Back to China
so from the title of this blog you might surmise that i am going (or have gone) back to china again. the former would be correct, since i leave for china this upcoming friday for another week long trip that will end with a day or two free time in yet to be determined fabulous asian city. the default will be Hong Kong but as i am in the process of seeing if the company travel agent can land me a good "layover" deal in tokyo.... i'm still crossing my fingers to visit another place i've never been. similar to hong kong, this completely taking the opportunity presented disregarding the fact... or actually really assuming the position that this will be a rare occurence for my company to send me abroad... and squeezing everything out of it i can. i think this proposed extra 2 days in tokyo is kind of silly from a personal finances point of view because i seriously am aching for funds now but again... its the mentality that this will be a once in a lifetime opportunity so why not dip into the savings for such ... things like travel, experiences, and fancy dining are my weekness ... material things like iphones or such i can usually convince myself out of easily. of course it just ocured to me actually that with all this company reimbursed flying, i still manage to get all the mileage from both the flight itself and also purchasing the flight ... and just checking my mileage account, i've alreday garnered enough for a free international flight ... maybe i really shouldn't spread myself thin? we'll see.... as the tixs are set now i still ahve two days free so its either a hotel stay in hong kong or a hotel stay in tokyo... we'll see how the tokyo layover fare is. there's middle ground.
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in other news, work strangely enough has seemed "revived" a little bit. i've just been put on yet another project where it the managing principal made the comment that i was put on it "specifically" for what i could offer ... as opposed to just "creative labor" so to speak ... which is refreshing. maybe its just the agglomeration of things but there's a new sense of "professionalism" with my job in the sense of this travel, client interaction, heading in-house commitees on the firm approach to "green" practice... something more befitting someone on teh verge of turning 30. omg, am i growing up? noooooo.
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my parents visited me this past weekend, and for a change, i spent the weekend (what of it that was free) with them as opposed to another "party" with my friends. i love my friends but shaking it up is quite nice i have to say ... even if it is with your folks. i've also made the decision that in terms of my social life, i'm going to try to "get out there" a bit more. make some more new friends and broaden my circle a little bit ... and like robert laments... fucking get some SINGLE friends. the comments of "why don't you have a boyfriend" from coupled friends are starting to get old... seriously.
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does no-one really believe in the phrase "happily single"? or yet another level ... "happily NOT dating"?
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i ruminated about getting back into the "dating" pool so to speak but somehow something inside me still says that there are some other things more important to focus on first ... like really getting started on my licensure tests (which has become the #1 topic of discussion... or lecturing to be more precise... from my parents) and getting out there in the sense of making more friends... like real friends.
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a funny aside but now that i am "regularly" going to the gym, i get to see a lot more guys just in general. now, believe it or not, i don't really have the habit of "checking people out". chalk it up to my usual non-observance of anything not directly in front of me or occupying my immediate attention ... but seriously. i may glance here or there at a cute guy but i thinks its both rude and declasse to stare and on the flip side of that coin (or some other coin really) i think i don't have the balls to deal with the situation if the guy in question stares back. i "feel" this sentiment periodically when i "feel" like a guy is checking me out. hmmm... how does one say this without sounding like he thinks he's all that? basically, my horribly shyness i think makes me completely shut-down if i feel like i'm being checked out. instead of taking it as a compliment, i notice myself tensing up, putting on an ice queen face, mostly so that the other guy will "think" i'm not interested and stop staring. does that make sense?? of course, you are speaking to someone who has no "game" what-so-ever when it comes to meeting strangers... so what do i know.
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in a strange way, that feeling is related to what i feel was one of my most proud (or just novel) achievements while traveling last in hong kong. at the various bars and clubs i was out ... since i was in a situation i hardly EVER find myself in (being by myself in a bar/club (or any social situation for that matter)and knowing no-one) i actually struck up conversations with complete strangers ... with relative sucess i might add. but then again, i should also say that i chose relatively "safe" targets in the sense that it would be easy for me to NEVER give off the impression that i was just trying to pick them up ... i.e. i chatted up a couple and a man old enough to be my father's eldest brother... haha. maybe next time i might challenge myself to actually try to "pick up" a guy ... that seriously would be a big move.
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i know i'm almost 30 and way past any semblance of being a "newbie" on the scene, but i have to admit that i think i can count on one hand the times that i have been the "chaser" so to speak. well ... and old dog can still learn (or do) new "tricks".... haha. man that was more than just an "aside".
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so anyways, my next issue may describe an exciting tryst in Shingjinku (Tokyo) or Mong Kok (Hong Kong)... or for that matter bumfuck Inner China. fuck... my life is awfully fabulous lately isn't it? haha! yeah right.
