Korean dramas

I am getting sooo close to the end of my current Korean drama, Mine. I only have two episodes left, which is around two hours, one hour per episode. I really want to finish it tonight, but it’s almost midnight… And I have an early start tomorrow… Should I watch an episode? Or at least start one?? Hmmm… 🤔

I looove Korean dramas. I didn’t even know they existed until I moved to Asia. They’re just sooo good. I don’t know what they do, but they just have the formula down pat. And I also like the fact that they’re only ever one season, so you know exactly what your time commitment is. It’s not like it’s dragged out like western shows – which sometimes doesn’t even get a proper ending because producers decide to pull the plug without allowing the writers to give the audience closure! Ugh, I really don’t like it when that happens 😒 But Korean dramas (and I’m guessing other Asian dramas as well) don’t have that problem. There are X number of episodes, and everyone signs up to X episodes. Sometimes, the show is sooo good that they extend the show for a few more episodes to satisfy (and tease!) the audience even more, but again, it’s not like they drag it out forever and a day. It’s still finite, and I really like that.

I just wish that I was learning Korean! That would, in a way, justify my watching even more Korean dramas! 🤪

Tired, but still reading!

We went to watch the Wallabies vs France rugby match tonight. This time we went to a sports bar at Central, Flaming Frango. It’s actually the same bar that we went to in Kennedy Town for the first game, I didn’t know that they also had a bar at Central. It’s a smaller bar, they only have maybe two large TVs there. Kennedy Town has at least four. And there are definitely more tables at Kennedy Town. But the food at both is good 👍 Definitely worth going to, even if you don’t like sport 😊

We got home at around 8:30pm, but we were both completely knackered that we decided to just get ready for bed 😱 I don’t know why we were both so tired. Maybe the heat today just sucked all the energy out of us. Apparently the next few days are going to be pretty tough going, so I’m expecting more of the same.

I finished another memoir: Just Mercy. Memoir #6. Wow. I am seriously flying through these memoirs. I haven’t read this many books since I was a kid doing those MS Readathons 😂 – which apparently is now all online! So hi-tech 😂

But I know what has suffered as a result of all this time that I have dedicated to reading: my language learning 😔 I haven’t done any language learning for aaages. So I think I need to get back on the wagon and open up my Anki flashcards again. Just do something. Remember that anything is better than nothing!

Adding to my HK experience

My Chinese lesson was cancelled today because my teacher was going on a bit of a staycation. So I was just going to work on my next YouTube video, but apparently the Wallabies were playing France tonight, so N asked if I wanted to go and watch the game at Kennedy Town. There’s this cool bar there where they always seem to be playing Aussie matches – and they also have good food 😋 So I like going there 😊

They were already in the second half of the game by the time I rocked up, so that was a bit disappointing. But at least I still got to see some of the game – despite having such a crappy Australian team at the moment! 😒 Young’uns being young’uns 🙄

We then went to go pick up my first ever purchase on Taobao, China’s equivalent to Amazon. I’ve never bothered trying to buy anything on there because everything is in Chinese, and it’s easier to just use AliExpress. I thought AliExpress was sorta just like Taobao but for non-Chinese speakers. But the books that I wanted to buy weren’t available on AliExpress, but they were available onTaobao. I guess they figured that non-Chinese speakers wouldn’t want to buy Chinese books!

Anyway, don’t think that my Chinese has suddenly skyrocketed to some crazy fluent level that I’m now needing to buy books from Taobao! 😂 I wanted to buy the Butt Detective series (which is from Japan) in Chinese, and I figured Taobao would be a good place to buy it. And I was right. I found it easily, once I knew the Chinese name for the detective. I’ve always been curious about this detective, since he has a butt for a face (who thinks of these things?! 🤪), so I decided to just buy all the books and try to read the entire series in Chinese. It’s for young children, so I figured it won’t be too difficult. And once I finish the Chinese version, I will try and get my hands on the original version – which is in Japanese, my second target language 😊 And so I will skip English entirely. That’s my goal. That’s always my goal, but it’s so damn hard!

