Around the World with a Mac

I just arrived so very early this morning. Approximately, 6 am to be exact. A fairly lengthy flight of 15 hrs from Hong Kong was filled with eating and snoozing. In my attempts to combat jet lag, I try to time myself so that I am instantly adjusted to Toronto time. It’s foggy today but the weather’s nice and cool. A calm sense of peace engulfs me as I ponder what has happened over the past few weeks. It feels like I have never left and yet I have been away for a month. I feel good to be home.. but I miss the travelling and I miss my cousins. It’s a strange feeling of being split right down the middle.

I will attempt to catch up on my blogging due to the lack of internet access during my holidays. It also gives me a chance to reflect on the pictures I took and an attempt to relive what I had experienced. All in all, it’s been a crazy adventure that just blazed with lightning speed towards the ending. 3 days in Singapore. 3 days in Pulau Redang. 3 days in Hong Kong. Now I have a time to catch my breath.

It’s been a learning experience. Comparing cultures and differences between the various countries on every aspect of society was fun and very enriching. I feel like I have discovered many details that I merely accepted or ignored when I was previously travelling. I had opportunities to visit tourist destinations that I previously missed. Plus I got a tan! Ok so it’s a little uneven… ok fine.. it’s god-damn uneven. But a tan is a tan.. and I got one! Now I’m looking forward to next year and where I might go next. I’m also pondering on when I’ll do it all over again in those same countries. I never got enough of action. It was merely 3 days.

What a day it was. I got over my initial discomfort of the hotel room. I figured I gotta really enjoy my last couple of days of vacation in Asia. I guess it takes me a little while to settle into a new place and so today that’s what I’ve done. Anyway, forget about that. My day in Hong Kong was spent with my uncle.. a long lost uncle.. It was the first time I had met him and boy, he was super enthusiastic. He works with the Customs Office and had just finished his shift from the night and stopped by to take us out. We initially planned to just have lunch but ended up walking around with him. While it was nice to have him around, I think it kinda restricted our movements somewhat. Nonetheless, it was great that we went to so many places.

First stop was Tsim Sha Tsui. A lot of bazaar-y stuff sold there. Plenty of Indians selling cellphones and weird stuff. A little creepy and sketchy but it’s targeted at tourists and that’s where most of the touristy stuff gets sold. Didn’t buy anything. Didn’t really fancy much since most of the stuff can be found in Toronto.

Next stop is Sham Shui Po where all the gadgets, computers, and video games can be found. If you love electronics, you’ll love this place. The entire mall is filled with video game stores and computer stores. But it’s not like Sim Lim Square or Low Yat Plaza. Hong Kong’s lack of space means everything is jammed pack and I mean really jammed packed! I think there’s like 100s of stores of video games on one floor and 100s of stores of computer stuff on another level. Insane. The street market is also filled with all sorts of electronics and streety stuff. Interesting place. Good place to get electronics but didn’t feel good to constantly be bumping into everyone.

Causeway Bay was our final stop and this is where most of the luxury branded goods can be found. The Burberry’s and Coach’s are all around here. Similar to KLCC in terms of stores, this place is sorta out of my league. Most of the shops are branded stuff and are regular priced. Tons of people though. Tons and tons. I felt like a little ant amongst a colony surrounded by mountainous concrete anthills. It was almost 5pm and scores of people, especially women roamed the streets, purchasing things as if they had money trees growing at home.

That’s been my day at Hong Kong so far. Will post an updated post with pics real soon!

I’m currently in this tiny little room in a mom-and-pop runned hotel. Surprisingly there is internet service but there is no mirror in the toilet. Go figure that out. I’m slightly disgusted by the accommodations and am constantly reminding myself that it is just 2 nights only. Yeah. I couldn’t believe my eyes. This is beyond cheap. It seems like a backpackers hotel. It has a flat screen tv though.. but the sight of the bed and sheets are putting me off. The walls are in dreadful condition and it seems as if my fate wanted me to experience the type of living conditions that I was in 10 yrs ago. Argh! Never again will I let anyone determine where I will stay and what I will do.

I had a wonderfully delightful dinner on the flip side. The dishes were amazing but I am pretty sure the price of it was pretty amazing as well. But price aside, absolute delicious! So far the food is the only thing that’s first class. Everything seems so so congested and much worse than Singapore. I think I prefer Singapore than Hong Kong. Although the roads are clean, the same couldn’t be said about the restaurant.

Hopefully it’ll be a nicer day tomorrow. Already I’m preferring Malaysia to Hong Kong! But of course I’m biased based on the living conditions that I am in. The food in Hong Kong feels soo much like home.. but much better of course.