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Just a blog ... in between
there won't be any particular point to this blog i think; i just thought that i hadn't written an entry for a while and that i should do so. but nothing "too" out of the ordinary has happened though so don't expect any bombshells to be dropped in this entry. my last entry was about my business trip to china and my ever so brief a moment in Hong Kong (for the first time). it was a great experience, short for sure.... but great as "just a taste". i wish travel could realistically be like the"chef's tasting" menus at fancy restaurants ... just a bite or two of something absolutely extraordinary. but lots of extra-ordinary-ness however. i'm debating with myself if i will "have" to go to china again relatively soon (which is a possibility) if i should make a return to hong kong or take the opportunity to visit another "must-see" asian city ... tokyo (or maybe seoul...although technically i have been there ... airport stop). tokyo definitely.
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i was looking over the sparse entries the past year or so (sorry, the fruquency of writing really is nothing like what it was when it first started ... but i guess that is what happens when you "grow up")... and realized that if 2007 should be characterized in any particular way ... or in my way of thinking... if year 28 of my life were to be characterized anyway ... it would be by travel. it pretty much started with gaycation 2007 (which in its 2008 version is being planned already!) in provincetown and a week in new york; then a return to new york in november, straddling both sides of the holidays were two trips to san francisco (and maybe one coming up for pride in june) and a small but fun weekend get-away to dallas (with friends).... and let's not forget new orleans for southern decadence ... and of course.... china and hong kong. the excursions have been nicely spread out at about one a month ... but ha... the frequency of trip is rivaling the number of times i blog ..... which seems to imply that nothing of real significance happens in between trips... haha.
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work? well, fun travels aside... i think its in general good. the itch to get off my butt and start getting ready for licensure tests is getting to a fever pitch now... and for good reason ... if i want my license by 30.... i MUST start by my 29th birthday ... which ahem, is not too far away. the test will take a year or so to complete and with administrative processing and all that jazz ... it'll definitely be a year ... anyways, it long time overdue.... seven years after graduation is enough to do the expected and usual five years of work to get a license and then two years for grad school. getting licensed after 30 will just start becoming more and more silly. but work specifically though? welll ... its tied into the impulse to get licensed and that is to just get something to be excited about and work towards.
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of late, i have found something of that type that i have been trying to push at work... with certain degree of success. this is what i'll call "my" green agenda .... and that is basically a framework of things the office can do to become more ecoologically responsible. i was integral in producing a "green wall" of ecological news for the office... and have spearheaded a recycling initiative as well at work. my main view of other people's response... everyone will go on and on about how important the concept is ... but few are really interested in getting things done or changing things. my next push (when i feel the recycling is getting enough inertia) is to act directly on purchasing. all of this stuff stemmed from the conversations the firm as a whole had back in october ... and i want to carry that energy forward. i'll admit i'm not the best spokes-person for the job ... but i just hope small actions will be noticed.
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a "challenge" i am thinking of doing is some modified version of "carry your own trash"... basically you carry all your non-recyclable, non-food, non-"hazardous" waste around... in a trash bag... with you... for two weeks. it not only opens your eyes to what you waste in terms of amount... but HOW you waste ... which i think is the key... the first step begins before you even receive the item.... of the holy trinity of eco-awareness ... reduce, reuse, recycle ... the first two often get overlooked because they feel ascetic in some way. like my cousins said.... you don't need to recycle your plastic water bottles if you don't drink bottled water now do you? more to come on this "challenge"?
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friends and family? well, my folks seem busier than ever now-a-days. teh temple project of theres is in full swing and never a day goes by that something pressing happens is seems ... from architects quitting or engineers saying the soil reports are wrong. i guess this how projects like this work. sometimes i wish i had more experience in architecture as a real profession to know how to help ... but most of the time all i can do is aesthetic stuff ... makes you wonder ... how do people get "good" at what they do?? my parents did visit me a few weeks back and the best part about having them stay with me for a few days is them telling me how WELL my new bathroom looked. i am quite pleased by the effort, enough to hold a little soiree at my place of course ... a very successful party if i can say so myself ... full of good food, drink, mirth, and friends! exactly how things should be. my "friends" have definitely been a saving grace of my usually dull existence (i wonder if thats a fair statement ... i've always though my daily grind is dull but maybe not so much?? i dunno). we do just enough little dinners, parties, celebration, etc... to keep things fun. hector has become a great friend to just hang out with although we don't really share much of each other i have toa dmit ... we're just good "hanging-out" buds. andy and epsecially kahl have been beautiful lately. spending so much time with kahl (via training and then taking him to lunch bc of training) has in a strange way made me feel like his relationship with andy is definitely something to be envied... to some degree of course.
