trolley trolley trolley get your adverbs here

December 21, 2006 - Trolley madness in Hong Kong.


Or trolley love. Hong Kong is a place that has to take vertical seriously. If you make one level of something, you have to consider having two levels of that thing.


Shanghai style wonton noodles. Late afternoon light means it's time to head back to the travel agency to pick up my passport. But only after a snack of Shanghai style wonton noodles.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Namida to Tatakatteru (Dreams Come True)
2. 1984 (live) (David Bowie)
3. In Buddy's Eyes ("Follies" - Sondheim)
4. Huayrasan (Sukay - Andean pan flute)
5. Collideascope (Dukes of Stratosphear)
6. Daddy's Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car (U2)
7. Bush Killa (Hellraiser Remix) (Paris)
8. Speakin' O' Bob (National Joy Band)
9. Funnelhead (Archers of Loaf)
10. Another Satellite (XTC)

Down from the Peak, Hong Kong

December 21, 2006 - After hanging out a while atop Victoria Peak, I decided to walk down the mountain instead of taking the tram. I'm pretty sure the logic had something to do with gravity. And mind you, with all my bitching about Taipei's horrible weather, Hong Kong was absolutely gorgeous this one day in December. And since I was there only one day, that still translates to 100% good weather in Hong Kong! Not bad! Taipei, with I estimate almost 50% of days being cloudy or rainy, can't compare.


Back down on the flat area of Hong Kong, I hopped on a double-decker trolley to see where it took me. But because of time, I actually didn't get much farther than where I started in the morning at the hostel, from which I walked to the Taiwan travel agency/make believe visa office. I think I actually walked a pretty good distance that morning.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. The Separation of Church and State (+/-)
2. Sugar (live) (Tori Amos)
3. Power (Princess Princess)
4. Flash (Queen)
5. Beautiful (Smashing Pumpkins)
6. Silver Sun (Kristin Hersh)
7. Doll Is Mine (Blonde Redhead)
8. Father Ruler King Computer (Echobelly)
9. Indigo Chiheisen (Spitz)
10. Stretchin' Out (In a Rubber Band) (Bootsy Collins)

Victoria Peak

December 21, 2006 - See that structure? The Peak Tram terminus is in the base. Then you start going up escalator after escalator until you wonder what's going. Finally, you reach the top and you're on the roof, and that's where the panoramic view is from. That thing was made for panoramic views of Hong Kong!

It was only after coming down and exiting the structure that I saw what a monument it is!

Revisiting the panoramic view, this time with unsuspecting visitors. Again, shooting like this, from their perspective, it doesn't look at all like I'm shooting at them or that they're in my shot.


For some reason, I got in the mood of just shooting random people on the roof. I felt like a postal worker. I'm not good at getting in peoples' faces and shooting them without permission, but it's easy with the fisheye. I just hold the camera level and discreetly push the shutter when I have a subject, and people are none the wiser.




iTunes soundtrack:
1. April Come She Will (live) (Simon & Garfunkel)
2. Softer, Softest (Hole)
3. Food, Glorious, Food ("Oliver!")
4. Help Me, Mary (Liz Phair)
5. Nigai Namida (Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra)
6. Hot Fun in the Summer Time (Sly & the Family Stone)
7. Sweet Soul Revue (Pizzicato Five)
8. Red Mosquito (live) (Pearl Jam)
9. Knuckle Down (XTC)
10. Boulevard Star (Delinquent Habits)

Peak Tram

December 21, 2006 - Hong Kong visa run. After submitting my documents for a new Taiwan visa, which didn't go as smoothly as possible since I didn't change enough money into Hong Kong dollars to pay for the visa, necessitating running around Hong Kong's financial district for 45 minutes unable to find a currency changer (something I would expect in Taiwan, but not in Hong Kong, but since this is Taiwan related, I still blame Taiwan), I had five hours to kill.

Nearby the Lippo Towers, you can take the Peak Tram up the mountain Hong Kong is mashed against. It's pretty nifty and helluv steep. I don't know if any of the lines outside the tram are an indication of how steep the grade is. Sometimes in pictures you can tell how steep terrain is by looking for things that are usually vertical or horizontal, like trees, and tell how steep the grade is by the angle it makes with the terrain. But I don't know what those lines are, or if they're horizontal. I couldn't get up that grade on bike, so it's steeper than just about any hill in San Francisco (although I never got to attempting the streets surrounding Mount Davidson).


Peak Tram terminus at the top.


