Taking the bus back to Whampoa /Hung Hom from Sheung Wan on Saturday Aug 3 was easy. It takes a nice route through Causeway Bay under the cross harbor tunnel. Little did I know, minutes after I got off the bus at Hung Hom, protesters rushed the tunnel and closed it. This is a critical tunnel in the city and blocking it is a huge move. When I walked back through the mall in Hung Hom to the hotel and stopped in the bathroom, there was a brand new hard hat resting in the stall that someone had clearly just recently forgotten, or intentionally left. This is about two weeks after things really escalated on July 22 with triad violence in Yuen Long. In relation to protesters, people wearing white shirts attacked anyone in sight in the MTR station. As a tactic, protestors have started leaving Octopus cards (pre loaded subway cards) and non-black clothing around MTR stations for quick exits.

Going to work on Monday was pretty normal from the hotel in TST taking the shuttle bus. If I was coming from anywhere else in HK, however, it would have been a different story. There was a MASSIVE strike on Aug 5 that closed down most of the subway system, rerouted most of the buses, and totally disrupted the transportation system (and, to add, in a city where public transit is so heavily relied upon). People used umbrellas and limbs to block train doors from closing, and successfully shut down several MTR stations and therefore impact almost all of the lines from operating. Talk about making a statement! Honestly, a pretty simple strategy to cause a huge impact on a city and get heard. Since several HA folks had moved to the island side the week prior, they couldn’t get in to work and had to WFH for the day or take the ferry in later in the day. Overall, it’s easy to feel safe and avoid the protests, but things do come and go and escalate and go in waves, so it’s good to be aware.

Pretty wild to have to stay home from work in the first month for protests and typhoons!

I actually moved to my new apt on Tuesday. I had already schlepped luggage to my place over the weekend, but needed the final haul. My belongings expanded significantly since my packing in Boston, somehow I have an extra full checked bag of stuff. So, I’m keeping a detailed list of all of my purchases to track what on earth that stuff could be (or if I just got worse at packing, which is unlikely given I packed my suitcases in one night at home). My uber from the hotel to my apartment was a Tesla, wahoo! It was nice. I have a good system for bringing 60lb bags up 4 flights of stairs. Bring all baggage inside the front gate. Then, take the first bag up one flight of stairs. Leave the bag there, then go down to fetch another bag. Take this bag up two flight of stairs. Then, go down one flight to get the first bag and take it up two more flights. It is the best approach to keep all bags close, and give yourself a downhill break for every two flights climbed. Then Thursday I needed to swing back by the hotel to check out, so I took the bus in the AM. For the first time I got the front row! With the double decker buses, the views from the upper deck front row are primo. When I went to check out, they were already cleaning out my room… Same thing happened to Nishanth, for some reason they are so eager to clean rooms at the Harbor plaza metropolis. Also the Metropolis had the most bizarre temperature regulation–it has to be ice cold in your room (which I had) or you have literal inches of water on your floor and surfaces (which Abbie and Angela had).

Another work break highlight is DOSAS. Sarvana Bhavan is this vegetarian Northern Indian restaurat near our office that Nishanth found. How have I gone 23 years of my life without having a dosa? It’s like a lentil pancake with tasty filling that you dip in coconut/mint/tomato chutneys. Are dosas to HK my apricots to Austria? Not sure yet. Obviously went there for lunch two days this week.

Thursday night we went to happy hour in Wan Chai and proceeded to get dinner at Five Guys. YUM. We walked by it and all were kinda joking about wanting it, but then decided none of us were joking and were quite serious. We enjoyed our cajun fries and little bacon cheeseburgers on Nishanth’s terrace at his apartment nearby.

On Friday, we had a late client call. We took it at Jeni’s apartment and ordered Vietnamese food. Afterwards, the rest of the gang (besides me Jeni Nishanth) came over for wine and whiskey smashes. We went to this little neighborhood bar Thaiwan which was fun.

