Anecdotes of Home

I can't believe it's already been a week and a half since I got home. It has just flown by. But at the same time I felt I've done loads already. That's cos I have done quite a lot already. This is, afterall, Hong Kong.

I have definitely had a bit of reverse culture shock since I got back. There are a lot of things that one may hate, or love about Hong Kong. These are just a few things which I used to take for granted, but now find quite amusing/dispisable/laughable.

1. Building names - The number of buildings and high rises and apartments and housing estates can rival the number of hairs on Austin Powers' chest any day. But the most amazing thing about these buildings are the increasingly ridiculous names developers slap on them. Some are so gory and overly pretentious you just wanna puke. For example, just around the corner from where I live is Palatial Crest, or in Chinese - 輝煌豪園. Unfortunately I don't think its fit even for Princess Sam Lees. A newer estate I recently got to know, situated in Kowloon City, is Le Billionaire...!!! LMAO. I would immediately un-friend any friend who would choose to live in such a gaudily-named block of concrete.

There are loads others such as Bel-Air, Beverly Hills, the Arch (in Chinese its ACTUALLY named after Arch de Triomphe...and the building sort of has an arch in it), Manhattan Hill, Bellagio, Wealthy Height etc.

And myself? I live in the lovely Merry Terrace. :D

2. The MTR - I love love love the MTR. It is clean, fast, cool, and clean. But I hate hate hate the people who ride the MTR. They are impatient, rude, noisy and aggressive. Actually, you will realise this upon 10 minutes of landing into HK Airport, even before you get on the MTR, when you take the little inter-terminal transit train at the airport that takes you from your airplane to the arrival hall. Because a train every 2 minutes is not fast enough for the fast-paced HKer. And in turn, this behaviour makes YOU impatient, rude and aggressive. It's a vicious cycle. I think once I actually snapped and yelled at someone who was trying to push me back into the train as I was getting out. Lord have mercy.

There will (might) be more to come.