Just Sangi

The food in HK is fabulous. Pretty cheap especially when considering the equivalent to NY. For you gastronomy groupies i compiled a list of my top 5 favorite meals.

5. Chinese - Stewed curry beef soup - Gough Street,  west of the Escalators
Total, total dive bar but the line is out the door. It’s BYON( Bring Your Own Napkin) Really. You want to wipe down the utensils before using but it’s worth it. Curried stewed beef noodle soup with big chewy noodles, thick strong curry flavored broth that was a little sweet until you added some spicy, sour house specialty sauce and the tender tender beef which felt apart on its own.

4. Morrocan - Kazah in Soho
For my 30th birthday, Wendy organized a dinner at this Moroccan restaurant with a few of my friends in HK. Ivy (known since UCB and was my clubbing buddy in NY), Larry (Ivys hubby), Wendy (my partner in crime, almost literally  , since high school), Gordon (Wendy’s friend and my tour guide extraordinaire) and Jackie, friend from NY and future Vietnam travel buddy. We all ordered our own dish and then ate family style. I think my favorite was the sea bass which melted like warm butter in your mouth. The paella was also particularly good as the saffron wasnt too strong and the stock they used for boiling the rice gave it extra flavor.

3. Chinese - Stir fried chilli crab in Kowloon
Another dive joint that had rickety tables, linoleum floors, and a wall plastered with pictures of the owners and celebrities. It’s a dive, but it’s an infamous dive spot. So after a night of partying on my second to last night in HK, we get to this place at 4 am. We order and the waiter comes out with a live crab to show for our approval and then 5 minutes later it was presented to us on a dish covered with clhilli garlic sauce. A little creepy since we had just said "hello" to our crab friend so soon before. But he tasted amazng - absolutely covered wth friend garlic. Yumm-y.

2. Dim Sum at Shun Tak Center
The place was genormous. A thousand people could have easily sat there. There was three of us and somehow we ended up with about sixteen dishes and more astonishingly paid $200 HK = $34 US.

1. Sichuan - Yellow Door, Soho
Pre-fixed Sichuan meal. Depending on the # of people in the party, they will bring out the right # of portions.  We had six appetizes and about 5 main dishes. I LOVE spicy food. I usually put hot sauce on everything, but this time I was scraping some of it off. They had peking duck in a heavenly sweet sour spicy sauch. Chicken an dpork and then dumplings and dessert. It came out to about $30 each. Not bad at all. I spent my time sighing in delight and fanning my mouth saying ’spicy, spicy’…. and I call myself an Indian. Ill have to go back to prove myself.

The first thing I noticed about Hong Kong was that it felt strangely familiar. HK reminds me of NY. Not just because of the strong financial underpinning to the city and the plethora of skyscrapers. There is an energy and strong capitalistic, money-ordineted pulse running through the streets. Everything is commercial. Everyone is selling something - watches, hats, sunglasses, food, dried crocodile, herbs, antiques, thousand year eggs - whether it’s in a mall or on the street the day’s agenda is to buy low and sell high. It’s the stock exchange brought to street level.

I was hoping to find a good travel journal site to keep my travelogues, but didnt find one that I really liked. I will probably continue to use Friendster, but may switch to another one later. Im 2 weeks into my trip and so far it has been great. Hong Kong was AWESOME. Love that city. I havent  been keeping a   daily journal, was too busy catching up with old friends, eating, drinking, walking, and eating some more, but I categorized some of my experiences there which you can read about if you’re interested. Also Friendster doesnt allow you to load fotos on the blog site, but ill be loading albums when I get to BKK. I forgot my cable at home, so have to wait until i get to my friend’s house. 
Please feel free to write, comment,  give travel/accomodation tips, or the names/numbers of people you know who are also living or out traveling in SE ASIA.  Later.

Do not wax the day you are supposed to be flying. Especially not a bikini wax. And especially, especially someone you havent gone to before. Even if you haven’t shaved in 3 months. Learn. From. Me.

There’s a reason I have not updated this blog. Ive been incredibly busy.
I am leaving my job and traveling to Asia.
My last day is 2/2.
I am going home to California for a week on 2/8.
Leaving for my trip on 2/15.
Yup. Been busy.