Ahhh. I do realise that I am severely backlogged in my posts. Don’t worry. I do actually have some content to fill in the gaps between this post and the last post. Right now, I’m in Singapore and my god, what a huge contrast it is between here and Malaysia (as usual!). I always loved Singapore more than Malaysia - it might be because I’ve lived in Malaysia for much too long and it seems that any place that I visit is better. Think grass is always on the other side!

The one thing I love about Singapore is the cleanliness - it’s really unnoticeable when you cross from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore. It’s amazingly clean. I’ll say it’s one of the cleanest places in the world. My first day, I visited the Temple of the Goddess of Mercy. Apparently it was the first day of the month and it was a Sunday so parking was brutal and trying to get my prayers in was a challenge. Bodies squished amongst each other. Every person holding joss sticks (incense sticks) or attempting to get one. People face the entrance first and pray before turning inside and facing the Goddess of Mercy to pray for her blessings. It was interesting. My last vivid memory of this was from a long time ago..just before I made the move to Canada. I remember asking if Canada was the right move for me - it was back then. It still is right now.

I wasn’t sure how to pray - so like any prayers that I’ve done in the past, I’d bow, I’d move my hands up and down with the joss sticks in my hand and just pray for the blessings of my family and friends. It felt really interesting! So after the praying, we went to place our sticks in this giant urn and let it burn away. I proceeded to grab a bucket of sticks and a funny little moon circle thing which was all about asking the Goddess of Mercy about something. Could be anything. Yourself.. your family.. your health.. your future.. You would then shake the bucket of sticks and one stick will pop out. You then throw the moon circle things and if they fall on the opposite side then the stick will be considered your fortune. If they fall on the same side, then it’s the wrong stick and you would place it back and start shaking the sticks again. My fortune is good - I’ll talk about it more later. Although I’m not a devout believer, it’s always nice to have encouraging words about yourself. And there’s nothing wrong in believing anyway right? Being positive is always good.

Singapore’s mosquitoes - especially the ones in my cousin’s house are being well supplied with fresh blood from Canada. My blood. After a week over, I am starting to become the fan favourite of the mosquito brood and am getting bitten. And would you believe that it’s a little challenging to get some insect repellent? You would think that every drug store would be carrying it. Yep. I tried looking and haven’t found it. Lots of beauty products though.

With my only day in Singapore, I’ll be walking around Orchard Road and hunting out the infamous Merlion. Can’t wait. The Great Singapore Sale is on right now and I’ll most likely be visiting the numerous shopping malls here. Condos here seem to be skyrocketing and I dream about owning a holiday home! People here seem to knock down their houses and rebuild it from scratch and those contemporary designs just ooze sexiness to me. Tempting no doubt. Let’s not talk about price shall we? I’ll live in my fantasy world for now. Heh.

(Pics to follow!..) Unfortunately, for tonight, the coffee that I consumed won’t be from that infamous mermaid-branded green coffee company from Seattle. I say unfortunate because while the size of the white chocolate latte that I ordered seems decent, the taste isn’t as great and the price of RM 11.90 (CDN $4.00) seems a lot to bear for something that didn’t fulfill my caffeine craving.

On a happier note, we are staying overnight at the Cititel hotel which is located right by the Midvalley Megamall, the largest mall in South East Asia. Super convenient for any shopping fan. For me, food was the best experience I got. Ok. I may have exaggerated.. but I’ve not had the opportunity to savour so many delights. I chowed down on yet another plate of nasi lemak, my 8th one to date since arriving. It was followed by some chicken and mushroom noodles on a sizzling plate and chicken rice. I shared with my mom - it’s called diversifying your food intake to minimize taste bud disappointment. Glad I did that. The noodles were disappointing. The chicken rice managed to save my dinner from total crash and burn. Snacks followed dinner - takatao (octopus balls) and kaya ball (coconut jam in pastry in the shape of the ball). Mmmm. Lovely.

The past few days were much better than the initial first few days. I gotten over my homesickness for the most part. Told myself that being all the way here and probably not going to be back for quite a while, I had to make this holiday count and completely enjoy everything as best as I can. Managed to attend a Buddhist meeting held near my old house. It was great to see everyone again and it felt great to relate my experiences to everyone. And the youth members have called me out to relate my experiences to the other youth members. I feel honoured to be delivering my experience. I hope that I can bring something truly inspiring. I’ve already set myself on the theme of “Dreaming Big” and achieving your dreams. I’m nervous but this is a great opportunity for me to do what I want to do - inspire younger people to achieve their dreams.

