Jenga nights!!

Here's the game that I'm totally buying for all the members of my family for Christmas. All of them! I don't care how all they are. This fun. 

So things in HK are still good. Busy, busy, busy. You know, the financial crisis, markets going crazy and all that Wall Street stuff but despite all the craziness and the long, long work hours I'm still enjoying the place. 

Haven't been doing much lately than trying to relax and enjoy weekend with friends, going out for dinner, drinks and shopping. The 3 basic things one gotta do in Hong Kong. 

Still waiting to find my mysterious bold guy from the concert, lets call him LD, but I'm sure he will show up somewhere at some point. Come on! this is HK. 7 million people in a little tiny place. Also, my gym guy, Joe Bradley, has disappeared. I guess he doesn't like training that much.

Next thing to do is planning my trip to Borneo. I'm going there for a week. Vacation! Yuhuu!! I can't believe it. Haven't had one of those since march in Vietnam. Can't wait to see the monkeys, enjoy the beach and do nothing for 7 full days. 

Rebeca is coming from Paris and she'll spend a week in HK and then we'll fly to Kota Kinabalu and back to HK for her last weekend here. Really, I can't wait!

Besos para todos

Junk boat trip, kayaking around Cheung Chau and more...

So yes, I'm back and doing a lot of stuff! and I keep forgetting to update the blog. ugh! Also, I've been pretty busy with all the olympics stuff going on, but I know.. no excuse... so here are my latest photos of my new life in HK. And yes, I'm still LOVING it. 

August has been an interesting month. I went on a junk boat trip. We sailed around Sai Kung. Just beautiful! And I could swim in clear-clean water. Water quality in HK is a problem. It's so polluted that even if some of the beaches are pretty amazing here I wouldn't swim in most of them. Sai Kung is different. Clear. Blue. Green. Beautiful. I plan to go back next weekend and do some windsurfing. 

We also had a couple of typhoons coming over Hong Kong. Everybody is so excited about typhoons here that's even funny. The whole T1, T3 thing... and then T8. And the whole city shuts down. I think only Starbucks is open! No one goes to work. The Stock Exchange is closed . Kind of phantom city, except for the few bars that open during T8 and give you the shots for free! We had a T9 a couple of weeks ago (Nuri). That was wild. 

But typhoons only last about 1 day, maybe rain the next one and then, the sun is back. I'm kind of surprised how good the weather has been.  Sunny, warm, clear. Nice. 

I went kayaking last Friday (Cheung Chau Fridays!) with a friend around Cheung Chau island. And when I say around, I really mean it. How many people can say the kayaked around a whole island? Me! It took about 2 hours and a half, no bad at all. It was fun but as I say, water is d-i-r-t-y. Still, worth doing at least once a month. It totally feels like being on vacation. The bikini, the shorts, the flip-flops. Man, I really like the place. And the food in that place is awesome. I had vieiras for lunch!

Emily and I decided to start a list with things to do just in HK. We got about 2 pages filled. And another one with "Countries to visit while we are in HK". We've got 13 in the list. But I'm sure we are missing some... 

Anyway, here are some photos of what's been going on for the last month.

Back in town...

After the summer break, as you all know I went back to spain for my brother's wedding, I'm back in town. Typhoons and rain are gone and it's hot now. Hot! 

So I've decided to get in one of the ferries and go to an island near hong, Cheung Chau.Very nice place. Calm. Relaxing. It has a pretty decent beach, though it's too hot to just lay down there. 

I basically went there for lunch (ok, and some shopping). Scallops and noodles with schrimps. Not bad, but I wasn't very impressed either. I guess I'll have to go back and try again...

Here are some photos of the place, if you want to check it out. 

Hong Kong is fun!

I just got home after a great night out. I was supposed to meet the friend of some friends for drinks tonight, and I thought: good, finally, I can actually go to a bar with someone and not seat alone for the next 2 hours but that friend called me to postponed the meeting so I ended up another saturday night alone wandering the streets of HK.
I decided to go to the sports bar where I use to watch the Euro 2008 matches and have a beer. They were showing rugby. I know nothing about rugby but I watched the game for a while. South Africa against Italy. It was ok. I guess I just like sports and I can watch anything without getting bored for a long time. Even snooker.
Anyway. So this guy sits next to me and after a while we starts talking. The good thing about HK is that every time this happens, you don't feel like you are being harrased (or whatever the word is) or anything like that. Its just people talking to people. Period. (totally different than in Europe)
So we talke for a while, we had drinks, very interesting guy and then after a couple of hours talking he asks me if I have ever played the chinese dice game. I say: what?
So he pays the bill, gets a cab and in 5 seconds time we are in the taxi towards the other side of town to go to a chinese bar to place the dice game.
It was fun. It's just a guessing numbers game but I have to say I really enjoyed it. The whole thing. just meeting someone who shows you something new, even if it's a plain thing and you can actually laugh and play for hours (actually 3!) and have a lot of fun.
Anyway. This city is filled with a lot of interesting people. I wont' be able to meet them all but I wish I could.

