Muscle Memory

Well as a number of people know, I’m once more taking to the streets to train for another marathon.  (Honestly this will be my last).

One of the things that we hear a lot about is muscle memory.  It’s even been mentioned in ballroom dancing circles.  Well currently at the moment, the only muscle memory I’ve got is aches and pains from the training.  Obviously this will fade over time (it always does and as this is my 3rd marathon I know what my body is like).

Similarly I have picked up a minor case of tendinitis.  It seems to be something that happens each year and once it does, things are ok.  I suppose it’s just because I’m not a runner in terms of using the muscles in that way.  I do plenty of sport, just not constant running.  Similar things have happened with skiing where the calves are stretched for long periods of time.  (For those who don’t know, you are typically leaning forwards when skiing, not standing upright, at least if you’re doing it right).  The marathon training eliminated this last year so hoping for the same this year.

I’m sure that I’ll get into the swing of things soon enough, and in due course I’ll be setting up a donations page etc, that I’ll advertise.  In the meantime I’ve an unexpected rest day and hoping that I’ll be able to go out again soon.

Facebook Generation

I recently came off of Facebook (totally), deleting all photo albums, untagging, the whole deal!  The main reason was that it was taking/wasting too much of my time, plus I knew that changes were coming again and I couldn’t be bothered with a load of resets.  Finally it’s been the increase in advertising and how everything you now do on it is logged for targeted advertising and I don’t need or want to be ‘sold’ something every day!

Anyway, that’s partly an aside to the post, but also has lead to it’s reason.

Over the festive period I was discussing with my brother-in-law (also an IT person) about my decision, and how a number of organisations claim ‘membership’ by forcing people to have their email addresses etc.  This then led onto the question of whether, at least in the short term, it is possible to ‘survive’ without Facebook.

Now before anyone shouts out saying ‘of course you can, I’ve never had Facebook’, clearly it’s possible and I’m doing a load more useful stuff since ditching it (like this), but that wasn’t really the focus of the discussion.  It was more aimed at how ‘invasive’ Facebook has become.  For instance, there are some things now that you need to be on Facebook to participate in.  I had a survey that I wanted to do the other day to see what my ‘carbon footprint’ was like.  The easiest way of doing it was for me to have been a Facebook user.  Not being so meant that I had to either scrap it, or go though a lengthy registration process.  Now I know that’s not quite the same as needing to be on Facebook, but how long will be it be before that does start happening?  The fact that organisations now divide the world into Facebook users and ‘the rest’ is telling.

I won’t be going back, I’ve far more time and am enjoying the freedom too much.  Does that mean I’ll get ‘left out’ of some things.  Well time will tell I suppose.

Christmas Spirit

So there are less than 24 hours left before Christmas, and taking advantage of the fact that I have the day off on what is still a working day for the majority of the population, I popped to the supermarkets to get some last minute things.  It was quieter that it would have been at the weekend, but still very busy.

That said, what was pleasant was that no one seemed to be getting to irate with others.  Lots seemed to be pushing their trolleys in a bit of a daze, but those that were a bit more ‘aware’ seemed in good spirits.  I had a number of conversations at the tills, something that doesn’t normally happen, but was due, I suspect, to the fact that Christmas can bring out peoples more social side.  You see the same when we have lots of snowfall (at least we do in the south where it’s not so common), where people you meet out and about are more willing to nod, say hello and chat.  For me it’s a glimpse of what we lost as a national in terms of community.

I have to say though, that I did feel that there was a less palatable side to my trips out, and again, it was something observed in the supermarkets.  Something that really hit home to me, walking down the isles, was the amount of alcohol that was looking to be ‘shipped’ today.  The normal shelf space was clearly deemed insufficient, even when combined with the extra offers near the entrances.  Down one isle, there were extra crates of beers two or three deep, narrowing the isle considerably, but clearly indicating that it was felt to be necessary to keep the sales going.

