The Government.

This is where basic laws of economics don't seem to apply. You have a bloody long lineup of people waiting for their turn to see you, in this case demand, and there's like 5 people to serve them all. That's supply. When in this case, that lineup consists of 500+ people, it doesn't take an economist to realize that supply is not meeting demand.

So then, why does the stupid goverment insist on making us wait fifty hours to even talk to someone?

That's what happened to me. Back in Toronto, I waited forever to get my passport application looked at. Here in Hong Kong, I waited forever TO GET A RECEIPT.

Advanced economics says that maybe because there's a low price ceiling, that the shortage is created. Another argument is that the government is a monopoly, and therefore, natural monopolies do not ever really meet demand to increase profits. My argument for them to increase the number of government workers is, when you piss voters off, you're less likely to get your ass re-elected. You're also taking away from the general economy by decreasing productivity - I had to delay my first day at work by a day because of stupid immigration morons.

I already warned them that I had to take care of my immigration stuff, so they knew I wasn't going to show up to work until the late afternoon, if at all. By then I was so antsy from sitting on my ass all day waiting for them to give me a piece of paper telling me to come back later that I decided to just go shopping instead.

Which brings me to my next pissing point:

The bloody heat in Hong Kong.

I've taken about 3 showers a day since I've gotten here. Trying to get around between shops, I had to stop every couple of stores and pretend I'm interested in their wares just so I could get some air con, and I'm STILL drenched in sweat within 5 minutes. The only thing that makes it all worthwhile is all the clothes that I've bought already. That and the fact that I bought my first "fan ban" CD today. They take a LOT of safety precautions now, those pirates...I had to follow someone into a side alley in the mall where she left the CDs on top of a box and then told me to pick them up myself. They go thru an awful lot of trouble for something so cheap.

Song of the moment: Love of My Life by Santana and Dave Matthews.

Can't stay awake anymore, my jetlag is killing me.....

On the other hand, my mom can be proud of me for actually sleeping before midnight and waking up before 8 everyday.... =)

There's sooo much to do in HK!  Lemme see...what have I done so far....sleep....eat.....sleep....oh yeah, met up with Carny and Jon for dinner on Friday....Carny didn't know I had arrived in HK already, so Jon and I played a joke on her by having me wait at the meeting spot instead of Jon, then claim that she was talking to me the whole time on the phone about meeting up.  You should've seen the look on her face when she saw me....she says, "hey!!  what are you doing here??" and I said with a straight face, "what are you talking about?  you told me two seconds ago on the phone to meet you here."  She stood there staring blankly for two seconds with the most hilariously dumbass face I've ever seen....she actually believed me for a second and started to freak out....haha.....but then Jon came out of hiding....heh....anyway, Carny then took us to her fellowship...which was pretty cool, since I've never been to a fellowship with only like 8 people.  Then yesterday I spent the entire day with my police superintendent uncle (suck on that triads!  haha...) (um, just kidding...scratch that last part....) and my grandparents.  I'm really impressed with my grandma in particular, she's like close to 80 and she's really "mang" - vibrant, energetic...AND she takes care of my grandpa, who's having leg problems so has trouble walking, even with a walker...man.

Then my "ah sook" took me to Mong Kok, where I started drooling over the fifty billion different cell phones available here....I WANT THAT MOTOROLA V70!!  IT'S SUCH A SEXY PHONE!!  It's got this really cool new design in that it doesn't flip open by rotates open!  But my heart sank when I was told that I can't bring it back to Canada because it's not a Tri-Band phone.  I'm thinking about getting the 8890 cuz it's a little cheaper here, but not by much, and it's not a particularly special phone since it's already available back in Canada....sigh....I guess I'll just borrow my cousin's cell for now, cuz my "kau foo" says every month new phones come out so it's better to wait for now...but I'm so "hun" the phones!  (geez....I'm starting to sound like a fob with all my chinglish in this post...)

Here's a good luck message to the Leafs....continue your Cinderella run!  Stupid Quinn....why did he have to pick a time like this to have a heart irregularity?  Heh heh.....GO LEAFS GO!

Song of the moment: Adrienne by The Calling.

Until next time, help me come up with more witty endings to my posts.

About 7 hours ago, I met up with Wu for "breakfast" - his breakfast but my lunch. That was pretty cool, I hadn't seen him since he left Toronto a few weeks back. Good news! He can actually walk now. Hahaha.....I wonder if he panics at intersections in Vancouver the way he does in Toronto. If he does, I think Davin will have to loan him his ankle braces permanently....

While I was waiting for Wu to get to the airport, I had some time to kill so I started walking around YVR. I passed upon this OxySpa place, and they were having some sort of special. I figured, what the heck, I'm on vacation and I've never had any kind of O2 treatment before, so I got a 10 minute session. It was interesting - the lady put those nose breather thingys that you see people have on when they're lying in a hospital bed - and basically it spewed oxygen into my nostrils. Kinda ticklish at first, and it smelled like lavender, but after a while it started to relax me. For one thing, it cleared up my sinus which was clogged up by the horrid air inside the plane from Toronto to Vancouver (which is now clogged up again...sigh) and it kinda rejuvenated me at the same time. In a way it kinda screwed me up cuz my brain was shutting down from the all-nighter I spent the night before packing like mad, yet the rest of my body was woken up by all that O2.