So, I thought I'd had a lot of time to update the blog every few days but it turns out it's harder than what I thought!!! I spend most of the day at work and when I'm not there I try to find some furniture and stuff for my (little) house.
Man. Flats are small here. And when I say small I really mean it. My life is so disorganized right now! I need to take some vacation to finalize all this inter-continental moving!! But I'm really loving the city.
Every time I take a cab at night and go thru all this incredible place... oooommm, I fell really good. I'm loving it. I can't describe the feeling but it's good.
I haven't met a lot of people yet but I will. Despite being a city with 7 million population it's quite small, and I feel as if I have already seen the same faces around 3 or 4 times in 1 week.
On Friday I went out to meet my colleagues for a drink. It was pouring and I got lost. I went into a bar I know and ask for the street. No one knew the place but everybody took out their blackberry, gps or whatever they had and try to find it. It was surreal.
Then, when I was again at the street under the rain, with my wet paper map on my hand I hear a voice: do you need help? oh, man. I do need help! specially if it comes from you!! Cute, CUTE guy. French. He gave me directions. I got lost again. And when I was trying to find my way back to the place, I bump into someone and... cute french guy again. Twice in a night.
On Saturday I met an interesting french guy (yes, another one. lots of french people over here apparently), while we watched the match, spain agains sweden (not many spaniards in the bar, but plenty of swedes). He was with some friends. All nice. Smart. Funny people. Hopefully I'll see them again. Though next time Spain plays it will be around 2:45am HK time!!
Anyway, I'm really enjoying this!
By the way, it keeps raining.

Rain, rain, rain

It's official: It's rain season.
Since I got here from Brussels, it hasn't stop raining and basically every night there's a storm but last night.. oh, man, I thought for a second the hotel was collapsing as I felt it shaking for a while. But it could have been only in my dreams. The thunderstorm was real though ( and the lightnings) and this is the vision I got this morning on my way to Starbucks to get breakfast.
Half of the city was flooded. Torrential rain was pouring down for hours on Saturday morning. (sorry abou the quality of the picture but it was so humid I couldn't get my camera to work properly... all pictures are foggy)
r.

Mi caaasaaaaa... teleeeeefonoooo

Hola chicos, que tal?
Por este lado del mundo todo va fenomenal. Poco a poco se van solucionando todos los problemas tecnicos y quebraderos de cabeza que supone una mudanza (intercontinental) y una se va adaptando al ritmo de vida hongkonesa y a la ciudad. Lo mas importante que os tengo que decir hoy: ya he encontrado piso!!!!
Siiiii, despues de ver como unos doce pisos (si se les puede llamar asi) finalmente he encontrado uno que no esta mal. Pequenito, o tamano pitufo, como le llamo yo, pero muy apanhao.
La mudanza danza sera sobre el 16 de junio, aunque teniendo en cuenta que solo tengo 2 maletas conmigo, no creo que sea muy dificil de hacer...
Por lo demas todo va estupendamente. Esta ciudad cada vez me gusta mas. No para. Siempre hay movimiento, gente en la calle. Me da muy buenas vibraciones. Me da la sensacion de que llevo aqui toda la vida...Anyway. que estoy de lo mas feliz!!
Ah! y ya tengo numero de telefono chino! pero eso casi mejor que os lo envio en un email que tampoco es plan de ponerlo en el blog y que se me colapse la primera semana (y no por vuestras llamadas, ejem, ejem, si no porque en este mundo cibernetico tan amplio hay mucho pirado suelto...)
A ver si este fin de semana hago algunas fotillos, porque la verdad, desde que he llegado, entre el trabajo, bancos, pisos, oficinas de inmigracion y demas no he parado ni un minuto!
Pero el sabado y domigo es el Dragon Boat Race!! Y eso que es? Pues nada, a esperar hasta la semana que viene para que os lo cuente y que vosotros lo veais...
Muchos besos chinos
r.