Often people will enjoy extra drinks at Christmas (I’m driving so won’t be!) but I found the sheer level at which this was being pushed was disturbing, and wonder what it says about us as a nation and possibly the feeling that we need to have considerable amounts to drink.  Possibly people feel they need it to enjoy themselves, possibly they feel it’s needed to survive the relatives.  Probably there are a myriad of other reasons as well.

Will this continue in the future, especially if the government puts on a tax per unit, I don’t know.  The sheer amounts of alcohol being sold can’t be good though, unless it’s being bought for the whole year, which I somehow doubt.
Personally I’ll be enjoying the first part of this post’s Christmas spirit and hoping that it can last longer than Christmas.

Restarting the Old Engine

Well I have once again spent well over a year without posting anything.

I could make up a load of excuses, but like most things, its a question of getting out of the habit and being somewhat lazy. I was looking though a load of old 'favourites' from an old back up that I was looking at. What was amazing was how many of the blogs I used to follow are now dead, or at least have been left for over two years, and I suspect will remain left untended now. 

I can't remember what the stats are for blogs started and then abandoned, but I know it's pretty high and I'm determined not to become one of those stats. I'm therefore going to attempt to get this up and running in a more regular way. 

There's lots that has happened that I can post about, so I have no excuses really. I've recently given up Facebook (that should be a posting on it's own) so I've got fewer distractions. 

So, here's to the future of this blog and it not becoming just another statistic!

Its Been Too Long

OK, so it's been a bit of a long time since I last posted. 3 years plus if I'm counting.

There have been many changes since Hong Kong, though no major trips, so nothing has been missed out in that respect. Main changes have been in respect to 'normal' everyday life, whatever that means.

Main one is work having left teaching. Wondering what my next step is. Got a decent enough temping assignment, pay isn't great, but it's better than JSA and I know they want me to go perm, if only I could convince them to pay the upper end of the salary range, it would make such a difference in terms of both my mindset and how I spend my free time.

Currently most evenings involve searching through job sites to see if there is anything new that I can apply for. If you leave it too long, then some jobs just disappear (some overnight!) and the job sites that grabs jobs from all the other sites get too long to go through if you leave it too long. The other annoyance with them is that they advertise the same jobs as new that day even when they aren't.

Anyways, I'll post musings about recruitment agencies etc in another post another time. Just wanted to say in the best Jack Nicholson way possible "I'm Back"

Hong Kong Day 6 - All you can leave behind (Wednesday)

Last day and rather than be up bright and early I decided on a relatively late start, especially given my experiences from yesterday. My first destination didn’t open till 10 and I knew I didn’t need to get there for the opening anyway. My first stop was checking in my bags. For this I didn’t need to go to the airport early. I just had to head to one of the main airport MTR stops. They had full blown check in desks there and you even paid for your train fair when you would need it then and there as well. The Oyster system would cope. Clever really.

Baggage disposed of; I now had all I would have for the next 30+ hours. Hopefully nothing important had been left inside. I was heading to Ocean Park. This is a cross between a Sealife Centre (well a much better version anyway) and Alton Towers. A strange combination, especially when you throw in the pandas that they have recently acquired as well. Oddly enough it works though. None of it seems really out of place, and it’s all divided up nicely. There’s a kids area near the entrance and probably enough there to keep them entertained for most of the day. Alternatively for the adults there’s the main park which is a scenic cable car ride away across the headland. The views are stunning, especially as you go over the initial hill and start to look out over the south pacific. Lots of little islands in the distance, many overlapping. Great photo opportunity stuff. Shame that then cable car was so dirty! Thankfully for camera buffs there are plenty of chances to take photos once out of the cable car with carefully placed gaps in venues possibly designed for this. Being a panorama shot fan, I was in a mini paradise being able to take shots to the left, right, front and back.

