Arcades and Hong Kong

Last Saturday, I walked around with one of my friends here, as the mainland Chinese love to do. We ended up spending around three or four hours in an arcade, something I haven’t really done since elementary school. I finally got to try that Japanese drum game, as well as this “advanced” DDR-esque game that had eight inputs (foot diagonals and left-right for each hand. It turns out rhythm skills are transferrable, even though I looked extremely silly doing the latter. Lots of random waving and cardinal direction missteps the first time I tried it. After cycling through racing, shooting, and those silly basketball and air hockey games (I have no chivalry when it comes to gaming, so I was literally undefeated throughout the period).

Sometime over the weekend, I also made pot stickers with another group of friends, which was also pretty interesting .

The average Chinese home seems to be quite cluttered with random things. I know that a significant amount of my friends here like collecting tiny trinkets and displaying them over any available space. Then again, it also happens in the U.S. I guess my personal aesthetic is basically the opposite of that.

I thought Hong Kong would be somewhat like Shanghai, but it is totally different. In terms of architecture and road layout, it is pretty much the definition of urban jungle. Raised walkways are everywhere, sometimes three levels of pedestrian bridges going different directions. It’s fairly easy and quick to traverse the city horizontally, but since everything is more vertical, its much easier to miss sights. I’ve definitely passed some big malls thinking they were office buildings.

The people here are definitely more polite, I suppose the stereotype holds true. It was somewhat surprising that people actually waited when the stop walking sign was on. I was always totally disoriented because of the reverse driving directions though, so I stayed pretty close to other people. The bad thing about looking Chinese in this case is that everyone initially speaks Cantonese to me, and not English. Awkward.

Mostly outside of work I just walked around, and tried to avoid taking the subway. I like getting the “feel” of a city a bit more than going to see individual places, although I did take the requisite trip to the peak. Things were cheap, but not so much that I felt good buying things I didn’t really need at the time.

Merck HK was more like a trade office than anything; however, the people were quite nice. The office was located on the 29^th floor, leading to some nice views. It’s smaller than the office in shanghai, but a bit more friendly feeling.

A huge problem came up in terms of the visa; I had applied for an F visa (180 days) and got back an L visa (14 days). This means that I will have to renew it for another 14 days, and then make a trip back to the U.S. I should probably use this opportunity to use my holiday vacations, however, the possibility that the Chinese consulate in SF would also reject it is, while small, cannot be totally discounted. It’s just a worrisome situation. On the plus side, maybe I can use this opportunity to get a 6 month multiple entry, or even a 1 year multiple entry visa, only available in the united states. Hehe.

Getting an extension was a big pain. First I read the address wrong, then I learned they had the wrong address on their website, then finally I learned that the marterials I had needed to be updated to the new visa. Everything has worked out though… I think. I’ll still be back to the US from the 18^th to the 27^th.

I eat a lot better when my parents are here… haha