Saturday AM, we got up bright and early (~9AM) to get on our first ever junk boat! Abbie’s friend Misty invited us to join. It turns out this junk boat party was a going away party for Jules, this girl from Switzerland who had lived here for 2 years. Where you may think it is odd to crash someone’s going away party you have never met, it was not at all the case! We were so welcomed and it was a blast. The boat alone had people from Switzerland, US, Australia, New Zealand, France, Mozambique, UK, China, HK, and more!

Funny story about the boat: Abbie and I made it to the dock in Central by 10, when the boat was leaving. Angela, however, took a nightmare uber and got delayed.We have since learned that uber here is not reliable. Since we didn’t have any control over the planning or the boat, it left before she could get to the dock. The dock is a mayhem scene, everyone is crowded trying to find their groups to get on their junks before departure. So, we set off for Clearwater Bay. The staff was really friendly on the boat and suggested our friend could meet us in Clearwater Bay. this junk had the extra amenity of a powerboat which took people out for wakeboarding. If Angela could just get to the beach, we could pick her up on the powerboat. Fast forwrad, and the group on the powerboat was out for a long time and Angela was waiting at the beach. We learned this girl on our boat had a waterproof bag. So, Abbie and I swum out to fetch her. It wasn’t close…. But, we bundled up her phone and lifeguard Abbie swam with another bag over her head. LOL

The junk overall was amazing. We tied up to another boat and had a huge flotilla. We had rafts tied to the back of the boat and were all just swimming and rafting and frolicking around, meeting cool new people the whole time.

That night we went to Kennedy town with the full HA crew to Little Creatures!!!! Best brewery ever, we went a lot in Perth. It was a treat to get the little creatures brewery vibes again, though sad to not have the beer I remember being really good.

Sunday, I reserved to go to Ikea to return and swap my bath mat and return some silerware. Long story, but I hated the bathmat I got and wanted to switch. What better way to get to Ikea than rollerblade through the zoo and a running path? I first HIKED (literally hiked, so far uphill) to get to the zoo. It was free and pretty legit. I still get torn about zoos, great to see orangutans in person (ever since my 4th grade endangered species project) but also kinda sad. They had lots of monkey and birds, as well as a nice view of the city skyline. I kept walking along to find Bowen Road (an off the beaten path running trail). I found it, and it was truly the first place in HK where I feel like you could hear a pin drop. My walk through the Mid levels was so nice and green and quiet. I booted up to blade and had a sweet skyline view looking out from the aquaduct. There are signs that say “look out for poisoned bait” on the trail… apparently there was a string of dog deaths from the trail. Someone was mad that people weren’t picking up after their dogs so they left poisoned chicken pieces on the trail. Yikes!

Took the bus down to Ikea to meet Abbie and Angela. Successfully made our returns and then decided to eat at Gyu Kaku– our harvard square favorite!

We were near Victoria Park and saw lots of people wearing black leaving the park. We knew there was a rally scheduled that day, and it looked like it was ending. We decided it was ok to walk around the perimeter of the park just to observe the end of the rally and see where people had convened. It was totally fine, and interesting, we saw people slowly and peacefully dismantling from the rally in the park. We meandered back to the road Ikea was on, and boom, it was FILLED with people. Turns out the trickle of people from the rally was in fact the beginning of a protest march. We heard the song from Les Mis “do you hear the people sing..” as that is one of the anthem songs someone was blaring. We walked the other way, to shop at Muji and a few other places. We intersected with the protest path again, and watched from afar for a little. It was really interesting, people of all ages were gathered. Some had full head to toe body coverage, legit gas masks, hard hats, and no skin exposed. Some just had black t shirts. Some people were handing out surgery type masks to anyone who wanted them. We observed and then noticed the start of a little scuffle. A passerby must have said something to a protestor, who was clearly fed up with the ongoing protests disrupting his routine, and then many protestors started walking near him. It was fine, but there was yelling and you can easily see how something like can escalate. We left quickly thereafter.