Now that semester has started, I do have some difficulty in recalling all the useful bits to say... hmmm
It was convenient. Food was nice. Public transport clean and efficient.
Lecturers could speak English, some better than Monash lecturers. Class sizes were tiny.
Labs were open late - postgrads had weird hours. The whole place had late hours.
I felt less stingy and that stuff was worth spending on.
Campus felt like a nicer place.
Small living conditions. Crowded footpaths. Warm, grimy air outside. Excessive air conditioning. Feeling like I need to have a shower after being awake for one hour and needing to wash clothes after half a day.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Thursday, July 1, 2010
closing down sale
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You may post anonymously as of 2/7/2010.
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Monday, June 14, 2010
Fooding samples
Bayview
Located at the bottom of the Sassoon Road student halls.
1. Student Rice
$12
Big blob of rice, two sausages, vegetables*, egg and a choice of onion sauce or black pepper sauce.
*usually available in the early afternoon otherwise the lady will mumble some stuff apologising... or not at all.
Other permutations of sausage, egg, luncheon meat and "ham" available at the same price.
2. Set Breakfast A with hot drink
$14
Features two hash browns, buttered bread and scrambled egg.
HK milk tea shown in picture.
Other permutations available at an extra $2-$4. Beef, chicken, pork, fish (all deep-fried) are possibilities.
3. Set Breakfast Borsch Soup with Abalone pieces
$17~
While the soup doesn't look that great, it goes down easily once it cools. There's bits of beef and vegetable floating about and a low-intensity sweet taste in the background from the tomato.
Hot lemon tea shown. This meal is rather high in liquids. It is not advised to ask for no drink as the conversation will result in confusion as it goes against the Asian principle of getting full value. That is, they will just ask you what drink you want until you give in.
4. Sizzling Plate Spring Chicken
$28
From visual inspection, there appears to be a whole chicken on the plate. This observation would be correct. The chicken is a little hard to work with and takes a bit more effort to eat. Also supplied is a bowl of Borsch soup, choice of black pepper or onion sauce and rice. A drink is included.
5. Sizzling Plate Beef Steak
$28
Similar to above. There are chewy bits in the beef but generally takes less effort to eat.
I like the idea of sizzling plates.
Other - on campus
Student Union restaurant (Asia Pacific catering/aka Cafe de Coral)
6. Afternoon tea set
$20~
Pasta and ham to the right. Chicken burger, sausage and buttered toast and onion sauce. Cold drink included. Afternoon tea is the worst value time to be eating.
7. Shredded beef noodles sizzling plate
$24.5
No drink included. It's rather oily and difficult to eat immediately - it forces you to adopt its pace. A nice combination otherwise.
8. New Zealand Beef Steak sizzling plate
$38
There's a tiny serving of fried rice - and a rather simple one that was. There's a large serving of sauce (choice given). Unlike the Bayview equivalent, there were no chewy bits in this steak. A drink is included.
9. Breakfast set
$12~
All the details are in the picture.
10. Breakfast set
$14~
They have a coffee machine at this restaurant so it actually tastes decent, unlike Bayview's pre-made batches.
This features fried fish, sausage and turnip cake. The turnip cake turned out below expectation.
Other notable meals not pictured
11. 100 marks selection - Minced beef, tomato sauce...
$24.5
Rather like spaghetti bolognaise on rice, this featured white rice with minced beef and tomato sauce. Two pieces of broccoli and one egg with yolk unbroken decorate the top. It seems healthy enough and a novel take on western food.
12. Combination Fried Rice
$19.5
A very safe choice. The skew towards meat over vegetables is quite evident in this meal even though the pieces are tiny, but numerous.
Outside notable mentions
Yoshinoya meals
Really really fast rice bowls. Can be rather dear, ranging from high 20s to mid 40s. Fast food not involving burgers!
Filler:-
Ruby Tuesday
Ridiculously expensive only redeemed by their 50% off for members. Of course membership isn't cheap. Meals were listed at $100 to mid 300s. It was a communal thing with hallmates.
Located at the bottom of the Sassoon Road student halls.
1. Student Rice
$12
Big blob of rice, two sausages, vegetables*, egg and a choice of onion sauce or black pepper sauce.
