Adventure racing. It’s no googlewhack, but it is addictive. Here’s post-race me, with new pal Sari. We met about 10 minutes before the race started. She was there with her friend Rob. All newbies, all made it to the finish!
An ActionAsia event, the 13-kilometer Discovery Bay Sprint on May 10 was my introduction to the sport. It drew a motley crew of 300 or so thrill seekers. Teenyboppers to old farts (hey, some of ‘em beat me!), we all donned required helmets and scrambled across beaches, up and down a couple big hills, up and along rocky waterfalls, past a monastery, through a village or two. Scenic, anyway.
I was glad to be helmeted during the rock climb, and wondered what sort of reasoning one of my fellow racers used before deciding to carry his helmet in his hand during the most dangerous portion of the race. There were portions where you could choose your own path along the rocks, and at one point I opted instead to jump into the water, taking the more direct (though not any quicker) route…
“Was that a good decision,” a guy to my right asked. I had to think about it. Then, he answered for me, “the correct answer is: absolutely.”
Score. I love this stuff.
The beach sections came at the best times. No, wait. Worst times. It’s hard to run on a beach! And it’s harder to run on a beach after 12 kilometers of the aforementioned surfaces. Also hard: mountains. I remember wondering, probably two-thirds of the way up big-arse hill numero dos, “hey, I wonder how long it’ll take me to forget how much this sucks.”
Quote of the day (any variation of): “This is the last big hill.” or “One more uphill then it’s flat the rest of the way.”
Thanks for the support, folks, but I think I’d rather hear you tell me you like the dirt covering my entire front from that massive wipeout on the second big downhill. It was HUGE. Face first, sliding down. I remember being a little bummed that the reservoir swim came so quickly after that — no one got to see the evidence of how hard-core I was.
The race ended in the Piazza, where one can opt for a bottle of water (thanks, Bonaqua) or beer. Every time I went to the tent I was greeted with a friendly, “beer?” If only I hadn’t been expected at work in a couple hours.
Special thanks to Anna for serving as my emergency contact. I’m glad I didn’t die.
Sunrise in Discovery Bay, Hong Kong, on Sept. 5. Apols for the delay in uploading. Just today I took the time to sync my mobile phone with my computer and download the media content and contacts. Fun times. So far I’m a big fan of vimeo. I previously wrote about this morning: see my earlier post, “Hong Kong can whisper”. Now, let’s see how this embedding works out…
Ah ha! Success! Forgive the camera noises and shakiness. It was the end of a fun-filled night. The shot starts out pointing northeast toward Disneyland then pans south. Hong Kong Island is to the east/southeast. Discovery Bay and the South China Sea are before you. In the distance you can see the skyscrapers of Central on HK Island. The end of the pan points mostly south and has a glimpse of one of the piers in Disco Bay. Note the islands clearly visible. Most days you can’t begin to see that many islands.
This weekend started off somewhat like the last, with me going out after lockup* and catching the sunrise ferry. At home, I took the elevator to the roof of my building to see what I could see. And what I saw shook me. It shook me. The scene was so beautiful that it was all I could do to call a dear friend and attempt to share so that I did not feel … what? Alone with the enormous majesty? Selfish for attempting to devour every detail?
I counted 11 islands before the call. Then right after I counted 13. They kept appearing, surprising, standing against the sky slowly changing. I took them in one by one. We traded good mornings and in the water and the birds I could hear Hong Kong whisper. Before that I’d never held it as a possibility that a city so busy, so harried and unabashed in its quest to expand outward and upward could possibly do something so gentle and meek. It shook me. The surprise, it was almost sneaky the way Hong Kong seemed to, for that eternal moment, envelop me and yet catapult me to the top of … what? The moment? I guess that’s all it could be. It was just me. Look…
Down: Big rocks meet sand and give way to the bay, calm with only the smallest fishing boats out so early, and they don’t change the roll of the tide the way the ferries and barges and typhoons do. There are sunrise birds here too, and they make a happy sound. They would soon be silent, giving way to the water’s song. Maybe they’re listening too.
Left: For the first time I looked left from my building and didn’t see Disneyland. It was still there, sure, but I saw past it. I saw the bay where the ferry comes in, the mountains beyond it. I slowly recognized the island, from the mountains farthest from me to the plaza just out of view.
