belgian waffles

on tuesday of last week maxx and i were hanging out at my room when he got a call from his girl mavis. to this day no one knows what was said but within 3 minutes (not even 4) we were in a taxi headed to her place in aberdeen. apparently mavis' sister, kaka, was ill and couldn't walk. so we were going to their apt to pick her up, literally, and bring her to the doctor. we got there (wah fu) only to learn that kaka was able to walk. turned out she was just asleep. she was however ill, so 5 of us (previously mentioned + mavis/kaka's mom) got in a cab and headed somewhere else to go to the doctor. i thought of it like an adventure. we got to the building in which the doctor is and then the dad showed up. he relieved us of our duty. we still hadn't done anything besides go in a taxi to a building. so that kind of killed my adventure. i was then told we were going to dinner which was somewhat exciting. we went to the 3rd floor of the aberdeen fish market and about 11 minutes later, the doctor-goers were sitting at our table. how that happened, i have no fucking clue. medicine, like the postal system, is still a major mystery to me in hong kong. not important. sitting at this table, i was thinking if i had ever had a meal at a shadier establishment. i was trying to think of my trip to southern thailand in 2004 but there werent really any shady spots. i think we ate shark on someone's front porch, but it was clean and totally legit. this place was really interesting. i feared snapping photos, so i just took brain photos. the food was kind of delicious. everyone noticed 90% of my meal was the vegetable plate. i did however taste the other items on the table, which included mini shrimp, clams, fish, pork (of course) and probably some other noodle concoction which scared the jesus into me. after dinner, maxx, mavis and i took a bus back to my hood and went to her favorite bar.



it's her favourite bar because her former boss, uncle dickie, works at the bar. uncle dickie is a woman. this is part of the he/she/him/her error they have here. it's not worth explaining to them since i get so much enjoyment every time i hear it. now that i think of it, this photo was not from that night. it was from the bday party mavis had there the night before. the deal was you wear a shirt with lines that cross or you pay extra money to mavis. im not sure how this works but i doubled up with the shirt/hat combo. kells would be proud.

i almost forgot. post/dinner, pre/bar we stopped at a public restroom in aberdeen. these places are all over the place. i can still remember the smell....



awesome.

thursday was a fun day. akiko and i went to a couple shops including the adidas originals store....



akiko had to be careful where her hand ended up. they adidas hong kong all up in that place. they were playing some sweet 90s jams though so we hung out for a while. i'm confident there was some dancing, although theres minimal evidence.

later on, i met up with maxx and mavis again and headed to mavis' friends place. they wanted to teach me how to play mah jong. mah jong is the snails in hk. there are private clubs where you can go and gamble. it's like gin rummy to the third. it's challenging and requires a bunch of practice. my mah jong abilities, like my phone photo skills, could use some work...



after 4 hours of 2 different style games, we celebrated with this frozen snack that mavis' friend had. it's ice cream wrapped in chocolate, wrapped in waffles. holy snails. this would destroy in the us.



i guess you can't see the chocolate layer but you're going to have to believe me on this. good thing i dont have a freezer.

in other news, i've reposted my blackberry on craigslist and got another email from that guy who said americans were dumber than pigs. see below if you forget. snowy mountain man. how should i respond?

hbd, mj

cook smart!

check out this video i took in the supermarket today......




how sweet is it that they have videos at the end of aisles in supermarkets advertising some recipe or something with bangin music? if i had a kitchen, i'd go to the chou ji shi chang (supermarket) and party it up when getting groceries! now that i think about it, i may go over there anyway just to hang out.

stir that shit up!

the joke's on me

morning. it's 7:34a here in hk and i'm wide awake. that being said, if none of this makes sense, it's not my fault. let's blame cathay pacific and their amazing entertainment system. for had i not had 80,258 options of tv shows and movies to watch, i may have actually slept on the plane back from ny and not screwed up my internal clock. ok i'm already not making sense let's just get into it.

i've been back for a week and my clock is totally fucked. i am finally not requiring a nap in the afternoon and can (as of this morning) sleep until 7. it's a start. the weather has heated up here which is sweet. it has been in the mid 70s all week which only confuses my body even more. it was fucking freezing in ny so my body has gone through a 60+ degree weather swing. oh hey, maybe that's why i'm sick as shit. just maybe.

