Saturday, January 29, 2011
When Will My Life Begin?
I tell you what, I'd say it's already done and over with, seeing what all I have to put up with... *cough* chemistry. I'd say, it's the first week back and already I have been faced with mountains and mountains of chemistry homework that it would almost indicate grade 11 as simply jumping off into the deep end of the pool. But no one wants to hear about chemistry homework and mindless teenage complaints, so I suppose I have to talk about more interesting things...
To those who have not heard, I spent my Christmas holidays in the miraculous and enthralling city of Hong Kong, which is notorious for bringing back people with over-sized baggage - both in terms of luggage and, uh, unfortunate acquired weight. I know for a fact I somehow managed to gain something like 2kg of fat simply by eating yum cha and instant noodles every day, despite the fact that fat weighs more than muscle, so in other words I guess I lost my muscle and gained the equivalent PLUS 2kg in fat? Yeah, you get my meaning correct? Anyways, in summary, I believe that the Hong Kong trip was much needed on my behalf, as I had almost forgotten the joys of actually GOOD public transport systems and shopping. In fact, I quote in horror that I recall myself stating before I left "No, I don't want to go. Hong Kong is so boring and I don't like the clothes much anyways." I wanted to get a job and make some cash... but for what? To splurge on expensive shit in Australia? If you have never been to Hong Kong before, you would not understand or fathom what I'm about to say, but once you shop in Hong Kong, you will ONLY shop in Hong Kong.
So the exchange rate was excellent, at about 7.5-8 HKD to 1 AUD. I had mostly acquired money from Christmas gifts and some blackmail, which totalled at around 500~ AUD. In Hong Kong dollars I turned out getting around 4300~ HKD (lucky money etc. acquired along the way). Okay, so in a short demonstration on HOW cheap things are in Hong Kong, I will provide you with example 1: my lens.
The lens I got was a canon ef 100mm f2.8 Macro USM lens, which is capable of doing 1:1 macro photography, meaning I can take pictures of bugs. I recall mentioning it in a previous blog post, but here is a link with an associating picture http://www.flickr.com/photos/smkybear/5396855784/in/pool-37879325@N00/
So, yeah, basically the lens is a specialised macro lens which has countless amounts of professionals swearing by it. In Australia, it costs $699, as I recall seeing in Ted's Cameras shop catalogue. In Hong Kong, I got mine for 4100 HKD, which equates to just over $500... so you can see that I saved something like $200. I will reiterate. Buy everything from Hong Kong, don't buy anything from Australia. I know I'm a terrible Australian citizen but doesn't anyone agree that the government has to get over these taxes and start giving us good, free stuff. Even the Austrian lady I sat next to on the plane was complaining about the rip-off prices in Australia.
Anyways, I'll continue with my journey. So the day I departed was a beautiful, sunny day (and it rained the day after, so I believe). Okay, so if you guys want to see all my photos, I advise you go onto my facebook, because I have lots and lots of photos on there for all of you to enjoy!
To those who have not heard, I spent my Christmas holidays in the miraculous and enthralling city of Hong Kong, which is notorious for bringing back people with over-sized baggage - both in terms of luggage and, uh, unfortunate acquired weight. I know for a fact I somehow managed to gain something like 2kg of fat simply by eating yum cha and instant noodles every day, despite the fact that fat weighs more than muscle, so in other words I guess I lost my muscle and gained the equivalent PLUS 2kg in fat? Yeah, you get my meaning correct? Anyways, in summary, I believe that the Hong Kong trip was much needed on my behalf, as I had almost forgotten the joys of actually GOOD public transport systems and shopping. In fact, I quote in horror that I recall myself stating before I left "No, I don't want to go. Hong Kong is so boring and I don't like the clothes much anyways." I wanted to get a job and make some cash... but for what? To splurge on expensive shit in Australia? If you have never been to Hong Kong before, you would not understand or fathom what I'm about to say, but once you shop in Hong Kong, you will ONLY shop in Hong Kong.
So the exchange rate was excellent, at about 7.5-8 HKD to 1 AUD. I had mostly acquired money from Christmas gifts and some blackmail, which totalled at around 500~ AUD. In Hong Kong dollars I turned out getting around 4300~ HKD (lucky money etc. acquired along the way). Okay, so in a short demonstration on HOW cheap things are in Hong Kong, I will provide you with example 1: my lens.
The lens I got was a canon ef 100mm f2.8 Macro USM lens, which is capable of doing 1:1 macro photography, meaning I can take pictures of bugs. I recall mentioning it in a previous blog post, but here is a link with an associating picture http://www.flickr.com/photos/smkybear/5396855784/in/pool-37879325@N00/
So, yeah, basically the lens is a specialised macro lens which has countless amounts of professionals swearing by it. In Australia, it costs $699, as I recall seeing in Ted's Cameras shop catalogue. In Hong Kong, I got mine for 4100 HKD, which equates to just over $500... so you can see that I saved something like $200. I will reiterate. Buy everything from Hong Kong, don't buy anything from Australia. I know I'm a terrible Australian citizen but doesn't anyone agree that the government has to get over these taxes and start giving us good, free stuff. Even the Austrian lady I sat next to on the plane was complaining about the rip-off prices in Australia.
Anyways, I'll continue with my journey. So the day I departed was a beautiful, sunny day (and it rained the day after, so I believe). Okay, so if you guys want to see all my photos, I advise you go onto my facebook, because I have lots and lots of photos on there for all of you to enjoy!
Here was the view from the plane as we came down into Cairns. The view was simply breathtaking.
So yeah, We arrived in Hong Kong and the next week we traveled to a village in the Guang-Dong Province in China named Shan wei. It was quite a vibrant place, with the typical Chinese craziness. I'm sorry guys, but I don't think I'll recommend the food.... twice it made me sick and I vomited a few times. The water heating system is also seemingly crap, since I had to wait for around 10 minutes in freezing cold water in freezing cold temperatures in a room smelling of gas for the water to finally heat up... But the scenery was nice, the people were kind of hilarious in their reactions to my dad's prominent European features and I guess I enjoyed it overall.
An example of Chinese determination... uuuh jousting anyone?
Where I stayed in China.
My cute little cousin!
A cat in a chinese village
An example of pretty Chinese scenery
Okay, I think I might have to continue this at a different point in time since I'm feeling really lazy... hehe. I'll probs continue it tomorrow!
Steph