Typical panoramic view of Hong Kong from Victoria Peak, a shot which I'm finding everyone who's visited Hong Kong and gone up the peak has. :p but not necessarily in fisheye.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. White Noise (Deadweight)
2. High (The Cure)
3. Siva (Smashing Pumpkins)
4. The Guardian's Prayer, pt. 2 (Longchen Nyingthig Monks)
5. I Like Fucking (Bikini Kill)
6. Adia (Sarah McLachlan)
7. (I Know) I'm Losing You (The Temptations)
8. Going to California (Led Zeppelin)
9. The Rhythm of the Heat (live) (Peter Gabriel)
10. Stockton Gala Days (live unplugged) (10,000 Maniacs)

Hong Kong Buildings

December 21, 2006 - Here's a famous building of the Hong Kong skyline, maybe the most distinct building from Hong Kong movies. At least that's where I know it from. Apparently a lot of feng shui goes into construction in Hong Kong, but I don't remember how it applies to this building.


The Lippo Towers, in which is the "travel agency" which processes Taiwan "visas", although they are not allowed to actually issue visas. They process your visa application, and if all is in order they staple a slip of paper into your passport that you take back with you to Taiwan. Once in Taiwan, at the airport, before going through immigration, you have to go to a special station where they issue the actual visa. So why I have to leave the country is a little beyond me. Is it because that's what real countries require? Sorry, these stupid things still make me bitter and disavow my Taiwanese ancestry and explains why my parents left.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Ribbon In the Sky (Stevie Wonder)
2. Lamplight Symphony (Kansas)
3. Good Morning, Good Morning (The Beatles)
4. Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses (U2)
5. Take Me In Your Arms (Rock Me a Little While) (Kim Weston - Motown)
6. String Quartet No. 8, II. Allegro Molto (Shostakovich)
7. Please Hello ("Pacific Overtures" - Sondheim)
8. Lizzie Sage (Throwing Muses)
9. Baby Face (The Kinks)
10. Marathon (Rush)

bo-ring shots

It's starting all over again. Move to a new place, internet goes down. I kinda knew this would happen, just as the internet in my old place settled into reliability. Bad internet karma, among other things!

So I'm back at the public library near my old apartment, and now that I'm here I'm wondering what was so important that I needed to get on the internet. I think it's because I'm still planning to go to Kaohsiung for New Years, and I've been thinking of taking the new High Speed Rail (高鐵), and I realized I don't know anything about taking it, even where the Taipei area station is. The last I heard, the HSR line ended in Banqiao, but it looks like the website is saying it goes all the way to Taipei Station now. Of course, this is Taiwan, and no information should be considered reliable until verified first-hand.

I think I'll go to the station tomorrow and try to take the HSR. If not, the bus station is right there, so I can just hop on a bus. I guess I should also call my uncle and let them know I'm coming. I guess I should decide for certain that I'm going.

The last shots from this roll for now:

December 10, 2006 - Xinyi District, after seeing a movie at Warner Village. That's a massive motor scooter parking lot. I guess it'd be more impressive if I got closer to it.


Taiwan aboriginal dancers outside Warner Village. Hm, guess I should've tried to get closer. That's why these are boring shots.


December 21, 2006 - Film advance shots on new rolls are also prime candidates for boring shots. But! This is in Hong Kong. It turned out in December that I had to leave the country because of visa problems, but I bitch enough about Taiwan, so I don't want to revisit that issue.

I flew into Hong Kong the night before with no film in order to minimize how often a roll of film goes through airport scanners. I was getting a little worried after not being able to find chromogenic black and white film right away, but while walking to the "travel agency" which is acting as the "visa" office for not-a-real-country Taiwan (Taiwan's bureaucratic stupidity makes me bitter), I found that Kodak shops often carry BW400CN film. So I got Kodak color film as well for the 2. That must be my backpack on the right.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Night on the Sun (Modest Mouse)
2. To Sheila (Smashing Pumpkins)
3. Cheeseballs in Cowtown (Bela Fleck & the Flecktones)
4. Nirai Kanai Matsuri (Shoukichi Kina & Champloose)
5. Spin It On (Wings)
6. Night Shift Gurus (The Cash Brothers)
7. Time (Rebecca)
8. She's An Angel (They Might Be Giants)
9. Warehouse (Dave Matthews Band)
10. Help! (live) (The Beatles)

Finally, from Hong Kong

OK, internet back up.

