us staring, somewhat disapprovingly (It’s not like we were wearing dresses; Janette had leggings on and I wore jeans… but then our feet were at their eye level…). We slept some more on the next plane… so basically the whole night was us trying to accumulate at least six hours of sleep because we have a whole new day ahead of us, in Chania.  

 

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I told Apple how great it was that having a picnic can be such a casual thing, when in Hong Kong, everyone is so busy, it’s always so hot and stuffy outside during day, there’s no space in the city unless we go to the countryside… I hoped this wasn’t the only picnic I’m going to have in these couple of years @@. Despite the hectic life waiting for her at home, Apple promised that we will have another picnic back at home. Something to look forward to ^^.

Graduation Trip Day 2 – London

Apple, thank you for giving me back my sanity.

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Today Janette and I woke up early to meet up Apple and her sister Rainbow at Buckingham Palace to see “changing the guards”. We took the bus with Calvin as he was on his way to work and I looked out of the window, taking in everything while Janette and Calvin doze off. It is somehow unbelievable that I’m here in London, on a holiday.

 

Buckingham Palace

“Changing the guards” actually starts at 11:30 am but Kenny had warned us to be there way before 11 because of the crowd. During the wait, the four of us were taking the advantage of no one being able to understand Cantonese, looked around and talked openly about the people around us, stating our observations, and commented on how annoying the guy in front of us was, who managed to block all of our view simply by outstretching his beefy arms.

 

It was an odd feeling, when we were speaking in a language that almost no one around us would understand. It made me understand why when people leave their home country they would naturally bond with those who came from the same place. Other than the similarities in appearance, modes of thinking or language (the ability of comprehending each other in a higher level) but also the feeling of conversing in “secret codes” can be liberating and fun. However after awhile I realized I don’t like it; saying things you normally won’t dare to, just because they don’t understand what you’re saying and so “zero consequences”. Not to mention some take advantage and make fun of somebody else…

 

Basically we stood there for a few hours, looking at soldiers “marching” and took pictures of them. We noted how the big furry black hat on the leader is always taller than his troops; how some of them weren’t standing straight; some of them were scratching an itch; they were walking instead of marching… so the whole thing wasn’t very impressive. Still we did the (polite) touristy thing and kept ourselves busy by taking endless pictures – the building, the marching band (do they do this every other day or was it because it was “Coronation Day”?), police on horseback (didn’t know horses still plays a role in society other than in sports, gambling, or tourism?)… then Janette made a comment on one of the horses that was grey with small white patches all over, saying how extremely ugly it was (did she also say they should be removed/shot/something that I don’t remember?), and said it often enough to make me extremely disgusted for so many reasons… she didn’t mean it in a malicious way; simply to state how visual unappealing she find something, but still I can’t believe people can say such a thing and not think of the other implications such a statement can have. Then she moved on to how incredibly smelly horse dung is, and we began to discuss their diet and where the smell could come from.

 

House of Parliament and Westminster Abbey

From the Buckingham Palace we walked to the House of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. It was a very pleasant walk. On the way we pasted by Green Park (or was it Hyde Park?) and I looked at how people were lying around talking, or having lunch. Then I told Apple how this would never happen in Hong Kong because everyone is so occupied by work or studies… simply by walking along the path I feel so happy and relaxed and it feels so so nice, with the breeze and the sun… but it also feels weird because it has been such a long time since I weren’t rushing to places and there is this half guilty thing I’m experiencing because I’m not doing something “productive” with my time; a weird feeling she also shared for a while. I asked her if she had a picnic during her year in London (“nope”), and since we had nothing planned for tomorrow, the four of us decided to have a picnic at Hyde Park the next day.

 

We got to House of Parliament and according to one of the guards there, the debate that day starts at around four but usually people come an hour earlier to line up. Apple attended one of the debates and found it interesting but couldn’t stay awake half of the time, and after St Paul Cathedral I wasn’t sure if it was worth it to pay to get into another church. So we decided to take pictures of the two buildings and head for the museums while Apple and Rainbow went to buy stuff and prepare dinner.

 

Natural History Museum

Janette and I took the tube to South Kensington. We found a restaurant that had a sign outside that promised us we could buy lunch with a reasonable price, which naturally was the takeaway price. While Janette was trying to ask if there were ketchup in the pasta (cos she absolutely cannot stand ketchup or salad dressing) I was put off by the impatience the person behind counter has shown to us. When we left to find a spot to sit and have lunch/tea, Janette was telling me how she didn’t understand why they didn’t let us have lunch there since the restaurant was half empty. I understood what she was coming at but I thought since we weren’t paying the dine-in price and because of cultural differences, people don’t necessarily like to create crowds to fill up their shop/restaurant like businesses in Hong Kong do, and that pretty much enough covers a valid explanation (after typing all this down I just realized where her comment came from when we were asked what we thought of London later that day).

