Benjamin

Antarctica seems like a big frozen mystery to me, and I would like to say I had set foot on the place. The idea of it gives me this strange kind of awe. Another thing is that I would like to experience 24 hours of daylight and 24 hours of night. So, putting the two together means that I would like to visit Antarctica in late December for 24 hours of light, as it would be the warmer option of the 2. I would probably combine it with a trip to New Zealand. For 24 hours of night I will consider far northern Alaska the next year maybe. Then I will get a chance to see some nice Northern Lights too, I hope. And take good long exposure photos of the lights. We get them occasionally here in Michigan, but it is too rare!

I visited Hong Kong in mid/late November of 2005. I have a friend who had been living there for quite some time working on his PhD, and all of his friends and family had visited him except me. I consider him a very good friend, so I was feeling like a bum. I had never travelled outside the country before…

If you are curious, I found the whole thing to be pretty easy to pull off. I just had to get a passport, which can take up to 6 weeks to arrive if you haven’t got one yet. Its good for 10 years once you get it though. After that I just used some service like Priceline or something to look for a ticket. I forget what the round trip cost was now… I think I went at a cheap time though. The weather in Hong Kong while I was there was in the mid 70s to low 80s and humid. According to my friend, it is supposed to be one of the niceset times of year, though with all of the walking I found it a touch warm.

I had the advantage of having a friend for a guide who had lived there for about 2 years at the time, but even without that, I think if you are a typical mono-lingual American you can get by pretty well. Most people there can speak English. Even if you end up in a store where amazingly no one speaks English, you don’t even need it if you are just buying things. Just nod and hand them your money. All of the subways have announcements in Mandarin, Cantonese, and English, and the signs are in Chinese and English also. For money, I was able to just use my debit card at the ATMs they have all over (subway stations are a reliable place to find them) and withdraw Hong Kong dollars. Another nice thing to do would be to get an “Octopus Card”. These are cards you can add money to and stick in your wallet. If you stop by a 7-11 (of which there are 30 million in HK), you can pick up some goodies and then to check out you can just pass your wallet or purse over the reader and it will deduct the money for you. The other main advantage to the Octopus card is public transportation. Ferries, busses, and subway station turnstile all have readers for the Octopus card so you can board quickly and easily. Also, when you use a card reader, it will show you the current balance.

It would take forever for me to be your tour guide, but a couple places I really liked were taking the trail up to Victoria Peak, and the island of Cheung Chau. Try to get some Victoria Peak during the day and night. If you take the trail down from the Peak a bit at night you will get great skyline views of the Harbor over towards Kowloon. If the walk kills you (and it might), there is a tram also. Cheung Chao is a small fishing island, but there are nice naturey trails and a small cave that I enjoyed. The town in the center of the island (which is very narrow) has a fishing port on one side, and a swimming beach on the other. Another common tourist spot is the Giant Buddha at the Po Lin monastary on Lantau. It is a scenic, twisty drive up there, and the monastary is nice enough, but I personally enjoyed the great views once you get up on the Buddha. On a clear day you can make out a bit of other islands, out past the wooded hills and across some ocean. Aside from that, on Hong Kong island and in Kowloon there are a million opportunities to shop, from street markets to these packed together mini-stores, etc.

Hopefully I was a little help to you. There is much more to see in Hong Kong than I could mention in this brief entry. You would not have trouble filling 2 weeks with activity. Just remember to do some research before you come out and you should have fun.

The Magic Stick is above a bowling alley, near the Majestic Theatre and the Magic Bag. I came to see Melt Banana and a couple other bands play here in 2005. Facing the stage, there is a bar on the back left, and then some tall tables with chairs along both sides of the place. Some of those tables are raised up a little separate from the main floor. On the left there is also an about 4.5 foot wall (?) that separates a pool table area from the main floor, with benches and chairs on that side also. I think the layout is really nice. There is plenty of room to get close to a band if you’d like, but also plenty of area to just relax or get a table with friends. It is hard to judge sound. Melt Banana was decent sounding that night, but the other 2 bands were too loud, and what do you blame for that? They were so loud that you could not make out the music, just rhythm, and all intricacies were bludgeoned away. I know it was the sound too and not the bands because I saw the same bands later in the week at another venue and they sounded decent. Still, I am just trying to find a negative. Overall I really liked the layout of the place and it seems like a decent venue to watch a show. Downstairs there is a nice sports bar type place also, with the bowling.

In 2003 or 2004 I saw Fantomas, Melt Banana, and end. at the Majestic, and it was my 1st visit (I came for Melt Banana!). The place has a nice stage for a band to spread out on, and the venue is medium sized. Out of the Magic Bag, Magic Stick, and Majestic Theatre, I would guess that the Majestic Theatre is the largest of the 3, and probably my least favorite as well. It has a classic stage theatre look, and the decor evokes classiness, but it is also kind of dingy. This is what happens when you cross a once nice theatre with excessive smoke and booze. The main floor is just a large open area you can stand in. It seems a bit like an old gym floor, not that it is. Along the back wall are the coolers and a long bar. The bar stools at the rear are the only seats I recall in the place, except for the ticket area at the entrance perhaps. The sound when I was there was totally alright, and I enjoyed the show, but it is not the most comfortable place.

I had to check, because I easily get the Magic Bag, the Magic Stick, and the Majestic Theater confused, as they are all in the same area.

The Magic Bag is a nice medium-small sized venue. To me it looks like maybe it used to be an old single screen movie theater. In the front where you would crowd around to see the band is flat, and a little back it steps up like a terrace or rows at a movie theater and there are tables and chairs. Then further back from that is the ticket/merch/consession area laid out just as you would expect. It is easy to find a place to park, and having the tables back makes it nice if you need a rest from being up close, or you just want to relax and hear whoever is there. I personally saw Living Colour there, and it was one of the top 2 concerts I had ever seen, and the mix co-operated too. Sound was nice.

Well, I visited this place when I ran down to visit a friend in Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti who used to work there. This was probably around summer 2002. Upstairs has a cozy tea room, and there are books up and downstairs. The focus is mostly on liberal spirituality, multiculturalism and some feminisim, etc. There was also some “New Age” umm, paraphenelia such as chimes, candles, crystals, and so on. I believe they may have some small music acts perform on occasion, probably acoustic. I thought it was worth visiting, because I knew such places existed, but being a rural Michigander I had never been to one. It is a place where I think I could find people I agree with politically, where some good people meet to organize or chat, but on the bad side there seems to be some, umm, lack of healthy scepticism of flakey pseudo-sciencey things. Crystal therapy, homeopathy, chakra reading machines, etc. This is just based on the books they carry. There is good stuff too, I don’t mean to give a bad impression, just what I saw as the interesting plusses and minuses of the place. It is worth stopping in for a few minutes or more, depending on what you like.