Bryan in Hong Kong

Happy new year everyone!

Happy thanksgiving everyone! Well no turkey here, just another standard day.

Thanksgiving dinner, HK style:

Still have a bit of free time left before I have to really get ready for finals. Had another basketball game last Saturday against the mechanical engineering grad students which was fun. Went salsa dancing Saturday night, and museums downtown on Sunday. Got dad’s ticket to Shanghai booked for January and am trying to finish the rest of my winter break plans. First week will be here in HK while some friends visit. The next week will be somewhere outside HK (beach in Thailand or city in Tokyo, what do you think?) and the final two weeks will be on the road (err… train) with dad on the mainland (thinking Shanghai, Xi’an, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Hong Kong).

A few days ago I went downtown to find a new pair of shoes, which turned out to be more difficult than expected. Walking down the street in Hong Kong, you would think that selling shoes is second in popularity only to selling cell phones. Apparently my feet are too big though, as no one seemed to carry size 12 or 13. There was even a really nice Rockport store in the mall, which I was sure would have something in my size, but didn’t carry anything over 11! I finally found a 12 at a sports store, so I now have some new kicks for Sunday’s b-ball gave against the electrical engineerings.

No econometrics class today because of the Chung Yeung festival.

Here’s a traditional poem read during the holiday:

As a lonely stranger in the strange land,
Every holiday the homesickness amplifies.
Knowing that my brothers have reached the peak,
All but one is present at the planting of zhuyu.

Hmm… is my family planting zhuyu back in the US without me?! Has Sam already reached peak? Am I the one not present?!

According to Wikipedia “…it is customary to climb a high mountain” today. So that’s exactly what we did… click on the photo below for more…

It’s my one-and-only brother’s birthday today. So instead of sending him a real card, I’m dedicating this blog post to him:

Dear Sam,

Happy birthday!

Your brother,
Bryan

And… in his honor, this post is filed under “random” and “holidays”. Happy b-day dude.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! I hope everyone is eating plenty of mooncakes.

Happy National Day everyone! I just returned from the fireworks at Victoria Harbor. In terms of the show, it might have been even better than the Dr.Phil-enhanced Boston 4th of July event (for some odd reason the event planners in Boston thought it would be a good idea for Dr. Phil to emcee). Anyways, the fireworks in Hong Kong were amazing, and the crowds were huge. I’ve posted a short video I took with my digital camera below. National Day also means that the weekly 4-hour session of econometrics is canceled tomorrow, so I’ll most likely just spend the day in the library trying to catch up on things.

Short video of the fireworks: