Ok! Packing’s nearly done and I’m just about to scoot off to the airport. Me and Dan will be travelling to the USA, Europe and parts of Asia over the next few months – can’t wait!
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It looks like Citygate Outlets is must-see destination.
Citygate Outlets is a shopping centre at Tung Chung, on Hong Kong’s Lantau Island. Tung Chung is, in a relative sense, far flung from the heart of Hong Kong, right next to the airport, but as a “new town”, it has all the attractions of Hong Kong (food, shopping, what else?) while being really clean and neatly designed. I remember it fondly as the place where I was first acquainted with the diabetes-inducing phenomenon known as Aji Ichiban (although of course, there are other stores).
We went to the shopping centre in question last year, but quite a bit of it was still under construction, and although I recall seeing designer fashion there, the prices then didn’t quite appeal to me. But maybe it’s due to the subconscious impact of seeing markedly large Hong Kong dollar amounts (1 AUD is roughly 7 HKD); somehow, I convince myself a nice t-shirt is not worth HKD$100, but when I get home, I realise I can’t get anything nice for less than $20. Anyway, if the article is right, it’s definitely worth another visit – if only to get out of the hustle and bustle of the CBD and Kowloon.
And if the thought of going to an “outlet mall” brings up images of DFO in Homebush, then you’re mistaken – it’s as much a proper shopping centre as any other.
How to get there: Exit C from Tung Chung MTR Station
Tags: aji ichiban, dollar, hong kong, lantau, shopping, tung chung
I wish we were there for another day. It takes a day to be reacquainted with how everything works; then the second day whizzes past faster than the skiers coming off the top of the mountain. This time, however, I did end up exploring more of Thredbo, having finally conquered the first-timers part of the ski field. It was difficult, however, to describe this exploring as being much of a success.
I now have rather fond memories of our first attempt at the next level up (the so-called “easiest” trails). Well, Zhiyan had the common sense to pull out early, and soon after that, I realised Daniel – along with our only copy of the map – had vanished too. So Tommy and I inched forward past the deathly-steep cliff face, and somehow the trail turned into this – what seemed to us – ridiculously steep path. (We worked out later that we meandered onto a more difficult path. We should have read the map more carefully.) The thing about skiing is that once you start, there’s no turning back, so we gave it a go, but quite soon, both of us were down, skis off. Taking our skis off was a mistake, because there we couldn’t get the skis back on with the amount of ice that had formed on our boots. We then had fun stumbling through quicksand-like snow, which was determined to consume the two of us. (Hint: never walk through the parts between the trees.) We somehow stumbled back to a chair lift station, counting our blessings that we were able to extricate ourselves. To add to the experience, the chair lift down was downright scary – it was steep, windy and a long way down. By the time the chair lift dumped us back at the top of the Friday Flat area, I was stunned to the extent that I pretty much couldn’t ski at all. But we made it back. Alive.

Me in the happier parts of the ski field
On the second day, I was up there again, this time to take photos and play with the snow with Ru Jih. Wong, who was also with us, said he wanted to ski back down, and I foolishly agreed – I had studied the map now and yes, I was able to identify the correct path this time, but I still couldn’t ski down. The skis came off, wouldn’t go back on, and it was another walk back down to Merritts. Tried twice, failed twice.
From Thredbo, we also brought back the finding that UAI is inversely related to common sense. One of the chair lifts had a closed intermediate station. The chair itself passes very close to the concrete platform of the station. The results: Daniel was the only one who completed the operation successfully; Zhiyan didn’t get anything damaged but ended up being carried up to the top of the mountain; Tommy got one pole snapped in half and the other bent; and I got both my poles snapped. We had carried them between our legs.
Tags: common sense, holiday, misadventure, skiing, stocks, thredbo, uai
I often sleep on the train, and I usually just have the ability to magically wake up on cue and make my stop. I guess I couldn’t have picked a worse time to suddenly wake up to find myself at Ingleburn. Oh, it’s not too bad I guess… it was just the last train for Friday night, and everyone at Campbelltown station apart from me and the security guards are drunk and saying “fuck” every five words, and it’s, well, fucking cold. And I have to be coherent for a 5-hour programming competition tomorrow…
Tags: cityrail, fuck, misadventure
I promised to write a little more thoughtfully about my trip down in Melbourne, but I’ve been a little lazy and it’s been over a week. Apparently, the longer you leave it, the rosier your memories become, so I may very well be extolling non-existent virtues of Melbourne.