My lasting impression of Hong Kong will probably be the tower blocks. Actually, I'm not sure if the tall apartment buildings are called exactly that, but I heard that term used in a song and thought it was cool ("It's 6 o'clock in the tower blocks/The stalagmites of culture shock"). In Hong Kong, they really tower - they're huge, and it's no wonder considering space restraints.


I think I was kinda lost at this point. Remember, I was sleep deprived, and my usual reliable ability to keep my bearings must have been fried. I only went a couple MTR stops up from Mongkok, but trying walk my way back, I was led astray by signs pointing to an MTR station on a completely different line. But wherever I went were these monstrous tower blocks.

Ah, yes, it all comes back to me. These shots were from right in front of the MTR station. The wrong MTR station, but at this point I thought I was home free to get back to Hong Kong and get my student visa. The shot below would have been better if I had crossed the street, because that line of tower blocks was particularly impressive, if I remember correctly.

Once I found I was at the wrong MTR station, I managed to find a bus that took me back to Mongkok, and from there it was no problem getting back to Hong Kong, no problem getting my "student visa", only a little problem getting back to the airport because of an asshole bus driver who only let me on without paying a whole new fare by convincing him I was a total foreign idiot (after how many years of British rule and he still doesn't speak English?! j/k - colonization is not a joke, kids), and no problem flying back to Taiwan to get the real student visa at the airport in my U.S. passport. Damnit, I'm American. Ain't no way I'm gonna be drafted in no Taiwanese army because of a useless Taiwanese passport.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Silver Strings (Helium)
2. Do It! (Sakura)
3. When the Saints Go Marching In (Rebirth Marching Jazz Band)
4. Witness (Sarah Mclachlan)
5. Forgiven (Edie Brickell & New Bohemians)
6. Sequelles (MC Solaar)
7. When a Woman Loves a Man (Rebecca)
8. Far From Now (Engine Down)
9. So What? (Ani DiFranco)
10. Jamming (Bob Marley & the Wailers)

Two More of Mongkok

May 15, 2006 - Funky pastel coloured buildings lining a street market. I haven't figured out if Hong Kong refers only to the island of Hong Kong, or if it includes the greater Hong Kong area, including part of the Asian continent that borders mainland China. Mongkok is on that bit of land, which immediatly across from Hong Kong is called Kowloon. Don't quote me on that, though.


Pedestrian footbridge that covers an extensive part of street in Mongkok. Very useful for getting perspective.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. I Hope You're Happy Now (Elvis Costello & the Attractions)
2. Just Like U Said It Would B (Sinead O'Connor)
3. For You Blue (The Beatles)
4. 4:37 A.M. (Arabs With Knives & West German Skies) (Roger Waters)
5. Take the Long Way Home (live) (Supertramp)
6. Pasibutbut (David Darling & the Wulu Bunun)
7. Bigtime Sensuality (Bjork)
8. Breakthru (Queen)
9. You Know What I Mean (Phil Collins)
10. Stratford-On-Guy (Liz Phair)

Two of Mongkok

Gah, so where was I? Oh yea, trip to Hong Kong.

May 15, 2006 - One of the main drags in the Mongkok section of Hong Kong, the one with all the camera shops. I was hoping to score a new digital, but without knowing the language, and not quite sure what the haggling expectations are, either in Hong Kong or Taiwan, I'm scared of paying too much for a camera. I don't want to pay the asking price and find out that haggling could have gotten me a better price, and some camera store clerk smirked me a sucker for paying the asking price. I don't want to be punk'd. Who does?

Anyway, the model I'm looking for, which isn't normally sold in the U.S. (it's not in B&H or J&R), is available through some online sites in the U.S. for surprisingly far less than either Hong Kong or Taiwan, so I'm going to wait till I visit the U.S. in August and hope those online prices remain and aren't a fluke.


A Mongkok intersection.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Skimbleshanks ("Cats")
2. Macilumah (David Darling & the Wulu Bunun)
3. Here Comes the Flood (Peter Gabriel)
4. Maori Chant (The Neville Brothers)
5. Bea (Throwing Muses)
6. Black Coffee In Bed (Squeeze)
7. Drivin' on 9 (The Breeders)
8. John-G (Yuko Hara)
9. Pictures At An Exhibition, Prom.-Il Vecchio Castello (Mussorgsky)
10. Bernadette (The Kinks)

Hong Kong Visa Run

May 15, 2006 - Not sure what's going on here. Stepped out of the train station in Hong Kong and decided to shoot whatever was there? Looks like it.