I headed to the rear of the park first, heading down a series of escalators. There’s a back entrance to the park, I suspect for those who don’t like heights or cable car rides. It was a little bit like a flashback to the escalator journey up through the mid levels on central Hong Kong, but at least they were two-way and a lot fewer of them. There were a couple of rides down here and a show pool that was out of use, so it was relatively quiet. Well it would have been. I wasn’t to know in the ‘Runaway Train’ ride that the girl in front was a screamer. And she had a good set of lungs to prove it! I would hate to imagine what she would have been like on a ride that did more than up and down and round corners. I suspect the whole park would have known. I met up with the same group again on the next ride, though only because they couldn’t work out the difference between the entrance to the ride and the exit! It was the parks only water ride and I felt it prudent to get wet early so that I would have plenty of time to dry off. Singular flumes tend not to get you too wet unless you’re very unlucky and this was pretty much the case here, especially as I was in a boat on my own.

It was time to do the ocean part of the park. By fortuitous timing I arrived at the Sea Lion enclosure just in time for feeding. I chose not to spend money to throw them fish, but it was amusing to see someone standing by the enclosure selling vouchers to feed them. I ponder the idea that if they didn’t sell enough then the sea lions would be on an enforced diet, but obviously that would never be the case. They have some excellent aquaria in the place, sharks, tropics, deep water. They even have one that is deep enough for you to wind your way down through three floors. There was no rush to get around the place. Again I think I was there off season on a weekday, so it didn’t take anywhere near the day that some had suggested, but I still had an enjoyable four or five hours there. It was becoming a nice slow pace and good end to the holiday.

I was planning to continue this with a break for a few hours on one of the bays that are scattered around the south of the island. I’d picked the one I wanted on an earlier bus journey and fortunately I could walk to this place from the park. Even better, on the cable car back, I could see that there was a walkway that would take me off of the main road and away from the pollution. The path was pleasant and being empty offered plenty of chances of taking timed photos so that I could be included in the picture without any fear of someone running off with my camera, not that I think it would have been an issue if there were people around. It’s said that Hong Kong is a safe place and I can only concur. At no point did I come across any situation where I felt somewhere was risky to go, nor did I see any groups of youths hanging around. There are young people in Hong Kong; they just seem to spend most of their time wired into their MP3 players going wherever the music may take them!

The beach was more or less deserted. It may well have still been a nice warm day for most of us, but in Hong Kong anything below about 25C is considered too chilly for being out on a beach. This gives some wonderful undisturbed sunbathing opportunities. To be fair, that wasn’t my goal, it was far too late in the day. I just wanted to dip my toe and relax. I felt that it would be wrong to come out all this way, spend a lot of the time surrounded by water and then not get a little wet from it. I wasn’t going swimming; all my stuff was hopefully at the airport by now anyway. But a paddle was definitely in order. It was nice, not cold, and at least I could now claim that I’d been in the South Pacific. Of course, given time, tidal drift and the like, it probably had a fair chunk of water, if you can have a chunk of a liquid, that was from Brighton and Hove. Still, as they say, it’s location location location, not content! (Anyone who wants to tell me there is a way of working out do feel free!)

I’d got a little wetter than I had intended and didn’t have a towel. Drying wouldn’t be too much of a problem and I just sat on the beach watching the sun dip behind the peninsula that housed Ocean Park. Obviously I took advantage and grabbed some photos while I dried off. I definitely think that if I’m heading out to Hong Kong again I’ll be spending more time on the south of the island. I expect it will be more expensive, but it’s definitely more scenic. Very relaxing.

Waiting for the bus to take me to my penultimate stop in Hong Kong, the final one being the airport, I reminded about how there is still a heavy smoking population in the region. It’s certainly more noticeable now that smoking is banned in buildings in England. I do though suspect that such a ban wouldn’t make much difference to the over all health of the populous there. They must breathe in so much pollution from traffic that it’s the equivalent to several cigarettes a day. Given that, most probably doubt that some of the real thing can’t do that much more damage. There are a few who wear the equivalent of medical masks over their faces when out on the street, but they are definitely the minority and do have a slightly odd, comical while slightly menacing look about them.