 

Before our trip we knew there were lots of museums in London that are worth seeing, and the Natural History Museum was one of them, but we had to pick so we just took pictures of the place. It was such an elegant architecture we almost changed our minds, but there were little time left so we hurried to the Victoria and Albert Museum, which was just nearby.   

 

Victoria and Albert Museum

I don’t know if it was because this was the first art museum we visited, but this is one of three museums I liked best in my entire trip. We first started off with I think is the History Period and Styles section. There were so many beautiful items that it was impossible to take pictures of every single one of them (though I dearly wanted to) so I only took those that I thought was extra interesting or could give me some new ideas with my own portfolio.

 

Walking through that section made me realize several things (or made a stronger affirmation of things I’ve known). 1. To truly understand art, you have to understand history; and History cannot be separated from Art.  2. I always thought that my artwork wasn’t really special because the concepts behind weren’t strong or interesting enough; I was more of the craftsmen than an artist. But I saw that there is a market for the sort of art I’m doing and I thought maybe, Maybe I can make something out of it instead of seeing art as part of my past. 3. I always thought there was a particular style or color scheme that makes a country’s artwork distinguishable from others, especially when it comes to Chinese art and European art. But there were lots of items that Janette and I thought were Chinese were actually from France or Holland… in some way it made me glad that at least in art, we aren’t so different and we are capable of influencing/learning from each another after all.

 

While Janette wasn’t into sculptures and went to look at the fashion section, I spent a long time looking at this one sculpture titled “Eve”, sculpted by Thomas Brock. It wasn’t only because of its aesthetic value, but what particularly moved me was how it was able to capture an aura of the quiet thoughtfulness, the simple elegance and grace of a young woman.

Eve - Thomas Brock (Photo taken by Mr. Hyde, Flickr)

 Afterwards we went to see the Stained glass section and the Jewelry section, both of which made me really want to try it out but don’t know where to in Hong Kong, sigh.

 

Russell Street – Apple’s Residential Hall

We were already running late when we left the V&A museum. By the time we managed to find Apple’s hall we were ready to drop dead on our feet because we were basically On our feet for the whole day. While Janette helped Apple and Rainbow with preparing our dinner (peeling potatoes, wrapping rolls…), I was trying to book tickets for the bus we were going to take to the Stansted airport, check-in for our flight, and send a detailed email to my parents (which was all I can do as I didn’t expect my dad would help sponsor my trip). 

 

Matthew Calvin and Edith arrived later with drinks, and while Calvin was falling asleep on the chair we talked. Edith asked what we thought of London. Janette and I both loved the weather, said how we noticed how difficult it was to find a trash can (in HK, whenever there were some festival or something big happening, all the rubbish bins in the MTR stations are removed and I knew they were afraid people would hide bombs and stuff, but the thought didn’t occur to me that this was an everyday fear of London people…), then I said I found London people impatient and not friendly. My comment caught Matthew and Edith by surprise as they said the British are the most patient people you could ever find; they could wait patiently while being stuck inside the Tube for two hours in the dark without a word. I told them about going through customs yesterday, buying food and stuff… I knew it wasn’t because we couldn’t understand what people were saying as both Janette and I spoke English (well, duh). I don’t know if it was just me, but I felt for a second there in Edith, Matthew and Janette’s mind, the word “discrimination” came up. I knew Apple had this big argument with them on the subject a month ago and I didn’t want to start anything now. Then Janette said she thought they were rigid in their way of doing things and that was it on our thoughts of London.

 

Apple and Rainbow made a feast (they are so going to marry well, hahaha…), everything was so delicious but there were a lot of leftovers… By the time we left her hall it was already past 11 and it was pretty dark outside. Apple walked us to the bus stop and on our way teenagers/people our age were yelling Cantonese at us (I was pretty impressed that they knew Cantonese instead of Mandarin). I understood why Edith and the others were worried about Apple awhile ago because she walked home in the dark alone. 

 

Even though Janette and I insisted that Edith and Calvin should have their bed back tonight, they were equally firm of them having to stay up and finishing their art pieces. On the bus ride Edith and I was trying to stay awake by talking while the other two were pretty much dead to the world. When we got back to Parsons Green Janette lied down in the bed and was already in such a deep slumber I didn’t want to wake her up to shower. I tried to help Edith to translate her work but my head was so stiff it would have to wait till the next day. So so tired…

 

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At the customs, when the officer didn’t bother to hide how annoyed he was with us when we were trying to find Edith’s address in our bags, his whole attitude was so unpleasant… and the first thought that reach to my head was “discrimination?” and I was extremely uncomfortable that I could so naturally, so easily land to that conclusion. There were so many factors why he was like that, e.g. it was early in the morning and it wasn’t like his work was particularly interesting; he probably have to deal with stupid people all the time… After some more observation and a bit of open-mindedness, I knew it wasn’t discrimination but rather impatience for those who didn’t know how things work there.