*usually available in the early afternoon otherwise the lady will mumble some stuff apologising... or not at all.
Other permutations of sausage, egg, luncheon meat and "ham" available at the same price.
2. Set Breakfast A with hot drink
$14
Features two hash browns, buttered bread and scrambled egg.
HK milk tea shown in picture.
Other permutations available at an extra $2-$4. Beef, chicken, pork, fish (all deep-fried) are possibilities.
3. Set Breakfast Borsch Soup with Abalone pieces
$17~
While the soup doesn't look that great, it goes down easily once it cools. There's bits of beef and vegetable floating about and a low-intensity sweet taste in the background from the tomato.
Hot lemon tea shown. This meal is rather high in liquids. It is not advised to ask for no drink as the conversation will result in confusion as it goes against the Asian principle of getting full value. That is, they will just ask you what drink you want until you give in.
4. Sizzling Plate Spring Chicken
$28
From visual inspection, there appears to be a whole chicken on the plate. This observation would be correct. The chicken is a little hard to work with and takes a bit more effort to eat. Also supplied is a bowl of Borsch soup, choice of black pepper or onion sauce and rice. A drink is included.
5. Sizzling Plate Beef Steak
$28
Similar to above. There are chewy bits in the beef but generally takes less effort to eat.
I like the idea of sizzling plates.
Other - on campus
Student Union restaurant (Asia Pacific catering/aka Cafe de Coral)
6. Afternoon tea set
$20~
Pasta and ham to the right. Chicken burger, sausage and buttered toast and onion sauce. Cold drink included. Afternoon tea is the worst value time to be eating.
7. Shredded beef noodles sizzling plate
$24.5
No drink included. It's rather oily and difficult to eat immediately - it forces you to adopt its pace. A nice combination otherwise.
8. New Zealand Beef Steak sizzling plate
$38
There's a tiny serving of fried rice - and a rather simple one that was. There's a large serving of sauce (choice given). Unlike the Bayview equivalent, there were no chewy bits in this steak. A drink is included.
9. Breakfast set
$12~
All the details are in the picture.
10. Breakfast set
$14~
They have a coffee machine at this restaurant so it actually tastes decent, unlike Bayview's pre-made batches.
This features fried fish, sausage and turnip cake. The turnip cake turned out below expectation.
Other notable meals not pictured
11. 100 marks selection - Minced beef, tomato sauce...
$24.5
Rather like spaghetti bolognaise on rice, this featured white rice with minced beef and tomato sauce. Two pieces of broccoli and one egg with yolk unbroken decorate the top. It seems healthy enough and a novel take on western food.
12. Combination Fried Rice
$19.5
A very safe choice. The skew towards meat over vegetables is quite evident in this meal even though the pieces are tiny, but numerous.
Outside notable mentions
Yoshinoya meals
Really really fast rice bowls. Can be rather dear, ranging from high 20s to mid 40s. Fast food not involving burgers!
Filler:-
Ruby Tuesday
Ridiculously expensive only redeemed by their 50% off for members. Of course membership isn't cheap. Meals were listed at $100 to mid 300s. It was a communal thing with hallmates.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Getting back
The maths for my luggage mass doesn't quite work out with what the airport staff told me and the official policies posted on the website. I had a feeling it was going to be over as it was a bit of a struggle getting all the gear from the hall to the bus stop.
Official policy stipulates:
Hong Kong International Airport is so ridiculously big that it has its own rail shuttle services between gates.
The first leg to Auckland was pretty good. The plane did seem a bit old in that there were ashtrays in the toilet doors but it was pretty empty and easy to do your own thing. I watched 'The Road' and skimmed through 'The Exam' at 32x. Crappy screen contrast didn't help with viewing those kind of dark movies.
I hope that red wine was the most expensive drink available to maximise 'value'.
For this flight, there was a Chinese man as flight service manager. I thought his New Zealand accent was funny - I think it kinda contaminated his putonghua. It also got me thinking about how the airline provides a regionalised service for passengers in that the staff, entertainment system and printed materials seem to be catered for Asia as well as the splattering of New Zealand and general Western culture. Seems so mafan.
Sunrise from window.