When the bus arrived, as I had suspected, it was the most crowded transport that I’d been on all week. There was a reason for this. I was heading to where everyone else was. And everyone else was heading for Happy Valley. Happy Valley is one of two race courses in Hong Kong but is the only one that holds night races. Gambling is a big no no in China so the Valley is a chance for many to feed a tightly controlled addiction. It’s difficult to miss and possibly one of the oddest racecourses around. This is because it is smack in the middle of town. As you stand by the race circuit you have the finishing straight grandstand, tower up several stories behind you, and in front, just the other side of the oval are a series of tower blocks towering even higher, this time 10s of storey high. As a backdrop it is remarkable. The place is always packed and tonight was no exception. Everything you could want to help you is there. You can even sign up for a tour that will provide you with an assistant who will help explain and take you through the basics of gambling.

I was meeting a friend of a friend there to share a beer with and natter. It was nice, as I wouldn’t have had as much fun if I had been on my own. I think horse-racing it better shared. Having a few beers and talking between races is definitely needed otherwise there would be too much of a void. I suppose some of the hardened professionals need the time between races to do all their prep, look at the horses and stuff like that. Me, I just need to look at the names of the horses and riders and choose based on that. It’s not scientific, but hey, I left a major HK$20 up on the night. (If you want to realize how little that is, you should go back to one of the earlier days in this blog). Let’s just say I didn’t let the win go to my head. Of course I had to get a picture of me with my winning ticket, or at least a copy of it. I felt slightly sorry for the chap who congratulated me, probably thinking that I’d had a life changing win. Didn’t quite know the Cantonese for, ‘Actually, it’s more the fact that I’ve won at all, and even that was a total fluke’. He’s probably still wondering where the newspaper story of the big winner that evening disappeared to.

And that was it really. I had to leave before the end of the night to get back to the airport. Typically I had good connections and could have probably stayed for another race, but then why push it on the last day. Better to take ones time and savor the moment. I even managed to go through Times Square on the way home. It’s nothing like the one in New York, that much was noticeable. It had been a good day and a nice finish. Relaxing and fun, how a holiday should be. The flight back is probably best left to the history books.

Hong Kong - Day 5 Taking the Mickey (Tuesday)

Ok, it was time for some drastic rescheduling. After yesterdays delays I had to reassess. The answer was in reality quite simple. I had been planning on going to Macau today. I’d been told it would be a full day, but was wanting to try to fit other things in as well. Therefore it made sense to scrap that. It was a shame. Apparently it’s a good place to visit, but given there was still plenty to do in the local area, it could wait.

Breakfast was a quieter affair this time. Tam had beaten me this time and was engrossed in a paper. It gave me the opportunity to look at my maps and work out where I needed to walk and what transits I needed to get for the different things I was planning. Today was really going to be largely a non-Hong Kong type of day.

I was starting with some shopping. Nearby was the Harbour City Mall. Now this place is enormous, even by American standards. Several floors and stretching on and on and on. Fortunately they have been fairly sensible in the way that they have let out the units. Shops of a similar ilk have been kept together, rather than having to walk from one end to the other. This struck me on generous to the shopper, especially their feet, but it also meant that there wasn’t the chance of drifting off into other shops that you don’t really need to visit en route somewhere else. I don’t think that it has anything to do with a desire not to encourage consumerism, more a case that they are just very organized. If it was seen in a person it would probably be considered a mild form of OCD. A place for everything and everything in its place. (Before anyone complains I personally think that everyone can so OCD elements at times, so I’m honestly not trying to make any statement here!)

While their organisation skills may well be excellent, what was a severe disappoint was their opening skills. Maybe everyone in Hong Kong who doesn’t work sleeps like a log and really struggles to get up in the morning, but it is quite annoying to have turned up at Harbour City Mall to find that 90% of the shops were shut and going to be for at least half an hour, some even more. Opening time in Hong Kong seems to be 10am at the earliest. Some shops, whose owners are clearly extremely slumberous only just about manage to open in the morning. This was clearly going to be an issue and I wasn’t going to hang around wasting time for shops to open and mess up another day. Given they open late, they stay open late. I’ll come back at the end of the day.

