Hong Kong Express

Actually, should edit this title, the title should be more broad about US Visa’s anyway, but I digress..

To book appointment for the Visa consultation at the US Consulate or Embassay, you need to pay the Visa fee’s in advance.  Instead of paying through the Consulate website,  or as the process for Australia, or infact for Mainland services in HK of paying in person at the consulate/office, you need to visit a bank and make the payment there. I believe in Australia payment needs to be made at Australia Post.

Key bit of information not posted on any websites – the hours for the banks is 9am – 4pm, regardless of the branch opening hours they can’t accept payment after 4pm.

Time to try again tomorrow!

So, after nearly 6 years, it’s coming to the end of an era.

I’ll be finishing up with my current employer  this week and leaving Hong Kong very soon.

Time to think of a rename and redesign for the site.

My MousePath for the day.

Download mousepath here:

mousepath

Open it, minimise and run in the background

So I’m trying out the features in IOS-XR instead of doing the usual “conf t”… but found out you have several editors to chose from!

RP/0/RSP0/CPU0:router#edit route-policy UPSTREAM-OUT ?
emacs  to use Emacs editor
nano   to use nano editor
vim    to use Vim editor
<cr>
RP/0/RSP0/CPU0:router#

Editing the config via the terminal results in it being overwritten, so you can only edit in this method

=====

EDIT: OK, I found the text editor is useful for somethings, eg using VIM as the editor

:%s/region1-all-cust/region2-all-cust/

text editor to replace text is good

In a general ranting with friends, I’ve formulated that its cost effective to keep a Kindle in Hong Kong.

My flat is approximately 402 sq ft (GROSS). When you consider NET size, its approximately 320 sq ft (less -20% from gross).

The value based on sale price of other flats should be around HK$2.8m.

Now, we should consider that you can stack about 7 cubic feet onto 1 square foot, this gives us:

On peak, you could fit maybe 10 books into 1 cubic foot, forgetting storage requirements (like a bookshelf, taking up valuable space), that gives you a price of HK$125 per book for storage. (forgetting any ongoing costs, just NRC for property/space storage).

This works out to US$16 per book. The average price of books on my Kindle is between US$2 to US$16. This is proof that space is more valuable than books! (in Hong Kong).

Now, can you justify this to a cost benefit analysis? Sure! Using the above formula, a kindle is around the size of one book, so storage fee is HK$125. Purchase price of a kindle is around HK$1000.

Once you’ve purchased your 11th Kindle e-book you’ve broken even on storage space and capital expenditures!

I like this view (its actually a view)

Cant wait till we move here!

I got the Galaxy Tab HDMI dock yesterday, works quite well, although saw this note included when I opened the packaging.

It’d be great if this was truthful, but unfortunately the only way to upgrade your galaxy tab is via Kies. which is crap!

Fail.

This is the first book I purchased and read on the Kindle.

I finished reading it today and loved the book. Although its set 60 years in the past, it’s given me a wonderful feel for the orient in colonial days.

I am constantly reminded that Hong Kong is one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in; but for me, touching on “going native”, as coined many times in this book, or at least partially going native is the way to do it.

The young boy in the novel, was constantly accosted by his father for being more Chinese than the Chinese. He would explore Mong Kok at the ripe age of 8 to eat 1000 year eggs from the Dai Pai Dongs, roam through the Kowloon Walled City and into Opium dens and hang out with Triad members.

I don’t consider myself to quite “go native” as much as this, with things changing so much in Hong Kong over the past 60 years, but there is a wonderful romantic ideal to this young boys story, making me feel jealous that I wasn’t here 60 years ago.

I got a new toy – and no, its not a tablet computer (yet).

My new kindle is wonderful, with many books already downloaded and I’m more than half way through a very interesting book ‘Gweilo: Memories of a Hong Kong Childhood‘.

Wonderful too for entertainment while I’m off my feet post-op.

As the mid autumn festival is approaching, the company has given all the staff some Mooncakes as a gift.

They smell so good!