Straight: Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. The sun is rising behind the city of 7 million. The sky is pink, light blue, a bit of soft peach, and white with tall clouds. I can’t exactly make out buildings, but the shapes of the buildings. I wonder what I look like to them. I wonder if anyone else is seeing this, hearing this, feeling how I’m feeling. You wouldn’t think all this could happen every day, but of course it does. I laugh at entertaining the thought that today is special because the sun is rising. But I suppose, as with many things (moments, stories, lives), the fact that there’s someone present to savor it is what makes this sunrise special.
Right: The south, as my friend Shan who lives five floors above me says, is the best view. I think it has something to do with the way the wind blows. To the south is where I see the most islands. They’re all fairly small, so I can pretty easily tell which mountains are too far apart to be on the same island. The world goes on so far from the farthest mountaintop I see.
Thanks for reading.
*lockup: Newspapers have deadlines, aka lockup. For us, it’s the time when the last page has to be received by the printing press in order to start the press run on time. Minutes cost money.
Overheard on the walk from the taxi stand at Central pier to the pier itself (No. 3), a 30-second walk:
“… beer…”
“Beer?” I repeat, toward the source of the initial utterance.
“Beer. You wanna beer?” says the gentleman, walking ahead of his 2 friends and an obviously drunk lady. I call him gentleman to try to be respectful and not call him older guy. Well, there you have it.
“Yeah, of course I want a beer,” I say.
“Ok,” he laughs, “upper deck. In the back.”
I understand and proceed ahead of his group, down the stairs and through the turnstyles. All of 30 seconds has passed since I left the taxi. For the first time in a month I didn’t put my DB ferry pass in the wallet with my other cards, so it took me some time to dig it out of my satchel (I think of my grandmother every time I say the word satchel). I almost used my Octopus card, which is about HK$6 difference in fare.
DB ferry pass found. Proceed. Upper deck. In the back. Beer.
I reach the upper deck, the back part that’s open. I’ve mentioned before that DB Ferry No. 20 is my fave, because it’s open. So it goes. There is only one couple up there already, seated a seat apart. They just met, I think. The seats are damp from the humidity, so I stand there and wait for my beer. Sure enough, after the group of three Indian gals who didn’t heed my warning about the seats being damp plop down into the middle row of seats, here comes my beer man. He bought a bag full of beers. Tall ones, short ones. He said he’d get me a light beer. To him, it turns out, that means a short one. I’m not complaining.
This is how I met FroZone and the Marks. I suppose I would be remiss to not mention Sanda. She sneezed a lot. That’s all I’m saying. I’d seen her before. I’d seen FroZone before, too. Really, that’s all I’m saying.
If I miss the ferry at all, it’ll be because of FroZone and the Marks. And every other chance encounter. The kids who went “surfing” on the roof. The real kids, as in young people, who were so lovely chatting together and dreaming.
So, FroZone has a PhD. He looks just like the guy from The Incredibles. The Marks are pilots for an airline I recommend to everyone. I told them I recommend it. They said thanks for subsidizing their trips to Bali. No sweat. Thanks for the free booze, dudes. I told them I’m a journalist, but they still told me things about airlines that surprised me. I think I could listen to stories about being a pilot for a lot longer than the 23 minutes the ferry is in motion. The Mark who bought the beers said he only gives two weather reports in flight: Fine and passing showers. You want the former. If you hear a pilot report passing showers, you can translate that as “oh shit.” This comes from the mouth of a slightly inebriated pilot. I kid you not. He went on to say–and this is the Mark who bought the beers here–that sometimes pilots are the most frightened persons on the plane.
To quote my darling 2 1/2-year-old niece, “What da HECK?!”
Anyway, that’s about when she started sneezing. FroZone says, “Where is my super suit?!” He was kidding, because he’s not really a super hero. Not tonight. The other Mark tells FroZone he’ll probably have to take his shirt to the cleaners. I agree. We all agree. We’re all joking. But she keeps sneezing.
The Mark who didn’t buy the beers but who did come back to the Kong today from Beijing, where he was unsuccessful at scoring a ticket to the closing ceremony of the Olympics, offered us all rides home in his rented golf cart that he says is valued at US$150,000. One hundred fifty thousand United States of America dollars.
To borrow a phrase from my darling 3-year-old nephew, “KACHOW!”
After Beijing Mark drove his rented golf cart illegally into the plaza to pick up FroZone and the Sneeze, with Sneeze insisting she would wait for a taxi, they took me straight home. Wished me well: “You’re the best, Emily.”
I’ll forever have the image of a slightly inebriated pilot for a highly reputed airline throwin’ back a brewski with one hand on the wheel of his rented golf cart headed up the exit from the plaza.