I was heading to Lantau Island again with unfinished business. I’d swapped a few things around so that it wasn’t a one stopper, and it also included shops as well. I was comforted by the thought that at least by the time I’ve made it over there the shops there will be open. They were! City Gate is Hong Kong’s Outlet shopping center. I’d walked past it yesterday on the way to the cable car. It’s near the airport and I’m sure that it’s where it is to catch people who have a lay over. It was far more my sort of place, and had good priced clothing and electronics. It wasn’t as big as the other mall, and didn’t have a major selection, but maybe they will expand it.

One of the things that I was still trying to get used to was the cost of everything. Converting HK$15 to the pound is easy enough, but you can easily forget how cheap that makes things. Spending HK$800 might seem like a lot, but it’s very little given the amount of traveling I was doing.

The major visit of the day was to Hong Kong’s newest attraction. Disneyland. I can imagine the groans, but I’m over here and it’s not like I’m going to get the chance again quickly. It’s not what most people would imagine. As a park, in comparison to the others, it’s tiny. Definitely no more than half a days worth, which was good as it was about lunchtime when I got there. The other advantage, and again this may be timing, is that it’s empty. Well empty compared to Disney standards. Queues for even the main rides for almost non-existent. The longest I had to wait was 15 mins, and that was a combination of bad luck and having to wait for the English speaking guide. Getting to the park was quite nice. Disney has its only little loop on the MTR that it has sole use of and they run special trains. As you would expect with Disney, they have really gone to town. Their trains have different windows. Mickey Mouse windows. There are statuettes of the characters between the seats and, well the normal MTR seats are comfortable, but these take comfort to another level.

The entrance to the park is the same as all the others. You don’t mess with a winning format. Additionally it means you instantly know what you’re looking at. However in this case something wasn’t quite right. I was standing on Main Street, looking down at Cinderella’s castle and I really felt that was exactly what I was doing. Looking down at it. It was tiny. It wasn’t that Main Street was particularly long, if anything it was shorter. As I got nearer, it was clear that is was no illusion. Cinders castle had clearly been lopped. I don’t know whether it was due to building regulations but there were several levels missing, giving it the feeling that someone had stamped on it and squashed it someone and I felt that if I stood on tip toes, I’d be able to see over it. This really summed up the park. Small and the feeling that for one reason or another there have been restraints on its creation. I’m not too surprised given that they are taking a largely uninhabited island and building a massive theme park on it. I’m sure that the last thing the authorities want is that the view from the Big Buddha is that of the tops of a load of theme park rides.

I stayed to the end, Disney fireworks always being well done and me loving fireworks. It was now time to head back to the shops that were late opening. Half an hour later I was back more or less where I had started the day, and disappointingly with the same feeling. Many of the shops that were opening late in the day had clearly decided to shut early in the day. Maybe the peak shopping time is 12 to 6, but if so, it doesn’t give people much of a chance, though must be a nice relaxed lifestyle for the shop keepers. Even more amazing was one shop that gave me a quote for something and almost as soon as I had stepped out to think about the price, shut. Clearly they didn’t need my trade. Someone else got it instead.

Disappointed with the more conventional way of shopping, I returned to the Temple Street market. I’d seen some pictures that I wanted to buy as souvenirs and knew the price I was willing to pay. It’s not difficult if you set a price in mind and given things are so cheap anyway, it’s not difficult to get a bargain and still leave the seller feeling that they haven’t done too badly out of the deal either. One of the things that I have noticed is that they have lots and lots of original oil paints of more or less the same scene. These are clearly mass produced, but each is slightly different and each is clearly done with oils, meaning that it’s not simply a printing press churning them out. Maybe somewhere there are loads of art students who are given the same painting to produce as coursework and the markets get to sell them afterwards. I wasn’t going to let it tax me too much; it was time to call it a night.