Wong's Weblog

Sunday June 22, 2008

So I thought I would share with you a typical Sunday in the day and the life of Michael Ryan Wong.  Start off by waking up (I figure that’s a good way to start the day) around 10 (late because of a previous night of Karaoke but that’s a whole other story..) Got some breakfast which consisted of a ham and egg sandwich on white bread (chinese people don’t really eat much wheat).  Took the elevator downstairs and walked out to encounter a beautiful, clear day.  I was extremely excited because there have only been a handful of days where I could see the blue sky.  I take a short 10 minute walk to the pier and get on the ferry that takes me across Victoria Bay to North Point.  It takes another 10 minute walk from the pier to get to church (church is by that greenish building on the left).

After church I take the famous trolleys toward Causeway Bay where I go and meet up the family for sushi.

The trolleys are great for traveling through downtown.  It is also extremely inexpensive at $2 HKD.  The light rail in Phoenix will be similar to this.  I just can’t believe how much it is costing Phoenix to build it though.

Today, we are out on a hunt to look for the best deal on Wii for my little cousin so we head take a taxi to the pier in Wan Chai and take another ferry back across the Victoria Bay to Tsim Sha Tsui which has a pretty big mall right on the Harbor.  After we shop around for a bit I leave the fam and walk around and take pictures on this gorgeous day.

I feel so alive in this city.  The streets are always full of people walking around the city.  There is just so much energy when you see people walking around in public.  I’ve definitely grown to a liking of the urban enviornment as opposed to suburbia of driving everywhere.

I walked down the boardwalk and got coffee at what I would like to say is the best Starbucks in the world.  I got a Shaken Iced Venti Lemon Passion Tea.  It was fantastic.  I sat outside for 3 hours while I read a book,  while enjoying the incredible view of the bay and a nice cool sea breeze.

Afterwards, I took a walk to the MTR got on the train and met my family for dinner.  Took some more pictures and went home and called it a night. Actually this was not that typical of a Sunday as usually I don’t have such a beautiful day but this was truly one of the best Sunday’s I’ve ever had.

Helllooo!!

Hello there my friends. It’s been quite some time since I’ve posted on here.  My bad. Mi Mal. Wo Bu Hao.  There you go, I said “my bad” in three languages (techincally 4 because of Mandarin and Cantonese).  Well I’m guessing you’re wondering what’s been going on the past few weeks…Well to tell you the truth not too much.  I started private 1-on-1 tutoring sessions for Mandarin to get me a little head start before I head to the “real” mother country.  So far the lessons are going great.  I’m getting postive feedback form my teachers that I’m learning and speaking quite well so that is definitely encouraging.  They start off teaching you pin yin which is like reading english but obiviously some words are pronounced quite differently.  In general, Mandarin consists of 4 tones (techincally 5).  The tones vary from a high steady pitched tone, a rising tone, a tone that falls and then rises back up, a tone that drops from high to low and lastly there is a neurtral tone.  I’m really enjoying learning how to speak.  I definitely want to go on and learn a lot more languages now.  Now the difficult part at the moment is learning the chinese characters.  Did you know there are over 80,000 seperate characters in the chinese language.  80,000!! Um, English has 26…. Well I’m glad to say that I will not need to learn all 80,000.  Most of the 80,000 are seldom used in this day and age.  If I can learn 3,000 to 4,000 then I will be very good.    It is very difficult to study these characters though.  Some are similar and it’s like staring at pictures hours on end trying to match pictograms to an english definition.  It has gotten frustrating at times but I’m working hard to see how far I can get in this short time.

Other than the fun of studying, not too much has really happened.  The weather has been pretty terrible for the most part.  It has either been non-stop rain or hot and humid. When I’m talking about rain, I’m not talking about Phoenix rain, I’m talking about it’s some dude in the air pointing a fire hose down at you.  I must admit though, frolicking in the rain just isn’t as fun here in HK.  It’s not like the good old days of slipping and sliding all over the smooth concrete in front of the AMC at Desert Ridge.  So when it isn’t raining, it’s pretty darn hot and humid out here.  It’s about 33-34 degrees Celsius which is about 88-90 degrees Farneheit (i’m going to rant about Farenheit here in a bit) with about 90% humidity.  It feels like I need to shower every other hour and if you know me, you know how often I “normally” shower… So I guess humidity and I have a love hate relationship except for the fact that I don’t love humidity and the fact that I hate it.

First Rant: So about Farenheit..  Guess how many countries in the entire world use Farenheit?

Answer = 1

Guess which country that is.

Answer = Good ol’ USA

Second Rant: How many countries don’t use the metric system?

Answer = So, that is the end of my rant.  Anyways, I’m still enjoying my time out here.  Trying to keep busy with Misc things.  Thanks to everyone that still checks up on the blog and for the birthday wishes if I didn’t get back to you.  I miss you guys back in the US but I’ll be back before you know it.