Pretty interesting. So I bought this oxygenating potion thingy which I'm supposed to add to my drinks to add more oxygen in my diet. Maybe it'll help raise this low blood pressure of mine. What I didn't know until Wu pointed it to me on the label, was that one of the things it does is "balance prostate abnormalities" - so he didn't want to put too much into his drink out of fear of his prostate becoming abnormal from overuse. =) I, on the other hand, had a big drink so I might have put in too much. Well, if the family jewels get too big, I'll let you know.

I don't think it's hit me yet that I've left Toronto for 3 months yet. When it has, I'll start getting homesick then. =)

Until next time, pray I don't come back fully fobbified!

I'm getting more and more excited about going to HK....now that I'm so close to leaving, I only realize now that I'm freakin' gone for 3 months.  3 WHOLE MONTHS.  I'll be pretty much on my own.  I don't even know when I'll update again.  Pray for a safe trip!  But it's cool that I'll be able to have breakfast in Vancouver with Wu for a few hours before I jet.

Whenever someone asks me how was CC, I always say, "um, interesting."  Because I pretty much ended up sleeping through everything that had to do with learning.  If I was sleeping in my room, I was sleeping at the seminars or during Donna's talks.  Most of my learning was done beforehand, in preparation for Saturday night's program on personal ambitions vs. God's ambition.  So what was the point of me going?  Two words: spiritual revival.

Words cannot begin to express how CC has lifted my spiritual life off the ground again.  It was punctuated with a loud, expressive exclamation mark when all the guys stood on stage, in front of everyone, making a stand on a men's accountability network, especially in sexual purity, something that every man struggles with.

All I can say is....wow.

Songs of the moment: A Day in the Life by David Usher, Movin' On by Boomtang, and Addicted to Bass by Puretone.

Until next time, see you at the other side of Earth!

Did anyone watch the finale to The Amazing Race? I just have one thing to say about it: WOW. Watching them go straight down to the wire, I think the finish was almost storybook, with the team working together the best winning, the team that was so perfectionist and arrogant, bickering all the timing finishing second, and the feel-good, everybody-likes team finished third. I have to say, I was rooting for Chris and Alex to win, and honestly, I was saying, "no...no way" when Tara and Wil were leading down the foot race stretch (honestly Wil, dump that witch of a woman...) Watching that final episode makes me wish I started watching the show earlier. =)

And on a brighter note...GO LEAFS GO! I say Leafs over the Canes in 6, whereas Colorado and Detroit will go the distance so Leafs will finally get a deserved break and pounce on whoever they face in the final. I've never seen a team that works so well together, blocking shots, absorbing hits, good defence and opportunistic goals. I hope the magic lasts all the way this year!

Songs of the moment: Why by 98 Degrees, Boom by P.O.D., and The Other Man by Sloan.

Pics from NBTC and CUTC are finally posted, along with Saturday's gathering. Until next time, see you at Campus Challenge!

Where to start for updates....hmm....well Saturday nite was really cool.  I had a gathering (next person to call it a party goes on my blacklist), sort of a last get-together before I go to HK.  It was nice and cozy, I was really happy to see people that I wanted to see before I left without any crashers...and it was absolutely hilarious.  With Renee mixing up a storm, and my deliciously new invention, the Porn on the Beach (1 part Peach Snapps, 2 parts Vodka, 2 parts 7-Up, 2 parts ice, 4 parts fresh strawberries, and frappe it), a few of us got a little tipsy.  The usual suspect got drunk as usual...the magic box lost its effect, but this time she believed me when I said my butter knife was a magic wand that could turn her into a fob at my command.  After Gone in 60 Seconds, we all started serenading each other...no, no one but me will have a copy of the videos...I still can't believe I let Ching tape me and Tammy....sigh. I'll post up pics and more on the night later.

What else have I accomplished thus far? Well I shaved my head again cuz it was growing like a chia pet...and Yu-Ling did his too this week so people were calling us Me and Mini-Me....difference was, he did his on a lost bet and I did mine because I wanted to! What else did I do...oh yeah, I CLEANED UP MY ROOM! It took me a whole bloody week, but I finally got rid of all the junk like my grade 6 projects that I stashed under my bed. I re-arranged some furniture and added a lot of new ambient lighting to accent the pictures in my room. Gosh darn it, I'm so proud, it makes me wanna cry....

Songs of the moment: Hero by Chad Kroeger, Movin' On by Boomtang, and Deny by Default.

I promise I'll update more and more from now on.  I'll be changing my format of my postings so it'll be easier for me to post up my random ramblings.  And yes, I'll keep up with the blogging phenomenon and read other people's blogs.  Until next time, keep bugging me to post pics up.