Flutterby™! : Star Ferry 2002-12-08 18:47:59+00

Star Ferry

2002-12-08 18:47:59+00 by Dan Lyke 2 comments

A somewhat blurry shot, as I was standing on a rocking boat, and the subject is a rocking boat. This is one of the Star Ferries that cross back and forth between Tsim Sha Tsui and the central district of Hong Kong. They've been doing this for a hundred years, and I can believe the boats are that old, they putt-putt-putt and pitch in the waves of the harbor in a way that really doesn't inspire confidence. Not only that, but in the busy strait there's all sorts of other traffic, high speed ferries and what not, zipping back and forth. It's amazing that they don't sink one or two of these a night.

Price wise, this ferry ride goes for HK$2.20, and except for a pastry that cost me HK$3.50 this was the only time I had to deal with units of less than a HK$. I paid 7.2 HK$ to US$ at SFO, over there I saw rates as low as 7.8 HK$ to US$.

A couple of years ago I was in China for a while and therefore watched your trip with interest. It took me almost 6 days to fully recover from the 12 hour time shift (Mayberry is farther away) - during which I am not sure I would have been too good a programmer.

You got there and just as you were getting acclimated, according to my experience you returned - does your head hurt?

I enjoyed the fact that Western religions were for the most part not to be seen - it was refreshing - All in all I liked the people and their way of dealing with reality. There are downsides but I felt they were basically a very good people.

I can (apparently) go for a few days on adrenaline alone, so I was fine there. I hurt really bad on Saturday, but that evening I took a melatonin pill, slept hard (Charlene complained that the cat came in 'cause I was back, batted at my face a bit because it wanted petting, and then went over and bothered her because I didn't even flinch). In the morning I didn't feel like I'd slept, just that those hours were gone. Yesterday evening I felt a little bit of a lift around the time I'd be waking up in Hong Kong, but didn't have any problems sleeping. I think I'm set now.

I saw a church, and a few indications of Christianity. But I'm also used to the Bay Area; I'm not sure if Christianity is actually a minority religion in Marin county (the neo-pagans and new age Buddhists and the like are big here), but as Meuon commented when he came out for Burning Man, the fringe culture out here isn't a reaction to Christianity.

Hong Kong is modern, but the scaffolding is lashed bamboo, and for every Mercedes on the street there's a guy with a bamboo yoke carrying cardboard boxes or some similar thing. A weird mix.

And I'm always a student, but I was also a teacher in this case. I was there to install a piece of hardware and give some training, but also to observe a manufacturing process and learn about a small bit of the fashion approval process, the people who will be using our hardware and software. I'll try to dribble out notes on that as I gain a little more experience in what it is and isn't okay to share about a given customer's processes.