the good news is that i was able to find the strength to finally purchase my first pair of sneakers of 2009. i held off in january and then somehow withstood the ridiculous cny sales but now we're back in business. check these out....



shibuya! now if only i had the strength to lace them up and get em on my feet. that's another story. perhaps i can channel the strength from the big mac i ate yesterday to lacing strength. it was delightful. i don't think i need to re-cap how good mcdonald's is here.

yesterday i watched bootleg copies of notorious and college. both were pretty good. i liked that girl who played lil' kim. who knew shes (the actor) from east orange. yea jersey! that was pretty good. college was decent. semi-entertaining, i'd say. i fell asleep with about 20 minutes left but who knows if thats jetlag or boredom. hard to say.

in closing, last night i wanted congee for dinner but i was too tired to go to the king. so i went downstairs to the sun ying kee (my spot) to get some soup. i ordered the vegetable/noodle soup for hk$19 (~us$2.45). my homie who i've been ordering from twice/week for the past 3 months starts laughing. im like oh sweet whats the fuck why are you laughing (this time) nothing happened. so he calls over his compadre who apparently speaks english. the other guy grabs my arm and is like "no meat?" and then continues to laugh. then the other 3 waiters laugh and stare and now i'm the center of attention like a party party. im like yea man no meat whats so fuckin funny. they call out in cantonese something i imagine to be like "ok chef, cook up a noodle/vegetable soup for the bitchass white dude who cant even eat meat with his dinner!" then the bell rang a few times. then i paid and waited outside. 4 minutes later the "no meat" dude came out and gave me my dinner with a huge smile on his face. it was an event.

notes

I. recent downloads
A. TI - Trap Muzik
B. Wu-Tang Forever
i. wow
C. Clipse - Lord Willin'
i. track 6 is fire
a. this is real neptunes shit. stick to the beats!
D. Sean Kingston - Sean Kingston

II. semi-recent downloads
A. Pharrell and the Yessirs - Out of my Mind
i. thoughts
a. this unreleased album is a compilation between all the ladies' favorite pharrell williams and the famous ?uestlove, of the roots. pharrell's version didn't sell well and he apparently begged mr ?love to remix it with his crew.
b. pharrell is a bitch
c. ?love is the snails
d. it's much better than pharrell's version. even though all the lyrics are the same, the beats flow with the tracks much better. in "that girl" which features the doggfather, pharrell says "we do this in our sleep, n*." really? if he could do that shit in his sleep, he wouldnt have had to beg another musician to remix his shit to make it pop.

III. travel
A. i've planned a visit back to nyc. i'll be back towards the end of the month for a week. i dont know if i'll have my same phone or bbm or whatever the fuck, but i'll be there. trust me.

IV. requests
A. given III, if there's something in hong kong that you want, let me know. not like "bring me something from china." more like "i need a clot sweatshirt, red, size medium". specifics would be sweet. if you want something else from another area in the region, fly me there before jan 29th and i'll hook you the fuck up. try here if you need a good booking website.

how was my outline? did you notice i used the phrase "trust me"? when's the last time someone's said that to you? it's coming back.

what the fuck?

i'm trying to upgrade my blackberry to a bold so i can use that in japan and korea next time during my travels and not hate myself like i did the last few times i went there. craigslist in hong kong isn't as popular as it is in ny, but i thought i'd give it a shot.

i got a couple hits and one guy showed some promise. he asked me to set up a time for a meeting, which i did, which he ignored. after 6-7 e-mail exchanges, i get the following e-mail:

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from Snowy Mountain Man to danny.kirschenbaum@gmail.com date Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 9:20 AM subject RE: blackberry curve (hk island) mailed-by hotmail.com

hide details 9:20 AM (9 hours ago)

Reply

The North American PDA reviews said 8310 has negtaives:- no 3G/WiFi connectivity, slow processor performance, low battery life. My offer will go below $1000 which if you think you can accept, then let me know.

-----------------------------------


fyi, our previous e-mails were discussing the device in the $1300+ range



here's the e-mail i sent him back......