If you stand on the top deck of a boat and watch Hong Kong get 24 minutes away, it really doesn’t seem so big anymore. The city has started to feel a little bit like it’s my city. I know how to find my way to the escalator from the ferry pier through the Central Escalator Link Alley (known to the less-experienced among us as the hallway where the Filipino ladies sit on Sundays). I know the best place to get on the train to be nearest the closest escalators to exit a5 once I get to Wan Chai. Then, at the end of the night, I know it’s faster to walk to Gloucester Road to get a taxi than it is to catch one at the taxi stand outside my building.
But here in Disco Bay I feel far away from the city I want to call home. I want to wake up and look out over my neighborhood, over all the other people trying to not feel so small. I want to feel the city sleep and wake. I want to show people my neighborhood, to know my neighborhood and care about my neighborhood.
When I step off the DB ferry at about 2:25 a.m. each work-night, I have two choices. My bus, the No. 7, has
morphed into the No. 2378 sometime after midnight, and the ride takes twice as long as I need to walk. To the right from the plaza (that must be the 23 part), first left turn, up a steep hill, 3-point turn at Clearview and reverse course. Pass back by the plaza, pass La Costa, La Vista, take a right to Verdant, Jovial and Haven courts, pass my street, circle through the “No Names,” where someone usually gets off, then back up Capeland Drive to the stop for Cherish and Blossom courts. Did I mention the air con blasting the whole way? I take the bus if I’m tired, or if I had a really tough workout. Otherwise…
The walk starts out following the water, then cuts by the fountain with angels and trumpets, through a playground with bouncey tiles, across a romantic little walkway between some short palm trees that lets out at Kai To pier. Then it’s up a hill, down a hill and up a hill to the left to get to Cherish Court.
The rain’s comin’ in sideways, upways, downways! The waves are crashing on my little beach. Granted, they’re not big waves. But I see white! (I think we have a song about ocean foam in the U.S.) It took both my flatmate and me to pry the door open. There’s a reason why it sounds like a vacuum out there. It is one!
But the bus and MTR are running normally. So off to work I go. In the words of one great woman I know, “It’ll be an adventure!”
Update! 10 a.m. Wednesday: Happy T8! Still a tropical storm, but wind speeds of 63 km/h or more are expected. All joking aside, I’m not really sure what to do about going to work. Ferry service is likely already stopped (they keep it going for a little while after T8 is hoisted, but it was hoisted while I slept). I’m guessing the DB buses are in their resting places. Soo… yeah. We shall see.
Tropical Storm Kammuri is on her way to me. According to theHong Kong Observatory site, she’s just a little south of here, with her outer arms swinging right over me. How about that. We’re still under the T3 (Strong Wind Signal No. 3) warning, which is said to signify winds of 41 to 62 km/h. It sounds like an Indiana thunderstorm sans thunder and rain. Or, similarly, a windy day. Wait, there was a bit of thunder. Or else it was a sky burp. Or a plane. I’ll give you some background and return later to what is happening outside my window.
First things first: During typhoon season, and every other season for that matter, you should have a jar of Nutella in the cupboard, along with a dipping option or two. If all you have is bread, you might pick up something else because bread can turn pretty quick here. It’s so damp. Other snacks are good too. And water. Everyone does the bottle thing here.
It was about 2 inches long, white in color, scurrying around in the hallway outside my apartment. I was going to take a picture, but I didn’t want to frighten it. I’m glad I saw that lizard.
That’s all.
It’s an egg custard roll, veggie dumplings, grapes and agua! YUM!
Oh, and here’s the pirate ship that’s been parked at the Discovery Bay pier all week. I go on little imaginatory adventures every time I pass it. I also make up words like imaginatory.
Today I went grocery shopping for the first time. You know, for staples. Olive oil, peanut butter, jam. Things you buy when you know you’re going to stay in one place for a while. It felt really good. And anyone who knows me knows I love grocery shopping. The Discovery Bay ParknShop is different from the southside Kroger in many ways, but it’s grocery shopping nonetheless. And I liked it.
I bought steak, eggs and honey from New Zealand. My milk came through Singapore. Dried apricots from Turkey. Cheese from Bangkok. Orange juice from nearby China. Nice and fresh. The trolleys actually roll smoothly, even side-to-side. It just about rolled by itself it was so smooth. If they installed a slanted floor you could just let it roll down the decline, tossing things in along the way.