Yesterday was the first time I’d ever step into a lounge in Kuala Lumpur and boy it was a great experience. My cousins are mostly grown up and are definitely so much cooler! We spent quite a sum at the lounge but the view was spectacular and  I tried something really very interesting. It’s called the Flaming Lamborghini Diablo and it was the coolest thing I’ve ever tried. Ok.. so it’s overpriced. Ok I lied. It’s extremely overpriced - RM 110 (CDN $30) for a drink that lasts about a minute. It’s a drink.. with some sort of cannister placed on top. They flame the top with some alcohol and the flames will drip down with the heat flowing to the drink through the canister. You drink it with all that flaming action going on. And it feels amazing but I didn’t have time to taste much. I might have drank it too fast? But my cousin told me I had to drink it in one slurp and I did. Wow. I could feel the heat right then and there.. and through the night as well. I decided to slow it down with Bailey’s on the rocks and milk - my classic favourite. I don’t like martinis. They taste like medicine to me. Yesterday was good. I repeat - yesterday was good.

(Here was a post that I wrote while I was on the plane)

Although I do not have any Internet access way up here (leave it to a couple of years, I’m sure we’ll get there!), I am still happily typing up this blog post from the airplane. Way up high in the sky, currently somewhere above the Arctic circle, we have approximately 10 hours and 26 minutes till we touch down at Hong Kong. The plane route seems to take us somewhere above the North Pole and then down south on Russia. We are about 5277 miles away from an initial 15000km. It’s about -50 degrees celsius right now. Altitude is 33000 feet. Ground speed is 558mph.

First off, I’d like to say that I am very very impressed by Cathay Pacific’s services. From the courteous staff to the endless features that serve your every need, I can clearly see why Cathay Pacific is world class. The staff were very friendly. The initial meal was fairly decent. Much better than some of the meals I have had. It was steamed rice with mix veggies and braised pork in a spicy sauce. It came with yoghurt, fruits and a banana loaf. Me being me, I gave the yoghurt and the fruits to my parents. But I thoroughly enjoyed the pork. The seats are spacious and I am loving it! There’s enough room for my thighs now.. and the seats are built in sort of a shell. Whenever you want to stretch out, it’s not your seat that goes backward. Instead the cushion beneath you slides out and surprisingly it’s very comfy. The cushions used for the seating were great too. Comfortable and it follows the body structure to perhaps provide support for your back. Thus, no more having to deal with people adjusting their seats into your space. It’s all contained. You’ll have to see the video demonstration to get what I mean.

The choice of in-flight entertainment is huge. I swear you will never be able to finish all the shows! No more silly reruns. From the top Hollywood blockbuster movies to all the drama and tv shows that you could ever ask for, it’s a dream come true. The quality of the video is superb as well - widescreen and I believe digital as well. No touchscreen but that doesn’t matter. You’ll be watching movies for most of the time anyway! You have a choice of 100 movies, over 350 television shows, 22 radio channels, 888 CDs and over 70 games. The CDs are something like your own digital jukebox. You can build your own playlist from these various CDs and save them and play them to your liking. They have every avenue covered - Chinese, Cantonese, Pop, Rock, Classical, World Beats, Classics - endless choice.

My choice of movies include Benjamin Button, Quantum of Solace, Seven Pounds, The Reader, Marley and Me, Valkyrie, Twilight, The Wrestler, Yes Man and a whole host of others. These are just grouped under New Releases. You also have Mandarin and Cantonese shows like Red Cliff 2, Ip Man and older ones as well - Jurassic Park, Narnia. My mom’s happily enjoying Slumdog Millionaire right now.

And guess what? That’s not all! The best part about Cathay Pacific is there’s a power outlet for you to plug your laptop in! They say that its on a shared basis amongst all the other passenegers but it still is a huge bonus since no laptop will ever last these long haul flights of 15 hours. Travelling long haul has never been this comfortable and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Still my butt is starting to ache so I guess I better move it around abit before it starts to get stiff.

As an added convenience, I’ve decided to install Facebook Connect which allows you guys to login with your Facebook account to post comments. Do let me know if you run into any problems! Thanks!

I’m on the brink of travelling halfway around the world back to where I was born. My emotions are of delight and excitement. I’ll be seeing my relatives and my grandparents for the first time in 5 years. I’m also excited about travelling on airplanes. For some strange reason, I’ve always enjoyed the takeoffs and landings of the airplane. Perhaps I was a bird in a previous existence?

Here’s how my trip will pan out - leaving  Toronto to stop over at Hong Kong. From Hong Kong, I will be flying to Malaysia. I will spend about 3 weeks or so. During the 3rd week is when I will hit Singapore and then on my way back to Toronto, I’ll be stopping over Hong Kong for 3 days. Eagerly anticipating the trips to Redang Island, Sentosa Island and Hong Kong. It’ll be my first time actually going to Hong Kong and it’ll be interesting to see what kind of response I would get being unable to speak Chinese.

I’ll be doing as much touristy things as I can… take as many silly pictures possible and really take it all the goodness of South East  Asia. It’ll be a culinary feast as well - savouring the local delights once again and perhaps trying something new and different. I hope I can bring the sights and sounds of Asia to you, my readers..