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from danny kirschenbaum to Snowy Mountain Man date Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 11:01 AM subject Re: blackberry curve (hk island) mailed-by gmail.com

hide details 11:01 AM (8 hours ago)

Reply

I'm not interested. FYI, this is the best device I've ever owned. And quite honestly, if you're going to get involved on craigslist, do your research before you try to set up meetings with people. You had all the appropriate information in front of you before you could have even sent me your first e-mail. Let's try to save each other time in the future. That being said, I wish you the best and good luck in the new year.

-----------------------

i didn't think it was too nasty, and then i sweetened it up at the end with the new year comment. see my last post re: upcoming lunar new year.

anyway, here's the e-mail i got back from him........

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from Snowy Mountain Man to danny.kirschenbaum@gmail.com date Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 11:21 AM subject RE: blackberry curve (hk island) mailed-by hotmail.com

hide details 11:21 AM (7 hours ago)

Reply

Well said and agreed with you 100% and I can understand your anger and let me apologize and wish you Happy Chinese Year. I did do research on Blackberry before I make any deals but only on Storm and Bold models not 8300, 8900 or Pearl series. As you can see, I am a very smart man, smarter than George Bush trillion times. I think Americans are jokes to the world creating troubles to the world and mess everything up not knowing Americans are the most stupid people on the face of this earth themselves.

Frankly speaking, pigs are even smarter than Americans. Anyway enough of politics said, I am sorry not much research has been done on 8310 on my part but I didn't set up any meeting and it is you trying to suggest to meet around Times Square and I did indicate to you I will go in depth on my research on 8310. I know the machine is good to you but I want more at bargain price. I didn't mean to upset you becos I am not that kind of person.

Anyway, good luck with your trip to Japan. My offer on your 8310 is $500 if you are still interested to dispose it before you go abroad.

----------------------------


notes:
- he wrote pretty liberally about americans given the fact that he has never met me
- i think he dislikes america, george bush, and pigs
- see my usage of FYI? how was that one?
- what research has he done to conclude that pigs aren't smart creatures? maybe he's a pig farmer in china. i heard they use these pig farmers in china to pass around the flu bug to see which strand is going to be the "flu" for the year. maybe he caught it and he's bitter
- a colleague (hk'ers call them "college") of mine mentioned perhaps he's canadian. maybe even a mounty. his handle is snowy mountain man. there's both snow and mountains and men in canada. could be onto something here.


can you believe the hate that exists in this world? fuck that!

yo jew!

in case you don't know, i MSN. the other day i was had a msn with my buddy ricky and our conversation looked something like this:

dk: yo man
ricky: oh whassup man
dk: yo what are you doing for cny?
ricky: say what?
dk: chinese new year man, are you going away to see your family or something?
ricky: what the fuck is chinese new year
dk: ummm
ricky: we just had new years man, remember, you went to macau?
dk: yeah, i remember.
dk: OH
dk: LUNAR NEW YEAR!
dk: what are you doing for lunar new year?
ricky: oh, lunar new year, of course
ricky: yea i'm gonna go see my family
ricky: why'd you call it chinese new year?
dk: no reason. that should be nice, i hope you enjoy that

this was a major disconnect for me. i never had any clue about the chinese/lunar new year outside of tang's dad giving me some lucky money last year. actually i bought a lotto ticket with that money and won $20 so maybe that's why i'm a believer. people are psyched about it though. it's definitely bigger than our stupid new year. there should be some fireworks. there have been grand sales all over the city. i'm looking forward to this celebration. i think there be some money exchanges. there will probably be some drinking. and the year of the ox will begin! i'm a pig. check your shit.....



if you're before 1965, suck it. or subtract multiples of 12. your choice.

today in class we learned about going to the post office. buying stamps, sending parcels, even sending telegrams. we had an extended conversation about telegrams as i believe they are not used often enough. email and phone calls can't always be trusted. sometimes you need the real deal in front of your face. akiko made me aware that people send each other telegrams in tokyo regularly. these telegrams are more just delivery of notes, not as exciting as singing naked midgets in a market research company or clowns with balloons in a tucson furniture store. and, they are cheap, as little as 200Yen (~us$2). at this point we reviewed our sheng zi (vocabulary) and what's the first word that comes up? right, post office. clearly. how do you say post office in mandarin? YOU JIU. that's right. pronounced "yo jew".

like ti and jay-z say "you better watch what you say to me!"