Finally another post!

Hello all. I hope you are glad to see that I am still alive and didn't forget you. As of this writing I still have not traveled to any exotic locales or done anything super-noteworthy that I did not already write about in a previous post. But I will try to write about some general goings-on an day to day stuff. And also tea.

First off, I had a bit of excitement last weekend when I arrived at the hotel in HK and discovered that I had left my laptop on the train. To make a long story short, I got my laptop back b"h and the hotel concierge got a big tip. Even he was surprised that it was actually "found", though.

One of my main pleasures in HK is a tea shop located right around the corner from the hotel. Every day that I am in HK, I spend at least 45 minutes in the shop drinking different teas and learning lots of (to me) cool stuff about tea and its preparation. Last weekend I finally took the plunge and spent a bunch of money on tea paraphanilia (which I will explain below). Most of the times I go to the shop I simply drink tea and chat with the proprietor who is a cool chick of 23 named Stella Wong who speaks pretty good english. She knows that on Saturday I can't buy anything but I still sit and have a drink which certainly helps pass the long afternoon and even more importantly helps digest the Sephardi food.

Aside for the tea itself, this is pretty much all I bought last weekend. The tiny teapot was the expensive part and cost me about $45 USD. The other pot directly above the teapot is what the tea is poured into before it is consumed. The strainer gets rid of any stray pieces of tea which come out of the teapot's spout since there is not other filter. To the left are (obviously) 6 cups. Beneath all this stuff is the tray which I will explain in due time. Behind the tray are saucers and tools, which I'll get to soon.

This is my teapot. Ain't she a beaut. Not all little teapots are so expensive but since it is the most important part of the set, I figured it was worth it. The small (tiny) size is preffered since it gives you more precise control over the tea. The red string is simply to keep the cover from falling and was put there by stella.

The round thing on the left is my pu-erh tea. The tool on top of it is used to pry off a bit of tea for use. This sort of tea is sold by year and can get pretty darn expensive since older teas are impossible to restock due to crazy demand. Tea does not have good and bad years like wine, but simply ferments as it ages. An older tea will have a much smoother and lighter taste than a young tea. My tea is from 2004 and cost about $20. In comparison, a 1960 tea - the oldest one in the shop - costs $1,200 for a brick of the same size.

This tray is very important since Chinese tea needs to be washed twice before use. The holes in the top of the tray lead to a plastic basin underneath which can be removed for cleaning. Also the cups are constanly cleaned and emptied and the tea pot must be heated up with boiling water before it is used.

These are all tools used in the process.

Ok. That's it for tea. I promise. Chinese lessons are going really well, b"h, and I love it that I can occasionally keep up a decent little conversation, ask for things and tell people stuff. Most of the time though, I cry to myself and wish I had taken up French or something. One interesting thing I found is the exact point at which I learn a word. If I am trying to say something and I somehow remember the necessary word without any pin yin then that word stays with me for whenever I need it. However, I can say a word 50 times over while looking at the meaning and concentrating as hard as I can but it'll be gone a few minutes later. This is one of the main benefits of a private lesson 'cuz it really forces you to use the words. I sure am gonna miss the lessons as I sit in law school forgetting my Chinese.

Last week in the Dongguan train station I heard a mother telling her little kid (in Chinese) that my bro and I are Americans and I was able to reply to her in Chinese. It's little things like that that keep me going in a VERY uphill battle with the language. It is interesting how surprised people are to hear me speak Chinese since in America if you meet a Chinese person you expect them to speak english.

Last night, Moshe and I went out to try to buy him some new sneakers. It was a pretty fruitless endeavor since Nike and Adidas are incredibly expensive and the Chinese brands don't approach a size 11 or 12. The Nike/Adidas price is pretty disturbing since the factory is in the neighborhood. I guess since even at the regular price the average Bob (Chen in this case) can't afford them the companies hike up the prices to make even more money from rich people and foreigners. This is similar to Starbucks in HK where they could charge $10 for a latte if they wanted to and people (AKA me) wouls still drink. As it is, they are only slightly overpriced. Also interesting in a similar regerd is the price of cigarettes here which ranges from (in US money terms) $0.25 a pack to over 10 bucks. Mr. Lu told me that the expensive cigs are only smoked by govt. officials who receive them as bribes and occasionally by wealthy business men who smoke them as a sign of power. I guess it must feel pretty cool to know that you can pay 5 employees for a day's work or buy a pack of smokes with the same money. (Marlboro's and Camels are about $1-$1.25 at duty free.) (While on the subject of prices, gas is no bargain here either.)

Shopping in the Dongguan city malls is pretty interesting since cheap clothing costs just a fraction of what designer clothing costs, but if the price tags were removed I wouldn't be able to tell them apart since I'm not familiar with any Chinese designer labels. I bet if a total foreigner were to come to America and go shopping, he'd feel the same way.

Outside of the mall where we went to look for shoes, there were a bunch of little kids putting on a performance on a stage which was probably one of the cutest things I've ever seen. Also, one of the coolest jobs I've seen so far is outside of one of the bigger shoe stores there are people whose sole purpose in life is to sing and clap and basically get people to walk in.

On a side note, I was able to trade in my problem DS Lite for another with out any problems. I also bought a SuperCard and a Passkey which allow me to play DS and Gameboy Advance games off an SD card (PSP style). This kind of makes me feel guilty since whilst I dislike Sony I really like to support Nintendo. However, the lure of all games free for the price of 1.5 games was too hard to resist.

OK. I guess that's all for now. Tootles.



Tootles.