Hong Kong

I've been in Hong Kong for a few days, staying with Moo at his apartment in the Mid-Levels. His place is right by longest escalator system (in the world?) We've been going out and eating, had some awesome noodles at some place I wouldn't be able to find again or order from.

On Saturday Moo showed me around the Central district and Causeway Bay. We rode on the double decker trolleys and went through a bunch of stores looking for stuff to buy. It seems like Hong Kong is a big shopping area, so if you dig on shopping, this is the place for you.

We even got a pre-paid SIM card for Moo's spare phone, which I'm using while I'm over here. Everyone walks around with cell phones attached to their neck, so I was just wanting to fit in. If you like to have large phone bills, feel free to give me a call (852 6449 6074). hahahha.

Yesterday we went over to Stanley and had lunch with some of Moo's friends from Singapore. It was a nice place overlooking the ocean. One of them brought their dog, an Alaskan Malimut (?), which is one of the largest dogs I've seen.

Anyhoo, here are a few pictures of where we've been going.

Train ride into HK

More photos

China

I'm off for Hong Kong this evening after I pick up and eat a pizza. While that's pretty exciting, what's cooler is my new backpack that is all stuffed and ready to go.

Halloween Pics

Here are some more pics from the Halloween party.

She-Ra, Wonder Woman and the Lasso Of Truth

Halloween

Last night I got to hang out with She-Ra, Wonder Woman, Nemo and Marvin the Martian at a Halloween party. I went as Gargamel from the Smurfs, but everyone thought I looked like Friar Tuck. But there was a keg of beer to make things better.

Here are two pictures from my phone, I'll put up better pics from my camera tonight:

Aimee

Aimee, Brynne and May

iPod card reader

I just bought a card reader for my iPod. It's going to allow me to upload pictures from my camera to my iPod.

It didn't work at first because the software version of my iPod was too old. And I can't update the software from my computer because Windows Home XP sucks, and that's my techinical opinion. I went over my my work buddy Dipesh's house to use his computer. Everything went smoothly and I got the little reader to work and now I essentially have a 15GB flash card for my camera.

Smith Rock

Over the weekend I went over to Smith Rock with my climbing buddies. While it was raining on everyone else in Portland, it was sunny and warm in Terrebone (just North of Bend.) At night you could see all of the stars and even the constellations (if we could've remembered their names.) Coyotes provided singing for us to fall asleep to.

On Saturday we woke up, cooked blueberry pancakes and bacon and headed out to Smith Rock. We split up into a few groups to attack various routes. Amy and Brynne led up the bolted routes and I, Scott, Dan and May would follow. I got to break in my new rope, it started off shiny and orange, it ended dull and dirty - looking like a real rope.

On my last climb I got to clean the top quick draws and thread the rope through the chains so I could rappel down the face. I hadn't ever done it, but I knew the steps to take. It took me about 10 minutes to get ready to push off the ledge and lower myself down. I'd say I was like a cowboy and booked down, but I took it slow so I could live to eat another pizza.

It was an awesome day, at least 80 degrees out and no clouds.

The next day some of us went to Bagby Hot Springs, some went climbing and May and I went to Bend to do the Whoop De Doo trail. The weather changed and the clouds rolled in, which seems to please people in Bend. "Dude, it's perfect biking weather! We love the rain" They're crazy.

When we got to the top of the Whoop De Doo trail it was snowing, quite a bit different than the previous day. But it was all good, we boogied down the trail and hit all of the moguls.

I put up some pictures from Smith Rock if you'd like to check them out.

Scott going up a 5.10b

New Phone

My new phone takes pictures and sends them to other phones or email addresses. Each shot is $.25, which is kinda a rip, but what can you do? Here's my first picture looking out from my office/cube at work.

New things

I've started getting ready for my little trip to China by spending money I don't really have. My VISA has been neglected for a while, so I figured it was time to break it out and go shopping.

I got a new backpack for this trip that I can use later for mountainering, it has all sorts of dealie-bobs for climbing junk. The tread has finally died on my shoes, so it was time to get new ones with new tread. I took a lead climbing class over the weekend and bought a climbing rope so I can practice leading. And also now I can go outside and have a rope to climb with, dental floss hasn't been hacking it lately.

My phone has been acting up and turning off in the middle of my calls. It was time to retire it, and I got a new phone. It has all of the nifty things like camera, color screen and even video. Not sure what I'm going to do with a video camera on my phone, but what the hell.

I even got a new camera for China. I've thought about it and come to the realization that digital is the way to go for 90% of my photos. I'm most likely to not blow up many pictures past 8x12, and (my) digital is good to above that. But if I have a really nice picture, it's hard to beat slides on my Nikon. So I'm taking my Nikon SLR and my digital and I'll use the Nikon when there is a scene I really like and want to have a great slide of it. I only have a 256 MB flash card, which won't be enough for a 3 week trip, so I'm going to get an adapter for my iPod which allows you to upload your pictures to the iPod, effectively giving my camera a 10-15 GB memory card.

Moab Pictures

I finally got the pictures up from the last trip to Moab. Funny how I got a cabel modem so I could upload pictures and I really haven't used it for that yet.

Anyhoo, take a look see

I broke my bike

I was gently riding my bike home on Thursday when I felt it shimmy, kinda like when you taco a wheel. But I was just going on pavement so I figured it was a flat tire. I pulled over and saw it wasn't flat. But the rear wheel was a bit out of true and I spent 10 minutes truing it up on the sidewalk.

I hopped back on it for a test spin and it had the same shimmy. I figured I got a flat this time. No flat. Then I saw the right side chain stay was sheared. Not too much you can do about that.

I tried riding down the street but the wheel kept hitting the frame and it felt too funky. And if the other stay flexed and broke then I'd be in a world of hurt.

I called everyone I could think of. If I didn't call you it's because you need to get a truck or a bike rack.

It took me 20 minutes of limping the bike along to realize that we have a thing in Portland called buses. And on these "buses" there are bike racks. And they go right by my house.

So I walked down to Division and hopped on the # 4 bus. I know people were thinking, "what a sack, he has on his little biking getup and still uses the bus." Cos I would think that.

On Friday I brought my bike to Acme Welding on 7th and Salmon and they fixed it right up and now my bike is running fine.