I’ve been thinking of moving on for quite some time. I like the company, love my team and  co-workers, but as time passed the balance of staying vs going tilted to the going side and as MORE time  passed, I have become increasingly convinced that my decision to leave is a good one. Working the 12 hrs a day for the last 2 yrs notwithstanding, there were 20 other reasons which have compelled me to go.

I dont have a job lined up for when I get back which makes me a little anxious, but not too much. The industry is a growing one and Ive already put some inquiries out regarding potential jobs and have received positive feedback. I’m not leaving to move back to California. Ive been getting that question a lot. I’m not NOT moving back to California, but that wasnt the catalyst for this decision - my career was. I really dont know where Im going to end up, but I know where Ill be in mid-February.

The Trip.
I cant seem to do things in half measures. If I do something, I tend to go to the extreme. I dont know why. If you do, please explain it to me.
I’m visiting friends in Hong Kong and Thailand and traveling around while Im out there. My plan (still being worked out) is to go to Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and maybe the Phillipines. For roughly 2 months. I’m working everything out and it has thus far been rough going. I have a 101 things to do and I’m on #3.
Im trying to transition my account for work, figure out my itinerary, get all my medical stuff done before i leave, put holds on my accounts, taxes, bills, find a subletter, meet up with friends, work on my resume.. . the list goes on. and on. and on. But then Ill look at pix of Thailand and I know it will be worth the effort.

Im going to try to keep a travelog. If so, Ill post the site here.

It’s sooooooooooooooooo cold. It went from 50 degrees two days ago to the 20’s. Whatthefuck!!!! I had on leggings under my jeans,  2 long sleeved shirts, regular shirt, down jacket, gloves, hat, scarf and still COLD. Now I know why they invented ski masks. Not for robbing stores. They’re for wearing in NY…and maybe when you’re robbing stores in NY.
That’s okay though. SOON I will not be here. HA! I have good timing.

New Years Eve in NY is expensive. NY is $$$$ to begin with, but on NYE the whole city decides to test how much you’re willing to pay to "ensure" your New Years gets off to a good start. Clubs, lounges, restaurants - the whole city is a conglomerate with one objective: get as much cash out of you as possible. I, like so many others, got suckered into thinking that if I paid $150 (yes, I know, I could fly  to Mexico and back with that money…and get 20 tequila shots….and some sun) my new year would be fabulous. No wonder so many tourists go to Times Square, not because it’s a great tradition, it’s the only affordable thing to do at the brink of the new year in NY.  The common mantra heard from NYers everywhere is " I know it’s ridiculous, but…." It’s what comes after the "but" that makes you pull out your credit card and start off the new year in debt.  Despite my bitching, this isn’t an exploration as to why so many of us feel  compelled to spend an inordinate amount of money on one night…it’s to bitch about something that happened on NYE.

My night started off well. My friend and I had gotten tix to this lounge in midtown where it was rumored to be playing Indian music - bollywood, bhangra etc - during the night, which was a big draw. We got there and the space was on the small side, but that was fine. We both had friends there and they were serving food and had open bar from 9-2. We didn’t know that it  was a bit of a FOB party and that there was an age limit — 23 and under (kidding. sorta). The place was filled with young ‘uns that had borrowed their older bro, sister, cousins id. Not exactly the crowd I was going for, but that was okay. We had friends there and the music was good. We also happened to meet three girls who were nice enough to let us sit at their table to eat. The girls were all cousins and decided to fly to NY and spend New Years here. We chatted a bit and met up on/off through out the night. Remember them, bc this is who the story is about.