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in general i feel like i've been getting a good "dose" of friends, not too much as often happens with me and my love of "me" time and not too little to feel like a social outcast. i do wonder though if i should actively try to find more friends as when andy and kahl move (which is a definite possibility) a huge portion of my "real" network will be gone ... which could be bad. by the way, hector and esau have resumed being friends and i sometime hear bits and pieces of the "prince's" life, but in general i think both of us have gotten comfortable (at least i have) that are friendship has ended and will not resume (as it did with hector and esau ... to my chagrin). my next "event" that i am looking forward to is the "one year anniversary of living in my home" soiree sometime in march or april ... like all my parties, it will be one to top them all... haha!
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first i'd have to get some cash though. post holidays and post property tax season ... i have found myself in distinct financial narrows straights of late. at least i'm not in the red but i'm certainly skimming that surface though. it has gotten to the point that saving isn't much of an option for a few months i would bet... at least i had put away money before and trying really hard not to dip into those funds. its amazing how a few unexpected costs (mouth retainer $500, aia costs $400, traffic tix $300, various travels $1000s.... haha) all of that stuff adds up. its kind of depressing because with the spring usually comes costs for cleaning up , freshening up, and sprucing up teh house and garden ... and i just don't know where that money will come from. what about the march soiree? maybe just a nice meal? haha. on that note i did make a little quick money with a small interior design job and also got my first comission check from market america (but now my per month purchasing requirement has doubled!)
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anyways, when do i ever let money "really" get me down? hmmm.... haha, what do i say? lets go have a steak! of course now... the thing is ... let's go have some grilled chicken. the whole health thing is still going relatively OK ... i allow myself some slips here and there but they are conscious slips and weighed in relation to everything else. and exercise has also gone well. i met some people i hadn't seen in months the past weekend and they all remarked about how it really looked like i had lost weight ... cool.
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hmmm...basically thats about it i guess. last week there was valentine's day .. i didn't have one. but thats ok... i think. with my luck, some great guy will land in my lap when i'm busy trying to study for my licensing exams and now when i might really be having all the time in the world the season is dry as as drought. but you know, its OK.... and i know i've said this enough to now sounds as if i am trying to convince my own self ... but i AM "happily" single. i met a couple in hong kong at a bar and when asked where my boyfriend was i said i was happily single. in march .. along with celebrating a year of living in my humble abode, i will also be celebrating a year of being single (not always happily of course).
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28 has been somewhat of an internal sea-change in the sense of how continents move... standing on them you wouldn't notice a thing ... but way up i the sky (and fast forwrading millions of years) the changes are vast. being 28 saw my personal life abruptly shift in terms of my love life... and if we look at the sea-change of losing esau as a friend ... also a shift in my social life. virtually all the people i use to hang out with (through esau) i don't anymore and along with ron not being in my world ... i think ... overall ... it has been a good thing. but i get the feeling like with many things in my life ... this in itself is also an "interim" condition. maybe that's why travel has happened so much this year ... it some sort of fateful recognition of the changes in my own life inside? going to all these great cities (SF / HK) has made me yearn for the nomadic lifestyle i use to live again but at the same time ... Houston as home has also really sunk in. i dunno, sometimes i do get the sense that there is something "in-between" about life right now ... not in necessarily bad sense as it may seem ... just as... and in-between state.
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i still remember telling esau over a year ago when i realized i was falling in love with ron that somehow i could see him being the gateway boyfriend ... meaning the boyfriend before finding my husband ... and maybe thats a subconscious reason why i've been really sort of consciously putting a new love interests on the back-burner. or maybe i'm just still afraid of being hurt? haha... always that possibility. but whatever the case ... i do hope... yes... hope... i am in-between great things ... great friends, great loves, great sense of being.
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Homeland ... well ... kinda
so i just got back from a week in china last night and suprisingly the "jet-lag" isn't too bad. i mean, sure i slept for 12 hours but i think it was mostly from laziness as opposed to actual exhaustion of any sort. so yes, if you're wondering whats up with the whole china thing, if i didn't mention it before ... sort of out of nowhere i had to go to china for a project i am working on at work. so after almost two years at working with swa, being originally brought on (i thought) to work on some chinese project ... lo and behold ... i actually am, and am going to hunan for a three day workshop. actually it turned out that the hunan leg of the trip was canceled because of these freak snowstorms that happened while we were there ... so we ended up doing the "workshops" in Shenzhen, which is the city in china proper right across the border from Hong Kong, which i visited for two days after the "working" part of the trip. overall, but especially about hong kong, i have to say the trip was a blast!.
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there were a lot of "firsts" i have to say regarding to this trip. the first of the first was sitting in first on the airplane trip over. haha, sounds immature of me, but hey... you're talking to a humble coach class boy here. i've only flown first class once on a fluke upgrade when i was like 12 years old... haha. but this time, the company sent us all business or first (well, from los angeles back to houston i did fly coach ... but mainly bc the travel angent couldn't book anything else). it was VERY cool. after this experience, i'll have to say without a doubt that if you're flying over 10 or so hours and can swing it, a business class seat really is worth it. but then again, its easy for me to say that as i don't pay for it .... and seeing that the ticket price roundtrip was like $4500 ... i don't think i'll be paying for it anytime soon either!! haha.