We had to go to one of those self-service lockers to collect the books. It’s actually quite convenient! The lockers were about a 15-minute walk from home, so it wasn’t too bad, but having it delivered straight home would’ve been more convenient, of course. I’m not sure why they delivered it to one of those self-service lockers. Maybe it’s cheaper than having couriers deliver packages to people’s homes?

So my first Taobao purchase went off without a hitch – woohoo! I should continue to persevere and try to read more Chinese. I think I might have more things available to me if I use it. And things might also be cheaper. And delivery was fast! It helps that we are currently living in HK, which is right next door to the mainland.

I also received this little notification popup on WeChat (China’s equivalent to WhatsApp) asking me to register for the government consumption voucher. Since we’re not permanent residents, I tend to ignore things like this, because foreigners are usually not eligible. But it turns out that this time, we actually are. And the ‘consumption voucher’ is actually cash (in the form of credit to one of those stored value apps like your Octopus card, AliPayHK or WeChat Pay) that the government is handing out to residents, permanent or otherwise, to stimulate consumption.

I was expecting something like HK$100, since everyone living here is getting this same amount of cash, it’s not means tested in any way. But noooo, apparently we’re all getting HK$5,000! EACH! Based on the current exchange rate, that’s A$860! AWESOME! And here I was ignoring these notification popups this entire time, delaying receipt of money that the HK government is just freely giving out to residents. I have now registered, so soon, I may actually go and buy more on Taobao, which is exactly what the government wants us to do, to stimulate consumption! 😂

Finding the right balance

There are actually two typhoons near HK now. They’re not severe, they’re actually the second-lowest rating on the typhoon scale, but they seem to be bringing unsettled weather to the region. They did say that they might issue a T1 typhoon warning signal tomorrow morning, which is the lowest warning signal on their typhoon warning signal system. I’ve come to realise that a T1 doesn’t really mean much haha As some people like to say, it’s just a ‘light breeze’. I’m slowly starting to get used to all these typhoons being announced here. There is still a part of me that gets a little nervous, but my nervousness is definitely subsiding as each year passes 😅

Two typhoons in the area

I finished another memoir today: The Girl With Seven Names. My ‘summer of memoirs’ is working out really well, much better than I expected! I am maintaining three books on the go, so I have added a new one today: The Misfit’s Manifesto, which I mentioned the other day when I was trying to put three memoirs in the order that I will read them. I decided to put The Misfit’s Manifesto at the top, if you recall. So here I am now reading it 😊

But because I’ve been reading so much, I haven’t been doing much language study recently, which is terribly disappointing. I lost my daily habit of reviewing my Japanese Anki flashcards when we had our staycation a few weeks ago, and I never got back into it 😔

We only have so many hours in the day, so it’s always about finding the right balance.

Planning our day tomorrow

We have another public holiday tomorrow – there are sooo many here! I thought SG had a lot, but I think HK has even more 😱 Anyway, tomorrow is the HKSAR (HK Special Administrative Region) Establishment Day. And I want to go out and do something interesting tomorrow, so I went looking for events that are on in HK at the moment. I found this: Butt Detective exhibition 😂 Butt Detective is this popular character in Japan, and I just find it hilarious that his face is an actual butt. I want to read some of the manga, especially since it’s written for kids so it should be easy to understand – ie they would be at my Japanese level! And since we’re in HK, they should also have these manga available in Chinese, so I should just buy them in both languages and skip English entirely 😊 I wonder if I can buy electronic versions… I’m really big on e-books these days, so I would definitely prefer to buy electronic versions of these comics.