Auckland was a crappy stopover. Security was bored so they seemed to examine everyone's bags in detail for international transfers. The bloke was interested in my coloured staples and metal vice - a 'very dense metal'. hmmm
The public announcement lady didn't trip up when reading out challenging foreign names but I wasn't impressed by their weak guilt trip for final boarding call. "All the other passengers are waiting for you" wasn't delivered with much conviction. One could just imagine the other passengers oblivious to this matter. Also, the loudness wasn't standardised between announcements. "Due to blah blah... USA security... requires you to clear immigration and proceed directly to the boarding gate" was unusually loud and isn't relevant for the majority of passengers.
I spent my 6 hours watching BBC Life in the undergrowth documentaries. The flight to Melbourne was delayed and the weather wasn't all that great.
Boeing 747 at the end of a rainbow.
The flight home was even worse after boarding. An Airbus A320... horrible layout. There was only a single aisle down the middle and the seats were rather close to each other. In seat entertainment was quite modern and the safety briefing was rather disturbing with the body-paint uniforms.
Australian customs/quarrantine had a dog walk past everyone but failed in the end due understaffing. I used the e-ticket/smart system, which I supposed can be likened to self-service checkout at the supermarket. At least for the customs lady there. I ticked food and wood on the card. They only asked about the wood - which were the mini table-tennis racquets I had bought at Jusco's 10-dollar store. They lost interest immediately and waved me out.
Anyway, the mass totals were:
Official policy stipulates:
- 20kg checked baggage
- 10kg free sporting goods allowance
Hong Kong International Airport is so ridiculously big that it has its own rail shuttle services between gates.
The first leg to Auckland was pretty good. The plane did seem a bit old in that there were ashtrays in the toilet doors but it was pretty empty and easy to do your own thing. I watched 'The Road' and skimmed through 'The Exam' at 32x. Crappy screen contrast didn't help with viewing those kind of dark movies.
For this flight, there was a Chinese man as flight service manager. I thought his New Zealand accent was funny - I think it kinda contaminated his putonghua. It also got me thinking about how the airline provides a regionalised service for passengers in that the staff, entertainment system and printed materials seem to be catered for Asia as well as the splattering of New Zealand and general Western culture. Seems so mafan.
Auckland was a crappy stopover. Security was bored so they seemed to examine everyone's bags in detail for international transfers. The bloke was interested in my coloured staples and metal vice - a 'very dense metal'. hmmm
The public announcement lady didn't trip up when reading out challenging foreign names but I wasn't impressed by their weak guilt trip for final boarding call. "All the other passengers are waiting for you" wasn't delivered with much conviction. One could just imagine the other passengers oblivious to this matter. Also, the loudness wasn't standardised between announcements. "Due to blah blah... USA security... requires you to clear immigration and proceed directly to the boarding gate" was unusually loud and isn't relevant for the majority of passengers.
I spent my 6 hours watching BBC Life in the undergrowth documentaries. The flight to Melbourne was delayed and the weather wasn't all that great.
The flight home was even worse after boarding. An Airbus A320... horrible layout. There was only a single aisle down the middle and the seats were rather close to each other. In seat entertainment was quite modern and the safety briefing was rather disturbing with the body-paint uniforms.
Australian customs/quarrantine had a dog walk past everyone but failed in the end due understaffing. I used the e-ticket/smart system, which I supposed can be likened to self-service checkout at the supermarket. At least for the customs lady there. I ticked food and wood on the card. They only asked about the wood - which were the mini table-tennis racquets I had bought at Jusco's 10-dollar store. They lost interest immediately and waved me out.
Anyway, the mass totals were:
- checked baggage 19.2kg
- checked baggage 4.8kg
- "sporting goods" 9.1kg
- cabin/backpack 5.8kg
- personal effect/laptop 3kg
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
All other matters
University
+late hours of uni mean that nobody will kick you out of laboratories until the post-grad actually want to go home (they work from about midday to 2AM)
+small classes for EE
+good food selection
-floors relative to ground indicate how hilly everything is (Let's go from O to G)
-distance from hall
General
+air conditioning actually works in minibuses, buses and MTR
+public holidays still mean something like the city working at 75% intensity
+can get around late
+can still get home at normal transport prices until 1AM
+convenience in eating
+ 八達通,7-11,Circle-K
-can't buy some things in the morning until the store opens at 11AM
-pockets of hot and cold air feel really disgusting
-stuff is damp
-transport expenses can spiral out of control since it's a charge per ride system
Something about classes...
