It's so hard to believe we've been here for 10 days already!! Its been a blur of putting on makeup (ugh) shows, taking off makeup (ugh again)... and then show again! We have been able to do some pretty awesome things in our free time however... there are a few highlights!
We took a tram up to the Peak on the first real sunny, clear day we had. Even if there aren't clouds, there's usually a lot of haze in the sky from polution (lovely), so it was really exciting to see the sun for real! The tram was a short, but very steep ride up to a viewing station, where you can get a gorgeous view of Hong Kong... as well as Starbucks (that would be a cool starbucks to work at...) , Bubba Gump shrimp (!!), super fancy restaurants, etc. Its incredible how large Hong Kong is! The huge buildings just keep going and going...
Day off on Monday!!!! The day seriously couldn't have been more amazing. We took a ferry from Central to Macau, and then met Flee (a friend from Victor's studio) to take a taxi to Taipa, where House of Dancing Water is. Flee is working for the show, so we got an awesome back stage tour of the show (the building technical elements behind this show are absolutely unbelievable) and got to sit in on a straps and then moto cross practice (we thought they were going to die during every trick...insane). We got to briefly experience the City of Dreams casino (part of the whole complex where the show is) when we went to grab lunch at the food court... we've never been to Vegas, but Macau is definitely exactly what we picture Vegas being like. Just plus some chinese and portuguese. Flee was absolutely incredible and managed to get us into the afternoon show (even though tickets are sold out until March)... never seen anything like it. The stage switches between solid ground, 10M of water, or a combination of the two... there is an entire boat that rises out of the stage, foutans of water coming out of the stage, and people diving from the top of the theatre into the water. We both left completely mind blown. Ferry back home to Hong Kong (more stamps in the passport!!!) and had a delicious sushi dinner with Kia's parents (who came here for a vacation and to see us!) at their hotel. Seriously. The day couldn't have been better.
Yesterday a bunch of cast members took us out across the water to Kowloon in between shows. We went to a traditional Chinese restaurant where our friends just sat us down and asked if there was anything we didn't eat (we said not as far as we knew...). Everything was in cantonese, so they ordered for us, and also showed us how to wash all our cups and utensils in the tea before hand, and to tap on the table with our finger to say thank you when being served tea! For the most part we had no idea what we were eating, but it was delicious! Tons of dumplings and yummy balls of who-knows-what that came in cute little baskets. However, we do know that we tried pigeon and chicken feet!!!!! Not really a fan of either, but we tried!!! We refused to try the pigeon head that came with the rest of the pigeon. Its considered good luck here to keep the head with the rest of the animal's body (chicken, pigeon, duck, fish... etc). Didn't really appeal to us. But we did ask--if you go to KFC in Hong Kong, the chicken bucket does NOT include the chicken head. (incase you were wondering!). We then got the grand tour of Kowloon that included seeing the Hong Kong Museum of Art (according to our friends... "The biggest museum in China! Don't go in. There's nothing inside) and the theatre for the Hong Kong Ballet (apparently "the worst ballet in the world"). Walked along the Avenue of the Stars... saw Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee's stars. Pretty awesome.
We'd like to give a shout out to the lady who cleans the bathroom next to our changing room in the mall. Every bathroom in the IFC seems to have its own maid who literally lives in the bathroom all day. Its kind of uncomfortable when you have someone waiting for you to finish using the toilet or the sink so she can run in and clean it right afterwards. I don't think this bathroom maid will ever get over the fact that we come into the bathroom in jester makeup, or that we clean our tea mugs in the sink... and for some reason she doesn't seem to get that we don't understand any cantonese, and that we can't understand a word she says when she rants at us. She scares us a little.
Even though we're surrounded by christmas decorations and music and costumes... its really hard to believe its almost Christmas! We hope everyone is having a wonderful holidays, and if we knew how to type in cantonese, we'd wish you all a merry christmas in cantonese (which we know how to say)!!!
Anyway, happy holidays and merry Christmas from Hong Kong!!
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
First few days of shows!
One thing that surprised us most about Hong Kong was the amount of english that is spoken--when moving to Montréal everyone said "oh you'll be fine, everyone speaks english"... but that of course is a bit of an exaggeration, since french is certainly the default language. So we were naturally a bit skeptical to belive that we would have such an easy time with the language barrier in Hong Kong. But, they were right! Everyone is very kind, helpful and undetstanding! The streets are CROWDED! There are so many people, so many stands, so much to look at, it is incredible! (Though of course, if we were able to escape the mall area and go to the smaller streets, we're sure we'd find less english).
After our first post, we walked around the city a bit for the morning, we went to Soho (hip restaurant area) and traveled up the escalator that leads you through all of the center of Hong Kong. Yep, there is a huge escalator that pedestrians (which there are a TON of!) go up and down the hill--and apparently it changes direction in the morning. We still have to find out what happens to everyone on the escalator when it changes direction. We immediately found the nearest Starbucks, and also managed to find an awesome earthy-crunchy-veggie restaurant/café (where we had dinner that night), along with many other delicious looking restaurants--there is every kind of food here!