Anyway, N isn’t interested in checking out this exhibition, surprise surprise 😂

The other thing that I want to check out is this art exhibition that is finishing up on Sunday. It opens at 1pm, which is great. It’s one of the things that I like about Asia: early morning starts are not the norm here! Which is great for us 😁 And it doesn’t look like the exhibition is all that large, so we should be finished in an hour, I reckon. So we should have plenty of time for the rest of the afternoon and evening to just wander around and be tourists in the city 😊

Day 2 of 5

I went and got a mani-pedi today. Like with haircuts and massages, I don’t like getting pampered – even if I’m paying for it. Anyway, I decided to try out my Mandarin today. I was feeling particularly brave 😂 The guy who did my pedicure couldn’t really speak Mando, but he understood my basic words whenever I said anything. So that was good, a mix of basic English and Mando to communicate 😂

So then I tried speaking in Mando to the lady who did my manicure. Her mando was clearly better than the guy’s, and it was clearly better than her English, so she continued speaking in Mando to me. That was obviously harder for me, though 🤣 Sighhh… It’s always so hard trying out my language skills outside of the classroom, but it is definitely the best way to learn 👍🏻

And then in the evening, I just watched a few more episodes of The Crown. I finished season 2! 👏

And then we watched the first two episodes of Manifest. That came up as one of the suggestions for us. And the little blurb was right up my alley. We’ve now watched the first two episodes and we’re really enjoying it! I wonder who produced it. Maybe I should go hunting for more of their stuff 😊

Our extra-long weekend has been very relaxing so far! 😌

Day 1 of 5

It was the first day of our extra-long weekend 👍

We started the day off with yum cha at our favourite yum cha restaurant in HK 😋 We got there at 11:30am, which was apparently already a bit too late on a long weekend. We had to wait for about half an hour for a table 😱 The restaurant opens at 11am, so I think I have to remember to get there right when it opens. It’s been okay on regular weekends, but maybe they just get mega busy on long weekends.

N left a rice dumpling in the fridge at work, which was a gift from his workmate for the Dragon Boat Festival (the whole point of this long weekend). So he went to go and pick it up so we could eat it for dinner tonight 😊 While he went to do that, I went to the library to borrow a Mr Men book – in Chinese 😱

We then made our way home straight after that because the aircon guys were coming to fix two units that needed replacement parts. I thought it was going to be a quick 5-minute job, but it turned out to be much more complicated than that. I think they were working on the units for over two hours 😱

So while they did that, I worked my way through that Mr Men book. Yes, it took me that long to read it. I was actually fully studying the first few pages, looking up every single word that I didn’t know, and really trying to study the sentence structures. But that was taking forever, and it didn’t feel like the most efficient use of my time. So I decided to just try and read an entire page, and if I could understand at least 50% of it, then I could move on to the next page. But if I couldn’t even do that, then I’d actually look up some of the words to help me get the gist. This way was much better! 😂 And to my surprise, I could actually read at least 2/3 of it 😱 And the pictures throughout the book also helped with the comprehension 😊 I am definitely going to try and work my way through all the Mr Men books in Chinese! It is such good practice. The books are easy to read, so I know that the Chinese versions should be good study material for me 👍

Mr Happy – in Chinese! 😱

We then went for a bit of a walk around our neighbourhood, checking out new cafes and restaurants that have opened up recently. Rents have decreased, thanks to COVID, and I think a lot of people have taken this opportunity to open their new business. I also spoke to my mum while we wandered around, killing two birds with one stone 😆

And then we finished the evening off with the second My Hero Academia movies: Heroes Rising.

So not a bad way to start our long weekend, don’t you think? Not a bad way at all 😊

TV, Mandarin and Books

N had work drinks again tonight, so I got to watch another episode of The Crown 😂 I was actually going to watch a second episode because they’re just so good, but then decided against it because I wanted to continue working on my next YouTube video.

But instead of switching the TV off, I watched TEDx Talks on YouTube 🙄 Sure, they were educational and all, but still, that didn’t help me finish my next YouTube video! 😂 😒

And I was still watching them when N arrived home 😂 And then we just had a chat for about an hour while he ate his dinner, with some Mandarin songs playing on YouTube in the background. I haven’t been listening to Mando songs lately, so this was good reading practice. Oh, I reckon 99.9% of Chinese songs have lyrics burned into the video, which is excellent. It is such good reading practice. Plus YouTube has English translations for some of the songs, which is a bonus. I wish English songs had the same custom. Not just for English learners, but for people who just want to sing along to the song!