-domestic servants
-overstaffed places, even cinemas
-autistic and old people as cleaners at café de coral (asia pac catering)
--they say thank you and bye bye really loud, mister (xian sheng) are you done with the meal etc
Trying to write up something more sentence-like:
Hong Kong offers a high-service lifestyle at the expense of personal space and nature. People have created a human-habital space in spite of the environment.
• land reclamation - perhaps one day there will be no need for ferries
• air conditioning
• hillslopes and roads always being ripped up
+late hours of uni mean that nobody will kick you out of laboratories until the post-grad actually want to go home (they work from about midday to 2AM)
+small classes for EE
+good food selection
-floors relative to ground indicate how hilly everything is (Let's go from O to G)
-distance from hall
General
+air conditioning actually works in minibuses, buses and MTR
+public holidays still mean something like the city working at 75% intensity
+can get around late
+can still get home at normal transport prices until 1AM
+convenience in eating
+ 八達通,7-11,Circle-K
-can't buy some things in the morning until the store opens at 11AM
-pockets of hot and cold air feel really disgusting
-stuff is damp
-transport expenses can spiral out of control since it's a charge per ride system
Something about classes...
-domestic servants
-overstaffed places, even cinemas
-autistic and old people as cleaners at café de coral (asia pac catering)
--they say thank you and bye bye really loud, mister (xian sheng) are you done with the meal etc
Trying to write up something more sentence-like:
Hong Kong offers a high-service lifestyle at the expense of personal space and nature. People have created a human-habital space in spite of the environment.
• land reclamation - perhaps one day there will be no need for ferries
• air conditioning
• hillslopes and roads always being ripped up
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Hall conveniences
While I had the pleasure of sitting an exam with a few dozen mosquito bites to remind me about the lack of flyscreens in the hall, I felt it was necessary to compile this piece to maintain balance in light of Mr Liu's recent remark.
Hallmates are indeed friendly and they will go out of their way to do stuff when one asks for help/information.
Sometimes the information isn't strictly required:- We had a lightning storm this evening and the power was disrupted. Most importantly, computing was disrupted.
"Diu lei lo mo, mo din ah!"
Blunt, yet informative.
Of course, there is a certain air of freedom in halls. Especially with the no alcohol, smoking, drugs poster next to the recycle bin overflowing with beer cans.
The halls are about twenty minutes walk to main campus but there are no fewer than three forms of connecting services. A university shuttle bus stops about thirty metres from the front door. A minibus stop is about one-hundred metres walk and a public bus stop is about three-hundred metres walk away. It's nice not feeling drowsy from the journey to and from campus.
Eating is convenient and when the convenience isn't enough, there's a 7-11 ten metres from the front door.
Hallmates are indeed friendly and they will go out of their way to do stuff when one asks for help/information.
Sometimes the information isn't strictly required:- We had a lightning storm this evening and the power was disrupted. Most importantly, computing was disrupted.
"Diu lei lo mo, mo din ah!"
Blunt, yet informative.
Of course, there is a certain air of freedom in halls. Especially with the no alcohol, smoking, drugs poster next to the recycle bin overflowing with beer cans.
The halls are about twenty minutes walk to main campus but there are no fewer than three forms of connecting services. A university shuttle bus stops about thirty metres from the front door. A minibus stop is about one-hundred metres walk and a public bus stop is about three-hundred metres walk away. It's nice not feeling drowsy from the journey to and from campus.
Eating is convenient and when the convenience isn't enough, there's a 7-11 ten metres from the front door.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Hall inconveniences
I certainly won't miss that hocking noise that so many people use to clear their throat of phlegm.
Noisy flip flop skipping, hockey in the corridor at 2AM...
Stupid non conversations in hall - just sounds...
The laundry booking system existed on paper only. It's also annoying to have to wait for an elevator just to get out of the building.
Noisy flip flop skipping, hockey in the corridor at 2AM...
Stupid non conversations in hall - just sounds...
The laundry booking system existed on paper only. It's also annoying to have to wait for an elevator just to get out of the building.
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