Ashley Chow dot Com

Well, I’m off to New York in a few days and I just spent about 4 hours today finishing off my itinerary. Needless to say, I am very detail-oriented. The hardest part about planning a trip to a place like New York is figuring out how to get to all of the destinations. I mean, I could easily just list out everywhere I want to go and leave it at that, but no one really wants to waste precious time in a foreign city, lost.

The biggest challenge is “deciphering” New York’s subway system. I know how it works and everything, but trying to figure out how to get from one place to another can be quite a pain. It’s a good thing there’s Google Maps. Google Maps has been a god.

In any case, I have not started packing yet. But I’ll get to it tomorrow morning. Before I go to school. For the final time.

Now, I discovered something pretty cool a few years ago. I took a gazillion shots of the Brooklyn Bridge the last time I was in New York and one was actually pretty neat that I developed and have hanging up in my room. I also have a 2007 New York calendar from the Empire State Building and one of the photos was surprisingly similar to the shot that I took. Check it out.

Taken July 15, 2006 @ 8:44am NY time. I just grayscaled the photo.

This is the April 2007 photo from the NY calendar that I have. Sky is obviously photoshopped?

I just found that pretty interesting. And I’ll be there again in no time!

I recently came back from a trip to HK & China, and boy, is it hot & humid there! The temperature goes up as high as the mid 30s C and if you’re outside for a long time, it gets really sticky. The good thing about it though, is that things are way cheaper than here in Vancouver. Clothes and food are very inexpensive when you convert the dollars.

Here are just some things that I noticed about China & HK. Many of them are exaggerated, but they’re all pretty much true.

———-

In China:

Car honks are their way of life.
Drivers honk like there’s no tomorrow.
They’d die without car honks.
Drivers get mad if anything stops.
They’re insane lane changers.
Road lines are invisible to them.
Cars, taxis, buses, bicyclers, motorcyclists, & pedestrians all get very close to cars, taxis, buses, bicyclers, motorcyclists, & pedestrians.
Pedestrians don’t get their way. Cars do.
Car crashes don’t exist.
Ambulances & firetrucks also don’t exist.

Absolutely everything smells like smoke.
There are ashtrays on every table.
You inherit 50 toothpicks and 5 packs of tissues a day.
Restaurants either don’t give you napkins or they give you a pack of tissues.
You wash your own dishes before you eat.

Married people don’t wear rings.
All the babies are boys. Or girls who look like boys.
Strangers talk to strangers.
Heat & humidity mean sticky all over.
Toilets don’t have seats.
Made up words & bad spelling & horrible grammar mean straight up laugh out loud. (Sorry, but it is funny. )

Everyone speaks mandarin & Cantonese except the hotel.
No one thought I could understand or speak Cantonese.
Hotels don’t have clocks.
It rains 2 minutes a day.

Despite everything, it is surprisingly clean.

———-

In Hong Kong:

An apartment bedroom is more or less the size of a queen bed.

Heat & humidity still mean sticky all over.
Some toilets still don’t have seats.

You inherit 100 toothpicks and 20 packs of tissues a day.
Restaurants still either don’t give you napkins or they give you a pack of tissues.
You still wash your own dishes before you eat.

Hotels still don’t have clocks.
It still rains 2 minutes a day.

Everyone has a cell phone.
Everyone uses their cell phone at least once every meal.

———-

A 12 hour flight gives you 3 meals, a thousand drinks, 3 movies, Chinese shows, news, more shows, and a dark airplane.
Two 12 hour flights make me want to kill myself & my ears pop like hell.

Fortunately, only a day or two of jet lag.