…
I stepped up to the cashier station and asked how I can get one of their cash back cards. Teresa, the cashier, says I have to fill out a form then get a card. So I take the form and push my cart off to the side so the gentleman behind me can check out. Teresa won’t have it. She comes out from behind the register to where I am over by the shampoo and wheels my cart back into her line. She insists that I fill it out there in line using my 12-pack of Coke Light. I don’t know why it’s called Coke Light and not Diet Coke. Sometimes you see Diet Coke. Sometimes Coca-Cola Light. They have the variety with a hint of lemon. To me it seems like more than a hint, but I prefer the lime anyway.
Back to the check-out. As I’m completing the form, Teresa takes it from me and runs off to get my cards. She goes through the formality of showing me the cards. “They all have the same number. This one,” she points, “goes on your keychain.” It has a little hole. This all makes sense. She scans the card and hands the packet with one credit-card size card and three keychain-size copies. I don’t know what I’ll do with all those cards. I guess I’ll do the same thing I did with the Kroger cards and Dick’s cards and CVS and Walgreens cards. Whoever thought of those keychain-sized cards should’ve thought to get rid of the credit-card-size ones. All I need is another card in my wallet.
I’m pondering all of this while Teresa is ringing up my cereal and peanut butter and pretzels. I put the cabinet items up there first, and the big items. The Coke Light and three big bottles of mineral water. Then she gets to the honey. It doesn’t have a bar code so she looks at it for a second then tries punching some numbers into the system. She gasps. The machine reads, “Deli item / $16,000.”
“Sssshhhh…” Teresa whispers, with her finger to her lips, her shoulders hunched a little. She looks around to see if anyone’s watching then scurries off, to return seconds later with a key that allows her to void all the transactions. “Sssshhh.”
I sort of laughed and tried to tell her it’s ok. No worries. She voided the whole transaction. So she has to pull out the three big bottles of mineral water, the Coke Light and all the rest so she can scan them again. But first she needs my cash back card. I pull it out of my wallet and fork it over. I’m glad she remembered it.
I laugh a little more and watch the register screen. I always forget to bring my reusable bags for things like this. But I guess because I ran to the grocery it wouldn’t have been easy to bring the bags. Next time. I’m planning to go back Friday to pick up some wine and beer. I’m still looking for clothespins too. Maybe at WingOn upstairs. Oh, and a drying rack. I couldn’t figure out how to get it from Ikea. The tag said to see customer service, but they didn’t know what I was talking about. Drying rack? Not here, they said. I bet they’ll have lighter ones in WingOn, anyway. Who wants a heavy drying rack? You’ll just have to move it. It’s better to have a lighter one, for moving purposes, as long as it dries. I guess they should all dry pretty much the same.
Steak and eggs and bread and milk. A $16,000 jar of honey. I’ll remember this.
“This is my last day here.” Teresa looks around, points to the store, the place. “This is not a good place.”
“Oh. Where are you going to go?” I ask her.
“Home,” she says, ringing up the last of the cold items. She’s had enough of ParknShop. I bet it’s her first week, and her last week. She seems really smart, maybe she’s on summer break from school and wanted to make some spending money. But is it really worth it to be here at the grocery wearing a glove on one hand and double-bagging dried apricots and setting the bulky items aside for delivery? I love how witty she is. She knows her boss will see the voided transaction. I’ve worked in retail and food service. You’re supposed to minimize those, for whatever reason. I thought it was a dumb rule too.
I really didn’t want this to be the last meeting between Teresa and me, so I asked her if she wants to hang out sometime. Her English comprehension is really good, but she doesn’t believe her ears. It’s not that I’m some hot shot. It’s just that most customers probably don’t tell their cashier they hope to hang out some time. “You know, get dinner or ice cream or hang out,” I say. “I’ll give you my phone number. Yeah,” I say, as she grins and laughs a little bit, just like I laughed a little bit when she told me how the ParknShop really isn’t a good place.
“Do you have Skype?” I do. She wipes up the perspiration from the gelato container (Tiramisu gelato!), scans and bags the last couple items, and tears off a sheet of paper for me to write my Skype name. It’s probably because we can chat on there without talking out loud. Maybe to see if I’m a real weirdo or what. We wait for the debit card to clear while i write out my Skype info. She looks at the paper, folds it and puts it in her right pants pocket. I hope she finds it later and looks me up.
We smile and say bye. We really smile at each other.
I’m glad I didn’t die.
