Nothing

That is what I had planned for today (Saturday, April 26th) and I cannot TELL you how excited that made me. Friday was ostensibly a day off, but scheduling 2 apartment viewings, a lunch with a friend, and the new Jet Li - Jackie Chan movie, well, I was exhausted. So today, after sleeping late (YES!) I spent the afternoon in my extremely comfortable feathertop bed watching The Aviator before venturing outdoors.

That's my building, Shama Midlevels, to the left, which goes up to 21/F. I'm on 7 which in the US would be 8. Like I said, practically every building in HK is a sliver building. I mean, just look at the street to the right: the verticality of this city is insane. There's a reason that cabbies put the parking brake on during every red light. (And don't even get me started on the cabbie who spoke no English or Mandarin and got lost trying to take me back to my apartment earlier this week. I finally wound up walking home part of the way that night ... very slowly down a steep, curving [blind curve, natch] side street.) And the more apartments I see, the more I realize that I was very lucky in landing such a pleasant flat.

As for steep stairs, Rocky was a wuss: for a REAL training workout, he should have run up and down the aptly named Ladder Street or perhaps Aberdeen Street for a more scenic jaunt.

So okay, around 4pm (errr... I did feel a little slothful at leaving the building at that late hour) after bequeathing all of my butter, sugar, milk, etc upon Carli, the South African expat on the 9th floor, I toted my bits and pieces over to the office to await my return (tupperware, plastic wrap, measuring cups, etc.) It was also a chance to see if I could manage to take public transit to the office without getting lost. (Success!)

Then I wandered around looking for a place to eat near the famous Midlevels escalator (see pic on right) after I refilled my prepaid HK cellphone with some cheap minutes.

These semi-aimless meanderings often lead me to find interesting scenes like the electrical goods store on the left (holy...!) or the temple surrounded by high rises and "antiques" shops.

Appropriately enough, the temple is also framed by a backdrop of a real estate ad, for apartments owned by a hospital. (Tungwah Hospital actually owns quite a lot of properties... hmmm...) The photo at the bottom of this post will give an idea of the density of buildings here.

Oh, and you know how I mentioned that it's always humid here? Well apparently in warm weather, it's either humid, or on fire watch: which is so helpfully (and alarmingly) indicated by symbol #17 on the TV weather status ticker.

And I did manage to find a tasty tagliatelle dish in expat ghettoland (at one point I looked around and saw NO ASIANS) at a little cafe named Portobello. It's in HK's Soho, which stands for South of Hollywood Rd. (or perhaps more accurately: See Only Homogenous Occidentals).

Anyway, I've managed to pack AND do laundry (!) this evening, but not, er, write any postcards for the whole trip yet (except for one -- hey, I was too busy being worked to death!) so I will toddle off now, and FINALLY catch my twice-postponed flight home in the morning.