So yeah, it wasn’t the most productive evening! 😂

I did finish my latest book, though: A Man Called Ove. I actually enjoyed it more than I expected to. Maybe because I didn’t really have any expectations. The protagonist reminded me of my dad, which was comforting, in a way. I thought it was well written. It tugged at the heartstrings in quite a few different ways for me, and I really like it when an author can do that.

So now my ‘summer of memoirs’ can begin 😁 I have actually started reading Small Fry a few weeks ago, but I haven’t picked it up since. And today, I started reading Broken Places & Outer Spaces. It’s really short, so I figured that would be a good book to officially start my summer of memoirs. Get through one relatively quickly to build momentum and get the ball rolling, so that I’ll be keen to start the next book virtually straight away. I have a ton of memoirs on my list, so I know that I won’t read them all this summer, but I’m going to try my best to get through as many as I can 😊

And our extra long-weekend is just around the corner, so hopefully I can make my way through at least one book over the weekend! 🤞

Eyebrows and languages

We went to the eyebrow feng shui place again today. They asked us to come back in 7 days. Did we really need to come back just one week later? How untidy can eyebrows get after just 7 days?? And for the price that we’re paying, I just don’t see why we need to go so often. It better be paying off, laying the foundation for good feng shui to come our way! 😆

N almost lost his wallet today too, but he didn’t. Should I take that as good feng shui?? 😜

And my computer also almost died last week, but it didn’t. Am I now just clutching at straws?? 😂

I did get to practise my Mandarin again, though, so that was good. But stressful, since my listening skills are still so 💩!

Speaking of learning languages, we’re currently watching a Japanese anime, My Hero Academia. And it actually has Japanese subtitles; Chinese subtitles in simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese:

• Simplified Chinese because HK is part of China;
• Traditional Chinese because HK uses traditional characters;
• Japanese because the show is from Japan; and
• English, because it’s still an official language in HK.

It is such a good source of learning material for me! This city is the best place for me to learn these two languages! The only thing missing, though, is Chinese (mandarin) voiceover, to help improve my crap listening skills. Despite not listening much to Japanese, I can still pick up more listening to Japanese than I can listening to Mandarin. It is so bizarre. I think all the Japanese study that I did during high school and uni actually still makes a big difference, even if it was so long ago. The basics are kinda innate, buried deep inside my long-term memory.

So I still feel like I have a lot of work to do with my Mandarin to get it to the same level as my Japanese! 😓

Issues in HK

I’ve been working my way through my flashcards every morning, as I’ve mentioned in recent posts. But today, I decided to review them while walking up and down the house, killing two birds with one stone: getting some language study done and getting a little bit of exercise. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing at all. I actually don’t like exercising first thing in the morning. It doesn’t energise me, like people always claim morning exercise gives to you. But admittedly, I haven’t tried it very often, so I might just give it a bit of a go for the next few days/weeks, and see if it’ll work for me, or if I’ll just be tired for the rest of the day – which is what usually happens to me instead! 😔

I spent aaages filming a few YouTube videos today. The neighbours upstairs are very noisy, so during almost every sentence that I said, I would hear the guys upstairs jumping or running around, or something would drop on the floor and make a very loud sound. Kids, I assume 🙄 This is the problem with HK. Everyone is living on top of one another. There is just no space 😒 So it’s either the kids running around or they’re renovating. Maybe I need to find a spot somewhere where I can film in peace. Is that possible in HK??

And some positive news: we had zero cases today for the second day in a row! Woohoo! 🥳 When was the last time that happened?!? And can we keep it this way please??

Property tycoons in the city have actually launched a lottery to win a HK$10.8M (~A$2M) apartment. Permanent residents who are fully vaccinated are eligible to win. The whole point of the lottery is to try and encourage more people to get vaccinated. That’s almost A$2M! That’s the grand prize, but there are other prizes up for grabs too. And of course people who are already fully vaccinated are also eligible to enter. If I was a permanent resident, I’d be getting my entry in. This is a no-brainer!

Of course the property tycoons could actually do more to help the city’s residents with the severe housing problem here, but that’s a separate discussion altogether 🙄