an interesting read.

What It Means To Be "Chinese" in Hong Kong

Not too far from the truth...

day 3: merry christmas!!! :)

days in hk: 3

# of dimsum meals: 3

# of times someone has automatically spoken english to me: 2

# of holiday movies watched: 2 (deck the halls, the holiday)

yet another morning of dimsum with the family. then, as per tradition, went to the matinee performance of the nutcracker at the hong kong cultural centre.

had a super tasty dinner for grandma's birthday. mmm...many photos were taken, dishes were had, comas were induced.

happy 82nd birthday, grandma! :)

[sidenote: blogger, i really hate your blog formatting sometimes. it's messed up.]

day 2: recap.

days in hk: 2

# of dimsum meals: 2

# of times someone has automatically spoken english to me: 1

# of holiday movies watched: 2 (deck the halls, the holiday)

as a sidenote, i finally have a camera charger, so photos should be coming along with the next posts. :)

day 1: xmas break in hong kong.

# of dimsum meals: 1

# of times i've almost accidentally gotten into the wrong side of the car: 1

# of times someone has automatically spoken english to me: 1

# of weirdass christmas trees: 2 (1 toy story themed, 1 ferrero rocher themed)

this place is weird.

And The Preservation Award Goes To...

so i was going to do a recurring post off of last week's www idea. but then i realized two out of the three would be the same as last time. :P so that probably won't happen until i at least finish the distance between us.

news update.

we'll be moving back across (half of) the country, back to boston, in january/february. aaron will be leaving his job before then, and it just makes more sense for us to go back to boston since, at least for me, the job hunt here isn't working out too well. i'm nervous, excited and dreading the move all at the same time; pretty much for various, entirely separate parts of the move.

part of this move now means, that i have restarted my job search in the boston area. ugh. but i'm hoping that, this time around, things will work out for the better. part of this plan is that being a bigger city, with more architecture, more jobs and more historic architecture opportunities that i know the city actually cares about, i'll be able to find a position to take up and put an end to this unemployment streak.

as result of this step, i've recently taken up the new position of news contributor for urbdezine, an online architect, design, urban planning and historic preservation magazine. while not a paid position, it sounded super fun and exciting, and a way for me to get my voice out there in the architecture world, as well as educate myself more about the city that i hope to be working in and contributing to very soon. it's a relatively new web-zine, started by bill adams, a lawyer involved with land use and urban renewal in san diego, and it has slowly been growing and spreading to other cities in the country. most recently, this list of cities has expanded to include boston (check out the right-hand side of the page!) and new york. since i'll be moving back pretty soon, i have committed to contributing to the boston chapter, and have just had my first article put out there.

i've been super excited to get started, even while trying to work through all the glitches that the user website seems determined to throw in my way. (i have a couple of posts pending because the one button that allows me to add a photo to my article has somehow disappeared on me...) and while i have a strong interest in historic preservation, i'm making a solid attempt to post about news and events that are outside of that realm and touch on other parts of the architecture and design industry.

if there's anything you feel like spreading the word about, i'm still trying to get my feet off the ground and looking for new material to write about every day. :) and feel free to browse the articles from the rss feed on the right of this page (you may need to scroll down a bit).

Lowell's Boat Shop, 459 Main Street, Amesbury, MA

to read or not to read.

today's post is yet another one inspired by anna hong, who in turn took a page from MizB's book, because like anna, i went on a serious book shopping spree this summer and flew through each and every one of them, and now i'm only restraining myself due to unemployment and, therefore, lack of funding for books.
so here goes:

www wednesday #1 - to do this, all you have to do is answer the following three questions.

+ what are you currently reading?
the art of racing in the rain / garth stein
i actually started this book awhile back towards the tail end of the summer. then once summer ended, strangely so did my energy for leisurely reading all the time. but i've recently restarted it again and it's super enjoyable. it's definitely a good read if you're looking for a feel-good, story-telling, nicely-humbling novel. also along similar lines, if you've already read this one, is a dog's purpose / w. bruce cameron. a little cuter, a little less of a humbling tone, but similar idea and super cute.

+ what did you recently finish reading?
little bee / chris cleave
this was actually a little while back, near the end of summer/beginning of fall. (yea, that long ago.) but a good read. serious and, at times, a little dark. but still a good read. i will admit the ending could be considered a little unfulfilling, but it's definitely still a book i would recommend to anyone who asked.






+ what do you think you'll read next?
the distance between us / maggie o'farrell
i don't actually know much about this book. it's a recommendation from jess, and i'm trying to re-kickstart my book reading so i figured i'll give it a go. also, we've started doing this book trading thing where one of us will send the other a book as a recommendation to read, and when that person's done, they send it back with a book recommendation of their own. it seems like a good system, except that i have, unfortunately, been dropping the ball on my end and have had this book for awhile without having gotten to it because i've just really slowed down in my downtime reading. but i'm fixing it! :) my goal is to finish this by christmas.


if you have any book recommendations for me to add to my nicely-filling-up bookshelf, comment here!

it's a bird. it's a plane. no, it's just me.

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+ not too shabby. still need to hit two more continents (+ the middle east and central america/the caribbean).

i love travelling. i really do. though i must admit the flying part has very gradually lost its appeal. i'm pretty sure it's because of all the fifteen hour flights to and from hong kong every year for the past seven years (sometimes twice a year). i calculated at some point. with those trips alone, i clocked about 34,000 miles of flight every year. gross. so the whole joy of flying thing? kinda worn off by now.

but i still love travelling. 

everyone always says you should travel while you're young. which sounds fantastic. except for one tiny problem. when you're young, more than likely, you're also poor. right now, as a recent college graduate, this would be a perfect time to just travel before i find a job and settle down somewhere for a bit. unfortunately, it's not like four years of campus jobs is really going to pay for a trip, well, anywhere. boo. and when i finally do find a job that could possibly pay for my travel plans, it'll probably be a while before i can actually work up enough vacation days to make any trip worthwhile.

boo. life.

note: props to anna hong for this post. i took the map idea from her site. :) 

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+ not including drive-throughs.

p.s. i really hate coding sometimes...