Later that evening (at 7:30) we had our first (and last) set of rehearsals. Waylon picked us up at the hotel with a woman named Emily, she is very sweet, young and chic. The ride to the IFC was about 15 minutes long, a perfect distance-- when we arrived they took us to the set and our dressing rooms. Emily and Waylon brought us to the mall about a half hour before the rehearsal started in order to help us get a bit settled and find our way around. When the dancers arrived (6 of them, and one santa claus) we had already run our act once in order to show the client (well, we think we ran the act for the client, we're not exactly sure who he/she is but have an idea..) --as they rehearsed we had about an hour to get into makeup and rest a bit.
To keep things short, our dress rehearsal didn't go too well, we ended up staying at the mall until 2 am-- not fun when jet lagged.
The past few days of shows (this is now our third day) have followed a similar schedule-- leave the hotel at 10:10, chill quickly at Starbucks at the mall before getting into makeup (we're getting better at it!)... our shows are at 12:45 and 6:30. Inbetween shows, we've so far only explored the mall, but we've started to make a list of mini-adventures we want to do once we get a bit more used to the schedule (and the weather gets nice again!). The mall is HUGE (though not compared to the underground mall of Montréal of course) and full of high end stores and amazing restaurants (ranging from nice and cheap to ridicously expensive and gourmet). We bought sushi from the awesome grocery store here one night for dinner, and met up with Tarra, one of Mimi's friends, last night for our first traditional chinese noodle and dumpling dinner! And saw the most incredible city view of Hong Kong from her apartment on the 31st floor--it was like an iMax movie. Tonight we're heading back to her apartment for homecooked salmon :)
Just a few funny things from the past few days....
- When they sing Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, they end with "like Shakespeare!" instead of "like George Washington!"... just a reminder that George Washington isn't a very well known guy here :P
- One of the dancer's names is Slinkie.
-The toy soldiers' dance makes us just a little bit happier each day.
-The fish isle of the grocery store sells more whole fish than fish fillets. and GINORMOUS crabs instead of lobsters.
-There are incredible chocolate cakes everywhere. Its dangerous.
-They don't accept Starbucks partner numbers here. :(
-Across from us there is a pair of shoes made of a baguette. Yum...?
-We almost have a bit of a heart attack each day when we see prices on things like a Juicy jacket that says $1,650 and remember thats HK dollars, not US... I mean we can't afford it in USD either, but at least it's a little better.
-Its 2am right now where y'all are reading this from. sweet dreams :)
After our first post, we walked around the city a bit for the morning, we went to Soho (hip restaurant area) and traveled up the escalator that leads you through all of the center of Hong Kong. Yep, there is a huge escalator that pedestrians (which there are a TON of!) go up and down the hill--and apparently it changes direction in the morning. We still have to find out what happens to everyone on the escalator when it changes direction. We immediately found the nearest Starbucks, and also managed to find an awesome earthy-crunchy-veggie restaurant/café (where we had dinner that night), along with many other delicious looking restaurants--there is every kind of food here!
Later that evening (at 7:30) we had our first (and last) set of rehearsals. Waylon picked us up at the hotel with a woman named Emily, she is very sweet, young and chic. The ride to the IFC was about 15 minutes long, a perfect distance-- when we arrived they took us to the set and our dressing rooms. Emily and Waylon brought us to the mall about a half hour before the rehearsal started in order to help us get a bit settled and find our way around. When the dancers arrived (6 of them, and one santa claus) we had already run our act once in order to show the client (well, we think we ran the act for the client, we're not exactly sure who he/she is but have an idea..) --as they rehearsed we had about an hour to get into makeup and rest a bit.
To keep things short, our dress rehearsal didn't go too well, we ended up staying at the mall until 2 am-- not fun when jet lagged.
The past few days of shows (this is now our third day) have followed a similar schedule-- leave the hotel at 10:10, chill quickly at Starbucks at the mall before getting into makeup (we're getting better at it!)... our shows are at 12:45 and 6:30. Inbetween shows, we've so far only explored the mall, but we've started to make a list of mini-adventures we want to do once we get a bit more used to the schedule (and the weather gets nice again!). The mall is HUGE (though not compared to the underground mall of Montréal of course) and full of high end stores and amazing restaurants (ranging from nice and cheap to ridicously expensive and gourmet). We bought sushi from the awesome grocery store here one night for dinner, and met up with Tarra, one of Mimi's friends, last night for our first traditional chinese noodle and dumpling dinner! And saw the most incredible city view of Hong Kong from her apartment on the 31st floor--it was like an iMax movie. Tonight we're heading back to her apartment for homecooked salmon :)
Just a few funny things from the past few days....
- When they sing Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, they end with "like Shakespeare!" instead of "like George Washington!"... just a reminder that George Washington isn't a very well known guy here :P
- One of the dancer's names is Slinkie.