 

There are several reasons why the thought came so naturally, one of them being right before the trip I read Apple’s blog entry on her experience with an old English lady. If I remember the story right, they were crossing the road and she saw that the lady’s trolley was trapped at a crack on the road, so she went to help her. Instead she got pushed away by the old lady, snapped at her, telling the “Chinese girl” to go away, and that she was no help at all. Another guy came over and Apple left. When I read that I was so sad. I wasn’t angry at all, but sad because I don’t understand why “being different” is such a big problem.

 

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I don’t know if it’s a bad thing, but when I know I’m not good, or there’s someone better at something, I usually leave it to that person to handle (I’m a strong believer of specialization). When it comes to technical stuff, skills or knowledge, I usually trust others’ opinions/memory more than I trust myself. Therefore initially I left the map reading to Janette because out of the two of us, she’s the smart one. Since she insisted that she doesn’t know how to read maps either, we took turns. Because the way we comprehend things are different, I thought it would be easier if only one of us work out our location at a time. When it comes to asking questions, directions and stuff, I would have thought it would be better for me to do the talking. So it’s sometimes annoying when she couldn’t get her message across and have more people getting impatient at us. Sometimes I step in, sometimes I don’t… I guess I’m also a strong believer of letting people do whatever they want.

Graduation Trip Day 1 – London

In between the intervals of slumber on the plane I watched Seven Pounds, starring Will Smith. I felt his pain and I wondered what made him determined to kill himself in the end. Was it because he had lost his betrothed in the car accident and he felt he could never get over such loss; or was by killing himself the woman he was starting to fall in love with may live; or that he was already too far-gone with his plan to save other lives that he felt there was no turning back even if there was a possibility of him experiencing happiness again? Or that those lives were more worth saving than him living his own? But regardless of reasons, the feeling of pain is still the same, is it?

 

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After a very busy Sunday (Grandma’s place, tutoring session with Jack, school, bought stuff and showered, finished packing, lost and found Octopus card in the MTR station, and arrived at the airport exactly 2.5 hours before my flight), I was finally on my way to London; the first stop of my graduation trip.

 

Flight to London

The flight was more unpleasant than I thought it would be, which was understandable since the last time I got on a plane I was still a tiny eight-year-old. I remembered feeling cramped and was restricted to my seat for over 12 hours, which for me was agony. But I forgot all about the air turbulence… the possibility of crashing crossed my mind, but it didn’t bother me. Instead I was trying not to get “air-sick” by trying to sleep. However falling asleep was harder than usual because I had on this surgical face mask Janette insisted that I wore.

 

Even thought I’ve spent so much time planning this trip, I forgot to ask Edith how to get to her place from the airport. I didn’t want her to come over to the airport at 6:30 in the morning to pick us up. Fortunately London was easy to get around by the underground trains, aka the Tube. The lady at the information desk patiently helped us locate the nearest stop (“Parsons Green”) after selling us tickets to the sites we planned to see for the day. It took almost an hour to get there. On the way I was extremely giddy; kept on smiling while people with bored looks on their faces were going to work and our luggage were taking up a lot of standing space.

 

Our experience at Parsons Green Station has indicted to us that we better be prepared to carry our luggage up and down the stairs very often; Janette had this flight attendant sized luggage and a hand carry bag while I had a backpack and a 26-inch suitcase… while waiting for Janette to manage to hers down from the stairs (and someone ended up helping her), I asked for directions and the station staff gave us a small map and helped finding the exact street.

 

St. Paul’s Cathedral

After unloading at Edith and Calvin’s place (it was a bad time for them; Calvin was trying to finish his pieces for the fashion exhibition and photography in two nights, whilst Edith was trying to finish her final project of window display plus stage design, also in two nights) (and the water tasted really really weird), Janette and I headed for St. Paul’s Cathedral. I was surprised to find myself not particularly at awe. It was probably because it was different from what I expected and I’ve been to big churches before when I was younger. I saw this photo of the insides of the Cathedral (note that photography wasn’t allowed inside…) and was expecting to see a lot of brilliant colors. It’s not that I didn’t like the place but I decided maybe I just don’t get impressed very often… but then we didn’t pay extra to go inside other parts of the Cathedral so maybe we were missing out a lot of stuff.

