free outdoor dining space at IFC

Photo:  Joselito Briones

one of hong kong's well-kept secret:  free outdoor dining space at IFC.  unobstructed view of kowloon island.  clean space under tree shade.  it's open to the public, bring your own lunch (i usually buy from city super). use the lift near city super, and go to rooftop of the podium (P4).  the rooftop is actually a small park so you can just hang around, or take photos.


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dim sum @ treasure lake seafood restaurant

Photo:  Joselito Briones

i think the restaurant itself occupies 3 floors, but the dimsum place is on the second floor.  anyway, this is the dim sum place in my neighborhood where you'll find me most sundays at about noon.   neighborhood is actually not the right word to use, as it is in the city center and there's nothing neighborhoody about it. anyway this is right around the block where i live.

if you're ever in the area and you go to this restaurant, you must try the yam cake in XO sauce, dumplings with sharksfin soup (for the price that they charge, i doubt if it's really shark's fin, but it's delicious anyway) and egg yolk custard bun. this is a very basic no-frills dim sum restaurant but the food is good and the staff is friendly.


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fairy

Photo:  Joselito Briones

this one's from yet another gallery in hollywood road. so far the kitsch-iest one among them.

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pop portraits

Photo:  Joselito Briones

yet another random gallery window showcase.


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halloween costume shopping in hong kong

Photo: Joselito Briones

the place to buy halloween costumes here in hong kong is a stairs/alley connecting lyndhurst terrace and wellington street to stanley street, a block from where i live.


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window showcase

Photo:  Joselito Briones

just been walking around and taking photos of window displays, mostly of galleries in the area where i live.  this one's in hollywood road.  can't even remember the names of the shops nor the artists, and often think it unwise that they display these artworks exposed in full daylight.  maybe they're just unaware of what it could do to the artwork.


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legalize gay cupcakes!

© Joselito Briones

cute, no?  can't remember the name of the cupcake shop i bought it from, tho.


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didier restaurant and cassoulet

© Joselito Briones

the chef of a restaurant i've been to several times made cassoulet especially for me (it's not in the menu).  isn't that nice?  was sooooooo good.  butter beans, duck leg, sausage, and lamb shank in one pot.  supper yummy.

i had lunch there the other day because the weather in hong kong was so gorgeous and i just had to go to a restaurant with outdoor seating and this is very close to where i work and so i had provencal sausages and mash and chef didier came over and told me how he also makes cassoulet with all the goodies including the same sausage so i asked him when he's gonna make cassoulet and he said anytime so i said can he make it the following night and he said sure so i said great so i came back the following night and can you believe it he actually made it and he explained how complicated it is to make it and the diners on the next table were soooo jealous because as i said it wasn't in the menu and finally i ate it and it was EXCELLENT! ha ha!

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family portraits

© Joselito Briones

i realized i've posted this album just about everywhere but i haven't shared it with you. pictures from family reunion

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daybreak

random pics time... two of my sisters norie and uding in a beach in batangas, early morning.  we walked towards the fishermen's boats to see about the day's catch, for family lunch.  no luck, they caught just enough for their own use.

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what's with the post-it's and the sad faces?

two years ago i took this photo as part of a series

and this

and i'm posting these for no other reason than that i was reminded of these photos when i took this:

above photo is of eric and was taken in front of apple store, post-it messages are for steve jobs.

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adobe photoshop will soon let you unblur photos

how cool is that?

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going to california

well, not yet. just found the vid and thought i'd share it.
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i spy

i spy
with my little eye...
something beginning with L and V

hmmm... i wonder who's the gonna be the lucky one.


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frei aber froh

no, my german has not improved at all.  it's got something to do with the music accompanying this letter (you'll have to play the music above).  johannes brahm's musical motto for this symphony Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90  (3rd movement, poco allegreto) consisted of the notes F-A(flat)-F, the first letters of frei aber froh.  and no, i have not suddenly become a music expert either, i just read it somewhere else.  why frei "aber" froh (free "but" happy), you might ask, not frei "und" froh (free "and" happy)?  supposedly it's in response to the composer's friend's motto of frei aber einsam (free but lonely).

what about this music then?   not sure.  i think this is supposed to be meadows and creeks and flowers of spring, but somehow it gives me all sorts of feelings - at times confused and indecisive, bouts of resolve and brief periods of peace, sometimes hopeful but nothing more. it stops short of a conclusion, as if happiness or whatever resolution there is to be had lies after the last note.  i was listening to this when i was thinking of my last year in berlin and somehow it just fits and i couldn't get it out of my head.

i read somewhere that real happiness is that moment when you are faced with the promise of being happy.  i'm hoping the same is true about not being happy - that the worst one can feel is when one fears the possibility of not being happy - because if it's true, then the worst is over.

anyway, i should hear from my lawyer anytime soon. today is the court hearing for my divorce.