Synopsis of the night: eat. eat. drink. dance. drink. dance. dance. bhangra. text my sister. dance.  text my sister. (Im telling her about the strange smells emitting from the armpits of the male folks there.) talk to friends. getting a little crowded by the bar, so go back to dance floor. someone puking in corner. dance. dance. 3 girls sitting on seat behind curtain. new years. Woohoo. champagne toast. noise blowers. Text. text. text. text. (as many of you can attest to, as I went through most of my phonebook.) dance. dance. 3 girls lying on seat behind curtain. One girl pokes at them to wake them up, they don’t. one guy is breakdancing on the floor.drink. another one is circling around our friends trying to grab our hands to make us dance. dance away. dance away. 3 girls lying on seat behind curtain. someone takes a picture of 3 girls. dance. talk.  watch others dance and random people pick their nose (seriously, do they not know they’re in public?) 3 girls lying on seat behind curtain. people pointing and laughing and pulling at the curtain.i bring out glasses of water and put it in front of them.  dance. people pointing and laughing and pulling at the curtain.  At this point I’m ready to go home, it’s 2:30 am…. come on, did you not read how much we were dancing?

It has been over two hours and the three girls are still passed out behind the curtain. The party is getting a little out of hand. The guy who was breakdancing puked all over the floor and is lying on the couch. A fight broke out as I was coming back with water. it really is time to go, but the girls are just lying there and only one person tried helping them and that was two hours ago. I spend the next 15 minutes trying to shake them awake and finally resorted to splattering water on them. ONE other person helped me, an acquaintance/friend who had tried waking them up two hours before.  After another 15 minutes we got them to wake up, drink water, and  remember where they were staying. We were ready to put them in a cab, but luckily their other cousin was coming to pick them up.

My annoyance isn’t directed at the girls - yeah it was dumb to get so fucked up in a strange city and particularly to have everyone piss drunk when they didn’t know anyone else at the party, but what really annoyed me was that no one did a fricking thing. It’s just sad. They were lying there. Scummy guys were heckling them and trying to peer up their skirts. I’m not a saint,  it IS funny when someone gets really drunk and does something stupid, but at some point, since they’re incapacitated shouldnt you look out for the other person whether you know them or not? Especially girls. So much can go so wrong. I took a taxi home feeling frustrated/sad that the city is so anonymous that there isn’t a sense of responsibility towards others but also  gratified that someone else did feel the same. That’s the type of person I hope to meet more of in 2006.

One of the things I miss the most are my close friends. Sometimes you have a really bad day or week or month and you just want to bitch to someone. I’m in the midst of making an important decision and I needed someone to bounce ideas off of and help give me perspective and let me know if what I was thinking was just stupid. (I get some crazy ideas sometimes) Family is great, but for unconditional support and someone who is looking out for your best interests and looking at the decision not only from a rational perspective, but from a perspective based on their knowledge of you, best friends are the way to go.  At least for me. And mine are abroad, so even talking to them over the phone is hard. But today I was SUCCESSFUL, and had a chance to catch up with one of my oldest and closest friends and went from being mopey to thinking. "I’m lucky."
I also made up my mind on a decision I’ve been on the fence about for WAY too long. It’s about fricking time.

THANK YOU. THANK YOU. JANNA.
For being my walking buddy to/from work. It made the time pass a lot faster. And brightened up my day. And gave me a reason to go into work. And made me feel like I needed to go shopping. And for being wonderful. And for being one of the funnest/coolest/nicest people at work.
She didn’t make me say any of this.

One of the reasons I love NY is the food. You have every type of food imaginable available throughout the city. One of the best Chinese restaurants is Joe’s Shanghai in Chinatown. (Mott and Pell) They have these soupy dumplings that I have never had anywhere before, even in SF. Amazing! They are dumplings that have flavored soup inside them. You will roll out of the restaurant thinking you won’t be eating for the next few months and then end up back there the next weekend. I went yesterday and yeah, we were hurting afterwords.

Afterwards we went in search of this art gallery, I was with art school students and they knew some photographers and wanted to check out their work. Unfortunately we werent so sure of the address so ended up walking about 30 blocks trying to find the place. We DID find the place, but it was closed. Dont you love that? Not a complete waste - saw some modern art in the Chelsea museum (not so sure if im such a fan of modern art — how can you take shoes and form them into masks and say it’s wonderful? Who’s going to wear the masks, it’s made out of old shoes!) and some other photographers’ exhibits.

Later we checked out the nightlife on the day before Christmas Eve. There wasn’t one. Even in NY.