So, the hard question first up: is Melbourne better than Sydney? In some respects, yes. Just like this Heckler heckles, Sydney’s CBD is becoming increasingly hollowed out by the dearth of things to do in the heart of the business district — this is none more evident than in the area just south of Circular Quay. (For those of you who don’t know me well, the ample abundance of clubbing does not count.) Melbourne, on the other hand, lives up to its reputation as being a “network of villages” — pockets of life are sewn together by a carpet of restaurants and cafés that spill out into the street, odd pieces of street furniture, often slightly eccentric, and the well-designed public spaces that make you want to appreciate the city’s beauty at night. Clearly, it hasn’t worked everywhere though; the Docklands was something I was looking forward to see, but although the sleek, modern buildings complemented the smooth tranquility of the waterfront, it was devoid of life — but perhaps it was just the wrong night for that. During the day, Melbourne’s full of the hustle and bustle that you’d expect to find in a city that’s confident of itself and how it can make its own way without blandly copying what others have done before — it’s easy to get lost just wandering around the shopping centres (Melbourne makes shopping centres sexy) and the alleyways that the city is famous for.
The other thing that I’ll comment on is the transport, and for this I’ll drop the rosy language and get a little more objective. Trams are a fantastic idea, but I can see why it might not work so well in Sydney. Trams steam ahead without being forced to start and stop and start and stop by the rest of the traffic on the road (buses in Sydney make me think of priority inversion), but in order to achieve this, you need dedicated tram lanes — Melbourne’s main streets are noticeably wider than than those in Sydney (say, compared with George, Pitt and Castlereigh Streets) and thus you can afford to give an entire lane to trams. If you’re hopping around the CBD, you don’t really have to walk a lot because of how the lines are set up — which is how public transport should be — hop on, hop off at will. Trains were bewildering though. I don’t understand how you can run a train system where you can get from A to B by train, but there’s no way to get from B to A without taking a tortuous route (the station staff just told us to catch a tram instead). Seemingly obvious (to tourists at least) routes between popular stations just don’t exist, and if you’re just hopping around the CBD, you’re best off pretending the trains don’t exist. Southern Cross station, however, is one impressive piece of architecture, and it just shows how Sydney has fallen too far in favouring utilitarian function over form.
Will I be visiting again? Yes, definitely, if I’m after a break in civilisation (as opposed to a break with rocks and trees and things), Melbourne is the place to be. As you probably noticed, we spent the entire trip basically in the CBD — next time, I’d be sure to have a look a little further out, and see what gems lie outside the (attractive) stainless steel and glass jungle.
Lots of photos: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3
P.S. Wikitravel is quite useful and clearly contains tips from everyday locals who know best: see, for example, the Melbourne entry.
Tags: architecture, city life, culture, melbourne, public spaces, shopping centre, sydney, trains, trams, utilitarianism
I’m back in Sydney now – I’ll do a write up of what I think of Melbourne and the details of what we did with some photos of the spoils soon, but I’ll just write what we did today just so I won’t forget it.
We didn’t have a fire alarm go off this morning, but we did have a prank phone call to wake us up. Breakfast was at a cafe next to the Victoria Markets, and we had a look at the markets following that – we got ourselves a couple of blocks of cheese… and saw some prodigious confectionery-making. We then proceeded to the Melbourne Museum (again) to see what we missed yesterday. This was followed by lunch at Chinatown (again) – we were going to go to the Greek restaurants on Lonsdale Street but they were rather pricey. Shopping took up the rest of the afternoon – AJI ICHIBAN (^_^), Myer (which, like the rest of Melbourne, ran out of scarves), the Basement, this strange little antique shop, and a fancy stationery shop. Frantic dashes between Southern Cross station and the hotel ensued, the consequence of some slight miscommunication, and then the flight home was uneventful bar my humiliating defeat in Scategories.
Tags: aji ichiban, breakfast, chinatown, holiday, markets, melbourne, museum, scategories
We had breakfast at Melbourne Central, then saw the portrait exhibition at the state library. We saw a special exhibition at the art gallery, then we had lunch at Chinatown. We could only spend half an hour at the Melbourne Museum because we got there rather late… we’ll go there again tomorrow. We had dinner with a pair of everything2 mates of Rob. The evening was topped off with a visit to the Eureka Tower for a top down look at the city.
Lots planned for tomorrow – last day! Off to bed…
Tags: chinatown, exhibition, holiday, library, melbourne, museum
I’m trying to get to sleep as I lie on the bed at the hotel but the insistent pattering on the air-conditioner is keeping me awake… and Daniel (Tse) has the light on playing with his Zaurus with the light on, so I might as well blog from afar!
Melbourne has been an interesting experience so far – very modern and stylish, and oozing with pride. We had lunch at a delightful little bakery called Laurent Bakery; we then went to see the Pixar exhibition at Federation Square. We had a look at Melbourne Central followed by an hour of public transport confusion. We popped by the Docklands and it was positively unexciting… we’ll check it out again later cos we might not be looking at the right things. We had dinner at a French restaurant (called Aux Batifolle – excellent wine and creme brulee) and we decided to call that a day.
Two things I don’t like about this place so far: the trains and trams sure run on time but they don’t seem to ever go where you want them to go. Secondly, I swear we chose the worst few days weather-wise for a holiday.
Signing off…
Tags: exhibition, french restaurant, holiday, hotel, lunch, melbourne, trains, trams, weather, wine


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