Sunday, November 23, 2008

some changes in HK

Having returned for 11 years, some changes have happened in Hong Kong, a recognition that they're in blood Chinese. I don't want to draw any general conclusion here, just give two simple facts that I've seen.

When Shenzhou 7 landed I was in a big shopping mall, where there was a TV put up in the middle of the mall, broadcasting live the whole thing. Shoppers, old and young, stopped to crowd around the TV set. And they cheered when the shuttle safely landed, after the landing, there were still many people watching.

Tonight as I was on the bus home, a mother sat right behind me was teaching her baby girl the national anthem. I can't tell from their cantonese that they are local residents, because they could well as be from Canton. But how often do you see parents teaching their kids the national anthem on a bus in mainland China? Almost never. I happened to see one in Hong Kong.




Friday, November 21, 2008

Little Hawaii Trail



it's a little mountain path descending from the village I live to Po Lam(寶林). I don't know where its name comes from, coz I've walked through the path once, and it's not at all hawaii-like. There are trees and creek along the little trail, and interestingly, an artificial chess-table in the middle of the trip. This trail has been favored by hikers and residents there.





Tuesday, November 18, 2008

ceteris paribus

there's this interesting word mentioned today in macroeconomics course,
ceteris paribus
meaning: if other relevant things, factors, or elements remain unaltered

there must be some historical reasons the English language creators or broadly speaking, users, favor Latin words to be their linkage words, like

"i.e." originated from Latin expression "id est", means that is;
"e.g." from Latin "exempli gratia", means for example;
"q.v." from Latin "quod vide", means which see;
"etc." from "et cetera", means and so forth;
...

and now the ceteris paribus, which is abbreviated as cet. par.

Wikipedia has given a list of Latin Abbreviations which could be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_abbreviations



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Friday, November 14, 2008

two congregations

Congregation at Sun Yat-Sen University


Congregation at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

both times as audience, I've gotta be in one of these next time!

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Burn E

if you've watched Wall E, please do watch this little bonus movie about Burn E, so so funny


Sunday, November 9, 2008

16th Congregation - Audio

ran into this very interesting site today, iSpeech, it can convert texts to audio files and allows users to embed the audio as flash in blogs. So I converted the last entry 16th Congregation into audio and embedded it here, just for fun. It's now still in beta version, so the audio will auto-play. The converted version sounds pretty nice, more "human-like", so so much better than the Narrator app carried by Windows.

16th Congregation

In Hong Kong, university congregations are usually held in November even though the graduates have long left universities in July, which means many graduates may not present in the event because of immobility of any kind. The 16th HKUST Congregation is to be held in a few days, graduates, all dressed up in robes and accompanied by parents and friends, are coming back to record probably the proudest moments of their lives. Now the stage has all been setup, it's their show time!


To see all this just make me feel a little upset, it has been 4 months. Really that fast? Only four months ago, I was right in it, and now, I'm just a passerby. For some reason, I missed the opportunity to be on SYSU's stage, I don't wanna let my next one, maybe the last one, slip away.




Friday, November 7, 2008

Central-Mid-Levels Escalator

Discovering new stuff on foot gives me so much interest, 'coz I get to choose which direction to go and where to stop. The excitement comes from UNKNOWN, from everything you see along the walk and any surprises that may not pop up in the "official tour-guide". So when in an unfamiliar environment, try to feel and understand it by putting your feet on the ground, not the ground of a bus.

As for today, I "discovered" the Central-Mid-Levels Escalator, here are some facts about this system from Wikipedia:
  • The whole system is 800 meters long with a vertical climb of 135 meters. The total travel time is twenty minutes.
  • It consists of twenty escalators and three moving sidewalks. According to Guinness World Records, these escalators together form the longest outdoor covered escalator system.
  • In operation since 1993, it cost HK$240 million (US$30 million) to build although it was originally approved in March 1990 with a budget of HK$100m and annual maintenance costs of $950,000.
This time, the excitement comes from all the bars open along the system. It's hard to imagine in the half way of a hill where your body and the ground gives a some 30 to 40 degrees slope, you still get to see so much "bar businesses" going on there. I so need to find some fun there some time.





Tuesday, November 4, 2008

funny sticker



Found this funny sticker at Sino Center.

Sino Center(信和中心) is a pretty popular shopping hub for youth. It sells comics, games, CDs, Japanese magazines and stuff. When I say Japanese magazines, I meanmagazines with naked girls on the cover, not so tricky to figure out what's inside the magazines. Wanna see bikini girls? Alright, go straight to the third floor of the center, you get what you want.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

cross-harbor tunnel



this tunnel connects Kowloon with Hong Kong Island.
The Cross-Harbour Tunnel (abbr. CHT or XHT; (Chinese: 香港海底隧道, or informally 紅磡海底隧道, 紅隧) is the first tunnel in Hong Kong built under water. Since its construction, its traffic has increased, becoming one of the most congested roads (mainly towards Hong Kong Island direction) in Hong Kong and the world.

Constructed by a private company and operated under a 30-year franchise, the 1.8 km-long tunnel crossing opened in 1972, providing the first road link between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island; Cross-harbour vehicular traffic depended on ferries before the tunnel was built.
source: wikipedia