God Jul (merry Xmas)!

From Jonas and Bruce Lee in Hong Kong!

City of Lights (in China)

I'm currently visiting Ocean, my friend from Suzhou.

We are in: zhongsang guzhen, guangdong province, china. This is the city of ligths! 70% of all lighting equipment for the whole world comes from here. Every street is lined with shops just showcasing lights from the 7000 factories! In most cases, you can't even buy one lamp! 100 minimum! I've never seen more lamps in my life! My friend is thinking about starting a small factory, he takes short various jobs in the different companies to learn all aspects. I wish him success.

SInce the city is full of light shops, it's almost difficult to find anything else. Each shop has several floors just showing more and more models. A shop costs about 500 000 yuen (70KUSD) a year in rent. Often a shop may "rent out" a wall to one manufacturer and the ceiling to another one.

Since my friend knows the cost of manufacturing he tells me that an "expensive" chandleer  may cost only few hundred yuen in parts, it sells for maybe 2000 to wholesaler and then 6000 in a shop!

Oh, and there are shopping mall empty of people but full of light shops, 7 floors or more! Many shops have 3-4 girls just sitting waiting for customers.

--
.sigh

At last - China!

I'm doing a small trip to China before my visa expires. It's funny being here. People are smiling!

Guangzhou is a big city. There may be some asian games going on, but I'll go away before then. I'm going south to visit my friend from Suzhou.

I've had dumplings + 2 tea eggs + a soy milk for 10yuen (10 SEK!) it was good! (pic)

I've seen the mascots being used for commercial photographing (pic)

A nice street size restaurant, which just makes my heart throb of it's simple beauty! (pic)

Chef cooking seen from the street, restaurant behind. (pic)

Yes, if you go tourist/shopping areas somebody will try to sell you WATCH!

they: "Hello WATCH!"

me : "Goodbye WATCH!"

but, when passing people on the sidewalk many smile, and they say "hello" - "Ni Hao!", little thing but nice.

The rest of the evening I spoke with a music/singing student, over my dictionary, that works too, it's not the WPM (words per minute) that counts, it's the communication and feelings behind it.

good night!

--
.sigh

Time for tea

As of today Hong Kong is getting a bit colder.  In the night it may well be 9C! So i warm up by drinking some traditional gong fu cha (kung fu tea).

Philipino girls and Hong Kong guy

I see "gangs"/bands of philipino girls looking like male rockstars, and guys dressed very colorful wearing their golden shoes, shiney pants/business suits(!) with a small  (man?)bag or large Gucci bag.

Golden Thousand Year Old Egg

This is a strange variant - it is golden! Still have a bit if the amonia smell. But the transparent yellow "white" my hk friend have never seen!

hong kong style...

Hong Kong style western style steak!

62 hkd including soup, bread, drink.

cows are Vegetarian, so it should be fine ;-)

the question mark meditates

is everything clear?
is everything simple?
so it is

Teatime!

Vegetarian demonstration for swedish meatballs!

OK. This day. That thing. Define complicated. Complications is in the mind. I'm choosing simple and later. At least im in good health and no complications there now. Today I passed a demonstration. Not sure what about? These aren't uncommon in Hong Kong, so I feel just like in San Francisco. Just a few more asians!

I choose to pass by a small Ikea outlet and get a snack. Its about 2sek/meatball.

I'm sitting on a bench in a park. Its Filipino-Sunday! its the only day of week for all filipino housemaids. So they go picnicing everywhere.

As for the meatballs they become "vegetarian" when I eat them as they are transformed since I'm "vegetarian". Right?! :-)

Sometimes I feel alien (now with pics)

And that's a good thing as one can challange whatever we think we know.

No I'm not getting married.

Shanghai style dumpling

Silently delicious!

Sometimes you learn new things: shroff

Means something like moneychanger in the far east. Its funny because the personification i think. In Malaysia you see the word moneychanger. Here payment counters seem to be "shroff". It comes from Arabic referring to a tester of coins.

Being in asia

In spight of the last trouble, I enjoy being in Asia. I seem to smile more. Even in Hong  Kong where people bustle around. When others rush I'm more aware of it and can choose to slow down. Yesterday was busy, had stuff to do, today I take it cool. Just had a snack, more healthy this time.

Extension cord bliss

You know when travelling in different countries how difficult it is to charge all your stuff. Maybe you only have one converter and if you buy something new you may have a new problem.

Well near temple street i found a small solution - it allows any plug. Even hk/English as well as Australian, EU, USA!

Meditating samurai

I'm not sure why I think of this as Japanese meditating samurai.

These simple pics I did on my nexus one. But today its in for repair. So I have an old replacement phone 1.6.

If Picasso was meditating?

Maybe he'd look like this?

Today I'm moving to small room I rent for some weeks. Its central, at times square on Hong Kong island. Its shared with some people I haven't met. We'll see how it is. New perspective.

Happy now

I've just visited the doctor. The leg is healing fine. Can walk fine. But need to keep it high when sitting down. Plan to stay on Hong Kong for about a month to rest and not hurry. Looking for room or apartment...

Sometimes our perception is wrong

I'm on a meditation retreat in Hong Kong with Thich Nhat Hanh. The dharma talk yesterday about how wrong perception and thinking creates suffering and  unhappiness.

In this case the box contains apples, but the sign says banana. This is not very different from life the way we may live it. We choose something expecting and outcome, not always fulfilled.

QEH has booring food!

I've just spent a week in a hospital in Hong Kong. I'm out now. Still recovering...

Had some leg infection. You need some IV antibiotics and penicillin to take care of such stuff. Now, in spite of having to pay "fullprice" for my visit (like a more expensive lux hotel per day, which I don't typically stay in), the food wasn't fun. Luckily when sick, and lying still in bed, I'm not hungry. So I didn't eat to much. I nibbled on the veggies. They had the same veggies for all meals! Only one kind. See pic, the other stuff on the other picture I have no idea what it was - I didn't eat it.

For fun, Raymond copied me some movies to my hard drive, I also had Star Wars to watch... Had internet, Nexus One Froyo gives me wifi from my mobile data so I could use my laptop. But more fun, an infinitely more important, was all the friends that turned up: Doghood, Raymond, Tommy, Sai-Man, Worthless, Sam, Gabriel. Thank you all. Thanks to all the nurses who were working, as well as any nurse I now, or don't know! You're doing a great job!

For the next weeks I'll be taking it pretty easy, not much travelling, just stay HK area.

People on pics are Sai-Man and Tommy, thanks for the eatable veggies you brought!

--
.sigh

Unexpected meeting - Red Hat!

So, when travelling one sometimes bump into people in unlikely places. Now in Kuala Lumpur I was having something to eat and Noel happen to walk by! Noel work for Red Hat in Sydney and I've meet him at the Java users group where I've given a talk. They were drinking a rowboat (?).

In any case, I found my Hk lai cha, its called "Teh C" here. C stands for carnation, like the condensed milk.

First hotel with ample electric outlets!

Its amazing how many "fine", hotels have no power outlet to charge your laptop or phone. Often you need to unplug something. However, cheaper hotels like the one I'm in now usually have a few. Here I have four!

Now, time to look for mobile dictionary so I can order food!