HK Space Museum

We went to the HK Space Museum today. It’s located in Tsim Sha Tsui, right next to Victoria Harbour, and so really easy to get to. They have a planetarium in there, and we watched two docos today. I forgot that these types of shows give me motion sickness 🤢 I had to shut my eyes a few times in both sessions, as I just couldn’t handle all the motion. I should’ve just followed my two neighbours on either side of me during the first doco and just fell asleep. Not only would I have skipped all the motion sickness, but I also would have been a little more rested! 😂 But the two shows were good, though.

We wandered around the museum itself before and after the docos. It’s quite an interactive place, and a perfect place to take older kids to learn a thing or two while also having fun. It’s a pretty small museum with only two rooms, but if you actually want to read all the information that they have there, it’ll still take you a while to get through. But if you’re just there for the kids who just want to play with all the interactive games, it won’t take you that long to get through the two rooms, an hour max, maybe, unless they just want to run around and play all the games multiple times.

It cost something like HK$10 ($A1) for one adult (excluding the docos), and I think kids / concession tickets are half price, so it’s a pretty cheap day out for a family. And even the docos at HK$32 (A$6) for one adult ain’t too bad. The docos are in Cantonese, but they supply each seat with wireless headphones where you can select English (or Mandarin or Japanese) narration. All very hi-tech these days!

The Space Museum apparently falls under the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, which I believe is a government department. And any time these guys are involved, unlike almost everything else in HK, the prices are really affordable, so I assume the HK government must heavily subsidise stuff that falls in these guys’ jurisdiction. Maybe I need to find more activities that these guys look after 😊

But as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, with almost everything touristy in HK, signage is horrendous. Note that tickets are actually purchased outside, so don’t bother going inside first, as no doubt they’ll tell you to buy your tickets outside. So of course this means braving the HK weather, whether that be the heat or the rain when it’s typhoon season 🙄 They recently renovated the museum, so you’d think they would’ve brought the ticketing inside somehow, but no. No they haven’t 😒

Also, the planetarium tickets get sold out, so if you’re really keen to go on a particular date and/or time, maybe book in advance, which I think you can do online. And when you purchase your tickets for the permanent exhibition, make sure you keep the stub, as you’ll have to present it when you first enter both of the two rooms. One room is downstairs and the other is upstairs, and you may end up going to a doco in between, so that stub may get lost in all the to-ing and fro-ing. Another slight housekeeping inconvenience that would’ve been nice to have been fixed up as part of the recent renovations, but no. That didn’t happen 😒 But these are just minor inconveniences. I still enjoyed visiting the museum, and I’d definitely go again, especially at these prices 👍 Maybe when they get new docos in at the planetarium 😊

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Mediocrity

I watched the second episode of Goblin, my new Korean drama. It was actually quite mediocre compared to the first episode, I was rather disappointed! It got a very high rating on mydramalist.com, and the first episode lived up to this rating, so I’m quite surprised that it’s already starting to lose its appeal. I hope it picks up soon, otherwise I may just have to abandon this drama and move on to the next one 😔 But I do want to give this one a chance, as some dramas that I’ve watched in the past have started off slow, but then got really good as the drama continued, so I shouldn’t be so hasty! 😆

And then we watched the Detective Pikachu movie tonight. The Pokémon were sooo cuuute! But apart from them, I didn’t think much of the rest of the movie, unfortunately. Ryan Reynolds was his usual funny self, so that helped, but yeah, not much else going for this movie 😔

And coupled with some pretty ordinary trading today, basically my Friday was filled with mediocrity ☹️

Crazy HK weather

Typhoon season in HK apparently coincides with summer, which is a real shame, because I miss out on beautiful summer days. The weather warnings here, as you can appreciate, are very detailed, given the relative frequency of typhoons in this city. For rainstorms, they have three levels – from lightest to heaviest: amber, red and black. We have already seen a few amber warnings, and the rain during these times is quite heavy. You’ll be soaked without an umbrella, and it would be quite nice to be wearing gum boots. I’m nervous to see what the rain that accompanies red and black warnings looks like… Let alone typhoon warnings…! Typhoons apparently happen a handful of times each year, and some are non-events. But the actual “eventful” ones are the ones I really don’t want to experience! I’ll definitely be letting you know how they are when one does eventuate… 😟

So for people thinking of coming by HK for a holiday, I would definitely recommend going during the cooler months, say November to March. The rest of the time it’s just hot and muggy, and then you also have typhoon season to contend with, when your holiday is more likely than not to be washed out 😔

I started my new Korean drama today: Goblin. It’s looking promising already! The good ones get you hooked right from the first episode, I tell you 😆 It has a supernatural theme, but not in the usual scary, horror way. I prefer this less-scary way 😊 Actually, I haven’t watched one with a supernatural theme in a while, so I’m probably due to watch something in this genre. It’s a short series with only 16 episodes, so I should be done before I even know it. And if the crappy weather continues and staying home is the more appealing option than having to brave the weather outside, I’ll get through the series even faster 😆

Continued protest on the extradition bill

I knew the protest that started last Sunday was going to continue today, as the legislative council was to meet today to discuss (or perhaps even vote for?!) this proposed new extradition bill that the city – and a number of overseas countries – is up in arms about. So I decided to make my way to Admiralty and watch what could potentially be a historic moment unfold.

It was indeed quite intense. I got there at around 12:30pm, and everything seemed pretty calm at this point. I probably arrived during lunchtime, so everyone was ready to take a break. So I did too 😊 I figured all the protestors would be grabbing lunch somewhere in Admiralty, so I decided to walk to nearby Central and grab something there instead, to avoid the ridiculous crowds.