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the best part of flying upgraded i think is just being able to actual lay down to sleep .... the seats get to a pretty close to 0 degree incline ... very comfortable. the food is good in business but nothing stellar. what is good though ... is that business class also allows you to stay in the business class lounges at airports.... so even your wait is in style... haha. nice... when you don't have to pay for it!
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other firsts are of course, going to Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Shenzhen was a complete surprise to me. I know it sounds provincial of me, but Shenzhen's modernity completely surprised me... it is a bustling, gleaming, new, and modern city. On the surface, everything looks very western ... but of course, from the environment surrounding an "expat" business person (the business hotels, the business restaurants, etc. ... it would seem so wouldn't it). probably the coolest "urban" thing i did in Shenzhen was a relative short "flaneurie" in the "villages" ... these wonderful urban street markets in older pockets of the city... basically where "real" people lived and got on with life ... it was very cool... and in a strange way, eventhough looking like everyone else, i felt soooo self-conscious ... as if everyone knew i wasn't "truly" chinese.
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the actual "workshop" part of my time in Shenzhen was allright as well... lots of eating withc lients, working in my hotel room doing some sketches, and then sitting in loooong ass meeting while the principle showed this and that and another co-worker ... a more senior associate fluently in chinese ... translated. i didn't say much and i bet they were all wondering what i was doing there ... oh well. i am not sure what i was doing there either. but it was good.
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i was totally more hyped about going to Hong Kong though to be honest, and even though i spent at most only 48 hours there ... i felt i got to really know Hong Kong a lot better than my stay in Shenzehn, which was twice as long. but i actually got a chance to explore Hong Kong. The following are some pictures of the experience, that and some cool videos as well.... ENJOY!
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i found this sign in the Lo Whu border station hilarious. basically Lo Whu is the transit zone between the Shenzhen subway and the Hong Kong subway ... and since Hong Kong is technically a different administrative "zone", there is an "immigration" check. i wonder if before the hand-over, if this sign said "to a better life" ? ha
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the stunning opening scene of all that is hong kong, after i got out of the subway. this pciture was taken from one of the scores of pedestrian crossing 'bridges' that straddle dthe huge thorughfares in the city. that was the weirdest thing about walking around the city, it wasn't just a horizontal walk from a to b ... but often necessitated the third dimensions as well. a very interesting urban flaneur.
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.my "stunning" room view from my hotel. now, granted, i could have gotten a "harbour" view for $30 more a night ... but i figured why waste potential 3-4 more drinks just for a pretty view i might look at once or twice a night? i still found the little crack of light between the two building funny though... great view huh?
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i think this image is very "hong kong" in the sense that you really get an idea about how jammed pack with different things the city is. this was one of their larger parks in the city ...as you see, the park itself is beautiful and well coifed ...as coifed as the slick 80 story building behind it.
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see what i mean about dense? taken from "the Peak" ... the highest point around the harbour ... probably higher than that tallest building you see .... maybe.... not sure though. check out the video too... one from the top of the Peak, the other near the water on the Kowloon side, looking back at the Hong Kong Island buildings ... basically two sides of the mass of buildings.
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i have to admit, i have something of a love affair with urban signage. don't you love it too?
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"THE" view of Hong Kong at night, taken from the Kowloon side, right before the nightly laser lightshow ... that... despite bordering on the kitschy ... is kind of cool.
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this is a video of one of the most novel things about Hong Kong. it is called the central escalator or something and it basically is the world largest network of escalators that brings office workers from all the office high rises which are near the water to the residential high rises which are built on the slopes of the island. i guess the original idea was that it would be too hard to expect so many people to walk the incline or to expect enought cars to go up and down that relative small mileage and cause massive car jams everyday... just buila huge escalators that did the climbing for people. if its hard to understand ... you'll just have to see it for yourself. i've NEVER seen anything like it!
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anyways, it was a lighting visit to Hong Kong, but i feel i got a great "taste" of things. i saw both hong kong and kowloon, rode the ferry, the subway, a taxi, walked miles and miles probably. saw the peak, the waterfront. ate at local restaurants, tourist traps, and even mcdonald's. went to three gay bars/clubs ... had an overall great times. even chatted up some fun folk, no one cute, but just fun conversation. not to say there wasn't a lot of pretty bois around, because there definitely was ... but i wanted a more low key... just friendly... time... and i got it.
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despite visiting the city by myself, it wasn't nerve racking getting use to it and in the bars and such, the gay boys all seemed fairly nice. i "might" see myself living here... haha. whatever the case, it was short and sweet ... but i had a blast.
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and a business class trip home was just the rest i needed. ahh... back to the real world now!
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