The famous hills of Hong Kong? Is Hong Kong famous for its hills? I think the hills keep Hong Kong cramped up against the northern coast of the island. If so, Hong Kong is even smaller than what it looks like on the map. I do remember a Hong Kong film called "Life is Cheap, Toilet Paper is Expensive", which has a nauseating 10 minute foot chase seen, shot from the point of view of the chaser. It started up in the hills, came down to the urban area, down into the subway system, and then back up again to about street level (not sure if it was supposed to be metaphor). I had to watch the last few minutes of the chase out of the corner of my eye to keep from throwing up. Great movie, wish I could find it somewhere to rent.


Making my way to the visa office using internet downloaded maps. I love learning the layout of somewhere using a map, and then seeing it as it really is. It's always pleasantly disappointing. Buildings, people, traffic, but alive, long in existence before I got there, long after I leave.

It's not officially a visa office. I think it's actually called a travel agency because China doesn't recognize Taiwan, and China now owns Hong Kong. And they don't actually issue the visa in the Hong Kong office, maybe for the same reason. You get a little slip of paper that you take back to Taiwan, like a claim ticket, and at the airport, you go to one last counter and they issue the visa there on Taiwanese soil. Weird.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Little Earthquakes (live) (Tori Amos)
2. Man In a Suitcase (live) (The Police)
3. Prettiest Star (David Bowie)
4. Runaways (XTC)
5. The Weight of My Words (Four Tet Instrumental Remix)
6. Cheapskate (Supergrass)
7. Homeopathy (Rainer Maria)
8. Flute Concerto in G Major (Vivaldi)
9. Angels Rush In (Versus)
10. Cosmic Rays (Helium)

Train to Hong Kong

Bah! My internet at home is down again. That means I have to go to the public library again for my internet fix. This is unacceptable, right? Tell me that I should definitely leave at the end of my lease at the end of August and move to a place that has reliable internet.


May 15, 2006 - First lomo frame on the ground in Hong Kong, taking the express airport train to Hong Kong proper. It was beautiful landing in Hong Kong. The airport is kinda out there, and to get to Hong Kong forces you to travel through stunning tropical island landscape, lots of water and mountainous islands. Seeing it from a train window, I'm sure, doesn't do it justice.

Unfortunately, this was my first time in Hong Kong, I can't even remember a single word of Cantonese from any of the Hong Kong films I've seen, I was only going for a day to get a student visa back to Taiwan, and I was sleep deprived, having stayed overnight at the Taipei airport so that I could make sure I got there on time for the first flight out. That was brutal. And I had only done rudimentary research on what to do for the 4-5 hours I'd be waiting to get my visa.

I notice an aberrant peak in visits to this quiet site. Feel free to say "hi!", ya'll.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Polka Dots and Moonbeams (Wes Montgomery)
2. Das Neue Japanische Elekronische Volkslied (Ryuichi Sakamoto)
3. Sweet Virginia (The Rolling Stones)
4. Stay Up Late (Talking Heads)
5. Liquid Fire (Nokko)
6. Blown a Wish (My Bloody Valentine)
7. David Watts (live) (The Kinks)
8. Gotta Stay High (New Radicals)
9. That's All (Genesis)
10. Ain't Got No (reprise) ("Hair")

View above the clouds

May 15, 2006 - Even in lomospeak, this is the universal shot meaning flying off to a new destination. In this case, I was flying to Hong Kong on an infamous "visa run". Flight schedules allow it so that from Taiwan, people can fly in, get their passports stamped, and head right back to Taiwan at most in a couple hours.

I, however, actually had to go to Hong Kong to get a student visa in my U.S. passport, since I entered Taiwan on my Taiwanese visa. The Taiwanese passport is virtually useless. It basically amounts to a 3 month visa with the threat of being drafted into military service if I by accident stay for over 4 months. Taiwanese passport doesn't mean Taiwanese citizenship. Doesn't mean you can stay here. Me, Taiwanese? No, yo hablo espanol.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Get Back (The Beatles)
2. Speed of Life (live) (David Bowie)
3. Company ("Company" - Sondheim)
4. Farewell and Goodnight (Smashing Pumpkins)
5. One On One (Hall & Oates)
6. Home Again (Carole King)
7. Dhadkne Saansein Jawane ("Beta" - bollywood)
8. Love Struck Baby (Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble)
9. Chamber Symphony in C Minor, I. Largo (Shostakovich)
10. Mad Dog God Dam (Elastica)