I went back to Admiralty closer to 2:30pm, as I suspected things might escalate from around 3pm, as the protestors had given the government an ultimatum to scrap the bill by that time. The crowd around the Legislative Council building had built up, and things did start to get a bit intense soon enough. Protestors kept coming around asking for umbrellas, well that’s what I figured they were asking, as people just kept giving them more and more umbrellas, which they were using to defend themselves against the police.

The police eventually fired tear gas into the crowds to try and disperse the protestors, and it was windy enough for the remnants of that tear gas to waft its way over to where I was standing. I thought I was already pretty far enough away from the main action, but the wind made that distance feel much closer. The protestors were actually giving out masks to us mere observers, which I thought was a really kind gesture. But I decided to leave soon after the first round of tear gas was deployed, as it was just getting a bit too intense for my liking. And as I was walking back to Central, they had dispersed a second round of tear gas, which again started to waft where I happen to be walking – and a number of the protestors were also running in my general direction. Greeeat, I was going to get caught in the stampede. But luckily I wasn’t, and I managed to somehow find myself in relative safety 😅

I decided to go to Lady M in IFC to de-stress, but when I got there, I was told that they were closed, but that I could still order takeaway. Apparently a number of small businesses had chosen to close down today, to allow their staff to participate in today’s protest and also as a sign of solidarity with them. Perhaps Lady M made this decision too.

So I sat outside in a general sitting area just off one of the main roads in Central and ate my slice of Lady M cake 🍰 By this time, ambulances were in full force, with one driving past, blaring its sirens, every few minutes around me 😔 Definitely time to go home.

I then just watched the live broadcast on TV for the next few hours while they had it on. Apparently the intensity had indeed been stepped up a notch or two, so luckily I left when I did.

Quite an intense day 😥

Books and TV

I started reading Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore today. I don’t come across many books that keep me interested from start to finish. I start reading books because the blurb sounds interesting, but I don’t tend to finish a lot of them because I lose interest somewhere along the way. So the ones that do keep my attention tend to be ones that have a bit of a mystery to them, because I just want the mystery solved! This book has that, and it also has a little humour, which I also appreciate. It’s got my attention so far, so hopefully I can make it until the end this time! 🤞 Maybe I need to find authors who write in a similar way to the writers of Korean dramas… 😂

Speaking of which, I finished The Heirs tonight. I liked the ending, it wasn’t your typical “happily ever after” finale. It wasn’t a total tragedy either; it was somewhere in between, a more realistic ending – and I say that after going through a crazy, unrealistic ride for the previous nineteen episodes! 😂 I was thinking of jumping back in and watching a new Korean (or Chinese?) drama straight away, but perhaps I’ll give myself a bit of a break and watch something in the western tv world… 😊 I hear Black Mirror has a few new episodes… I’m actually a few seasons behind, so that series can keep me/us occupied for a little while… 😊

Flowers and Korean dramas

I learnt two kinds of flowers in Chinese today: azaleas (杜鹃 dù juān) and camellias (茶花 chá huā). I don’t know much about flowers, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to Google them and see what they actually look like 😊

Azalea

It turns out that I’ve liked camellias all this time, I just didn’t realise that they were called camellias 😆 You learn something every day!

And I’ve almost finished The Heirs! I have two episodes left of my current Korean drama, and then I need to find a new one. But as I’ve mentioned before, I have a huuuge backlog, so I just need to choose one from that 😆 This series was good, I really enjoyed it. Barring a really baaad ending, I’d rank this drama right up there 👍 Korean dramas are the best, I tell you! 😆

A movie and a drama

** Warning: Dark Phoenix spoiler alert below **

We somehow managed to get out of the house by 8:30am today – on a SUNDAY. That was total amazeballs. I didn’t think we’d be able to do it. They have cheaper movie tickets for the 9am sessions, compared to sessions later in the day, so this was a good enough reason for us to try and make it to the cinema early 😆 HK is generally a night time city, which makes me all the more inclined to try and turn into a morning person while we’re here, simply to avoid the crowds that are everywhere in this city, especially on weekends. I’ll keep you posted on how this is working out… or not 😂

We watched the new X-Men movie, Dark Phoenix. I actually had no idea what the movie was about, just that Sansa was in it 😂 Apparently she plays Jean Grey. I was actually enjoying the movie, until people started dying – ie people who are still alive when the first X-Men movie finished. And if you go by the timeline of it all, I thought this movie would fit somewhere more like a prequel. So why did these characters die??

And there was no Wolverine, which doesn’t make sense either because this was set some time before the first ever X-Men movie, as McAvoy and Fassbender are playing the younger versions of Professor Xavier and Magneto respectively, and ditto with the other actors who were playing characters who were featured in the first film. But no Wolverine probably has more to do with Hugh Jackman probably not wanting to reprise his role any longer, so I reckon there were more external factors at play with this omission more than anything else, so this one didn’t bother me too much.

And then, Professor Xavier “retires”, and the movie ends with the school being named the “Jean Grey School”. Seriously, what the f is all this about?!? I am confused and at a complete loss as to where they’re taking this. So unless these characters somehow come back to life in the next film, and they somehow get the story back on the right track, they may have lost me as a fan 😔 It’s quite sad. Especially as it is supposed to be in memory of Stan Lee. I would be turning in my grave if I were Stan 😒

We then went and had yum cha (of course 😋) before heading back home. I took a quick nap, as the early morning start was just that: early. And then I just binge-watched more of The Heirs, my current Korean drama, while N went to karate. I’m getting close to the end, so now I’m keen to just finish it off! It’s quite good, of course, I’m really enjoying it. It’s so crazy and out there, which is one of the main reasons why I watch these dramas. They’re just fun and silly, and takes you out of reality for just that little while 😊