-The toy soldiers' dance makes us just a little bit happier each day.
-The fish isle of the grocery store sells more whole fish than fish fillets. and GINORMOUS crabs instead of lobsters.
-There are incredible chocolate cakes everywhere. Its dangerous.
-They don't accept Starbucks partner numbers here. :(
-Across from us there is a pair of shoes made of a baguette. Yum...?
-We almost have a bit of a heart attack each day when we see prices on things like a Juicy jacket that says $1,650 and remember thats HK dollars, not US... I mean we can't afford it in USD either, but at least it's a little better.
-Its 2am right now where y'all are reading this from. sweet dreams :)
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Arrived in Hong Kong!!!
Flying to Hong Kong takes a LONG TIME.
Well, first off, Friday evening we ran through our act two last times and went straight home to pack.. packing and attempting to get a good nights sleep before an early morning is a far fetched idea.. Without much sleep our day began at 4:30 am. The taxi was of course late but thankfully we arrived at the airport in plenty of time!
The security at the airport immediately found our first bottle of tuffskin hidden in our trapeze bag and no ammount of pleading would convince them to let us keep it. Thank goodness we had two others hidden in each of our checked suitcases... and apperenly they don't look at those bags as carefully... cause they both made it to Hong Kong! (a wonderful surprise when we opened our suitcases in the hotel).
Flight to Chicago at 8am... few hour layover in O'Hare (where they DO NOT have free wifi. LAME). Turned out they had over booked our flight and were trying to get people to volunteer for a flight the next day (turns out O'Hare is now snowed in... sucks for those generous travelers!).
Flight time to Hong Kong: 15 hours and 5 minutes. Ballin. We learned to request for seats next an an isle next time, cause being blocked in on either side by sleeping people makes moving around very difficult!
We had no leg room which was a pain in the butt.. literally. And we learned not to attempt to grasp any sense of time. We both had our hopes up of watching Despicable Me later on in the flight, but of course, never made it through the first 20 minutes and passed out for a few hours. "CURSE YOU TINY TOILET"
When we arrived there was a car waiting for us, with curtains on the windows... We both shared the same train of thought when the man the in the suit who we assumed was the driver got in the right side of the car, and the client got in the left.. "that's weird, I thought he would drive us, hmm whatever" our big double take hit when the car started moving and the steering wheel was not on the usual drivers side.. welcome to Hong Kong, they drive on the right!
We viewed a lot of Hong Kong's beautiful skyline driving to the hotel, as well as the city lights. Our rooms are cute and sweet, our beds are on the floor and the rooms are tiny, but perfect. Our views from our beds are incredible-- great big buildings and the water! The weather is gorgeous, warm and tropical in comparison to Montréal.
We are confused on time and day and sort of feel like we're trapped in some other time dimension but excited to see the city today! Our rehearsal starts at 8:30 pm so we have all day to explore :)
Well, first off, Friday evening we ran through our act two last times and went straight home to pack.. packing and attempting to get a good nights sleep before an early morning is a far fetched idea.. Without much sleep our day began at 4:30 am. The taxi was of course late but thankfully we arrived at the airport in plenty of time!
The security at the airport immediately found our first bottle of tuffskin hidden in our trapeze bag and no ammount of pleading would convince them to let us keep it. Thank goodness we had two others hidden in each of our checked suitcases... and apperenly they don't look at those bags as carefully... cause they both made it to Hong Kong! (a wonderful surprise when we opened our suitcases in the hotel).
Flight to Chicago at 8am... few hour layover in O'Hare (where they DO NOT have free wifi. LAME). Turned out they had over booked our flight and were trying to get people to volunteer for a flight the next day (turns out O'Hare is now snowed in... sucks for those generous travelers!).
Flight time to Hong Kong: 15 hours and 5 minutes. Ballin. We learned to request for seats next an an isle next time, cause being blocked in on either side by sleeping people makes moving around very difficult!
We had no leg room which was a pain in the butt.. literally. And we learned not to attempt to grasp any sense of time. We both had our hopes up of watching Despicable Me later on in the flight, but of course, never made it through the first 20 minutes and passed out for a few hours. "CURSE YOU TINY TOILET"
When we arrived there was a car waiting for us, with curtains on the windows... We both shared the same train of thought when the man the in the suit who we assumed was the driver got in the right side of the car, and the client got in the left.. "that's weird, I thought he would drive us, hmm whatever" our big double take hit when the car started moving and the steering wheel was not on the usual drivers side.. welcome to Hong Kong, they drive on the right!
We viewed a lot of Hong Kong's beautiful skyline driving to the hotel, as well as the city lights. Our rooms are cute and sweet, our beds are on the floor and the rooms are tiny, but perfect. Our views from our beds are incredible-- great big buildings and the water! The weather is gorgeous, warm and tropical in comparison to Montréal.
We are confused on time and day and sort of feel like we're trapped in some other time dimension but excited to see the city today! Our rehearsal starts at 8:30 pm so we have all day to explore :)
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