9 Month Anniversary

Today marks the 9 month anniversary of me closing on my house and becoming homeless. It is also the day that my old college roommate Sean will be appearing on Jeopardy. Sean and I were the backbone of the Macalester College Bowl team. We were the first and only team to ever beat the faculty. …

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Chungking Mansion

Hong Kong is very densely populated. I knew that before I came here and I knew that my selection of affordable lodging wouldn’t be first class. I have no problem with that, and for the first several days I was in Hong Kong I had a nice, but small, place to stay. However, I wanted …

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The Pinoy Dispora

I don’t just like to write about what I see in certain places and then drop the country as I move on to the next. There are some subjects that deserve revisiting, and one that sort of jumps out at you in Hong Kong is the Philippines. Why the Philippines? You’ll notice it if you …

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Random Thoughts on Hong Kong

Here are various observations on Hong Kong that are probably too short to justify their own posts: Street signage in Hong Kong for stores are unlike anything I’ve ever seen. They not only extend into the road, but often will cross the meridian and overlap signs from the other side of the street. The effect …

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Last Day in Hong Kong (for real this time)

I got my tickets and everything is booked. Tomorrow evening I’ll be flying Royal Brunei Airlines to Bandar Darussalam and I’ll finally be out of Hong Kong. I’ve stayed here waaaay longer than I ever anticipated. Granted, I got a lot done and I probably needed to stay put for a few weeks, but I’m …

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The Ecology of Urban Hong Kong

Hong Kong is to small businesses as the rainforest is to plants. I think that analogy not only captures the idea that economic and regulatory conditions in Hong Kong are favorable to business, but it also captures a very real sense of how and where businesses spring up. They pop up like plants wherever conditions …

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Taking Care of Business

I think I’ll be in Hong Kong for a few more days. I have resolved myself to not leave here until I am caught up on my photo processing and have gotten ahead a few posts. My cold is for the most part gone. I have finished all my photos from South Korea and have …

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Everytime I try to get out, they just keep pulling me back in

Not only am I still in Hong Kong, but I’m going to be here over Christmas. Macau is booked solid. At least all the cheap places are. My lack of planning around Christmas is really the proximate problem here. The place I’m staying in HK I had to check out today and I packed up …

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Sitting under the Buddha

I am writing this on my laptop at a cafe at the Po Lin Buddhist temple in Hong Kong. The Po Lin temple has the largest sitting Buddha statue in the world. I’m sitting right underneath the guy as I type this. (Three cheers for open wifi connections!) The only way back to the subway …

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