 

The hall of St Cathedral was very spacious and very brightly lit with sunlight. There were engravings on the ceiling and paintings of angels. We went up to the Whispering Gallery and were greeted by warning messages along the lines “pregnant women or people with a weak heart might want to think twice before going up the flights of stairs consisting of 200 something steps”. I looked at the tiny stairs and said to myself “how hard could it be?”

 

Very wrong of me to underestimate the steps; the staircase was extremely narrow and it was only just right for my build (and I’m barely 5 feet 4…). Not to mention it was a swirling staircase and I got dizzy after awhile. When we were climbing down the stairs there were moments I had to hold on to the walls cos I thought I was going to fall even though I was just constantly stepping down. Meanwhile I had the opportunity to marvel at the universal stupidity and disrespect on display: writings, engravings… basically vandalism by tourists. Why do people do that? To prove you’ve been to a place? Why? And it’s not like there’s only one “Allison” on the planet. But then I should be grateful that someone has already done the dirty work for me and wrote “Jennifer” on the walls.

 

Leadenhall Market

After St. Paul we tried to locate this shop that Janette needed to get a calling card from. It was weird when we realized most of the stores didn’t have air conditioning and was very stuffy. After walking on the streets for quite a while, we gave up looking for the exact shop and went to compare the prices other places had to offer (in the end she decided to use my phone to call home instead). It was almost three o’clock and it’s been almost nine hours since our last meal on the plane. Fortunately we found the Leadenhall Market, a place where the Harry Potter movie was filmed for a few seconds, and bought lunch. In London, takeaway prices and dine-in prices were different… so Janette and I went to find a place to sit down and ate our pastas.

It was extremely windy and I laughed at how I had to keep trying to get my hair out of my face to eat. Weather wise, London was lovely; even under the sun it was very cool and breezy.

 

Tower of London

I don’t know if it was because of jetlag, but I couldn’t really appreciate the place. I understand that people have to preserve it and all, but the way things were presented made the historic monument look like a theme park instead of the genuine thing… basically parts of the tower looked phony. I compared it with Ocean Park… We got to see the royal jewels (Janette kept on reassuring me that she wasn’t greedy; she just wanted one of those big rubies/emeralds/diamonds there…) and got me wondering if all women literally love diamonds; we also got to see the shields of different monarchies. I was stunned to see such poor craftsmanship, but Janette insisted that those were made for display only (so why not have them better made?). However, both of us agreed that almost all of the lions on the shields, instead of looking fierce and dignified, looked very weird and comical.

 

Petticoat Lane Market

It was already late afternoon, around five-ish and I knew the markets in London would be closed by then. However, since one of the wheels on Janette’s luggage cracked we wanted to test our luck and see if we could find cheap suitcases there. As I expected, everything was closed so we headed for the tube and went to meet Calvin, Edith, Apple, her sister Rainbow and Matthew at Horborn for our pancake-dinner.

 

Apple promised to make me dinner the next day (yay~) and we walked to Matthew’s apartment to get extra pots and pans. The sight of the kitchen was Frightening: we literally saw tiny black dots flying all over the place inside a small room. It goes without saying that it was a very impressive sight. I never saw flies act like that; they were flying, almost circling the table in the middle of the room like a black hurricane.

 

Then Edith, Calvin, Janette and I took the bus “home” and all four of us struggled to stay awake… and I found out for myself how dirty London air could be when I blew my nose before bed.

 

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When I was trying to organize the photo albums at home, I realized most of the time photos are only precious when you or the people you care about are in it. I don’t know if it’s because I was exhausted or whatever, but I couldn’t bring myself to take photos of me… and while I watched her busy taking photos of herself and various places, and kept on asking me to take photos of her, I was slightly irritated. I was thinking, why on earth does a person need proof to tell people they’ve been to a certain place? It’s like not they were capturing a particularly memorable moment or so; everything was posed… (This was only the first day, and already I was irritated by her… but then I was tired, so I guess that made everything naturally irritating.)

 

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On the way to Edith and Calvin’s apartment from the airport, the feeling of “home” sudden hit me; the sun, the breeze, the sounds that I heard, reminded me of my childhood home and it felt so comfortable… they asked if I could remember things such a long time ago and I was so young, but it’s the senses that triggered those feelings, and that I wasn’t That young to have no conscious memory of Seattle; the last time I stepped foot there when I was eight, and I remember the first day of school when I was six and my brother’s first day of school when I was seven… I think for almost the entire first day (and the second) I was thinking how can I land a job in London; not that I particularly liked London (in fact, except for the weather and stuff, I don’t think I liked London on my first day there), but my body was telling me this was what home physically feels like.