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riding for the feeling

,

"in conclusion... leaving is easy
when you've got someplace you need to be..."
- bill callahan

hmmm.  lately these letters seem to be like a countdown of some sort, don't you think?  give me until first week of september and i promise i'll snap out of it. in the meantime here's some more depressing sad music.


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doctor who is back!

yay!  new doctor who episodes are here, finally.  the first one's called "let's kill hitler" and picks up where it left off, it's a sci-fi soap actually. someone who was called something before now has a different name and character, someone's killer turns out to be someone's lover. someone's best friend turns out to be her mother, someone who died in one episode turns out to be alive after all.  see what i mean?  this episode belongs to alex kingston.

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antony and the johnsons

another charlie - well, this one's a "charles", a friend who lives near you actually, says a lot of the music i listen to are very depressing, sad music.  i guess it's true. here's an example. antony and the johnsons.  again, not my favorite among their songs but the only one they have with a proper video.

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meet charlie

in case you've been wondering who this "charlie" is who's been leaving comments here, well, here she is :)

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hi joey,

hindi ko alam kung anong pic ang i-aattached ko kaya i2ng best pictures ko na lang.

thank you...pinky

So, this picture was taken last July 1 CANADA DAY...i live close to this beach in Lakeshore,Toronto.

It was already past 8:00pm but during peak summer here it is still sunny around 9:00pm.

We are waiting for the fireworks,very far from HongKong Fireworks. But because it is getting late we just went home because it is not worth the wait.

The funny thing is instead of having fresh air here in Toronto,the smell of marijuana is always in the air.The same thing during canada day,so we went home before we get addicted to it.

***

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dylan leblanc

this isn't my favorite among his songs, but this is the only one with a proper video... so here you go. dylan leblanc

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ice candy

as promised, here's the ice candy that woke me up so early yesterday.  i bought these from muji, where they come in 100% apple juice and grape juice flavors. i like the grape juice better.

i remember we used to sell the home-made type when i was a child.  or maybe it was my nanny (meding?) who made and sold them and i just watched her make them and helped tying the end to a knot which was difficult because there was always very little of the plastic left to tie.  there were two basic flavors that i can remember - buko (young coconut meat, coconut water, water, sugar) and red mung beans (boiled red beans, with sugar).  am sure there were other flavors but i can't remember them.  there might have been chocolate (cocoa, water, sugar?) and melons, but not so sure anymore. i think we also sold ice, so i can only assume that not every household in our neighborhood had a freezer then.  i can't imagine now how it might have made sense, because with what we could've charged for ice candy and ice at that time, and the cost of electricity, i doubt if she made any money. back then of course, it was always hot and there was always ice candy in the freezer and that's all that mattered.


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wisdom of dick

record early wake up time of 2:30am.  dick once told me that old people always wake up early because they're afraid they might not wake up at all anymore.  i don't know about that, because i know i woke up remembering that i have ice candy (you know, frozen flavored liquid in plastic container - bah, i'll show you photo tomorrow) in the freezer, and i wanted some right at that moment. and anyway he's in his mid-30's, what does he know about being old.

well, one can only have so much ice candy so early, so after a few i decided to run. it was already 4am by the time i got there.  i saw a few old chinese men in their standard gear of white vest, khaki shorts, black shoes and high socks - , doing their tai-chi thing, some carrying radio, walking the path alone - but they kept disappearing.  i mean, like, one would say "good morning" in cantonese to me and i'd say the same as i pass him, but if i look back he's gone.  what's weird about it is that one side of the path is high retaining wall and the other side is a steep fall.  and this happened a few times.  creepy, no?  i decided either they fell and rolled down all the way to causeway bay or, more likely, they can walk through solid concrete retaining walls.

when i reached the end (same as the beginning, it was a return run) and i stopped, i felt very woozy. woops. (uh-oh, the vanishing old men are after me!) feeling dizzy combined with being hot from running and soaked all over is really bad.  i sat down on a park bench, took deep breaths, and it took a while before i felt ok again to stand up.  went to the street (magazine gap road) and waited for a taxi. none came. strange because there's always taxi anywhere in hong kong at anytime. after waiting for sometime i got dizzy again, combined with some rumbling in my belly, so i went to the toilet in the park nearby and let one rip. or two. ok, a few. then i felt REALLY better.  how was i to know that this dizziness thing was just a massive case of fartiness?  i blame the ice candy.  well i can't really because they were good. when i went back to the street there were plenty of taxis but by then i'm pissed at them already for not being there when i needed one, so i walked home.

i usually go back by the central escalator, but this time i thought i'd go a different way.  down to garden road, by hong kong zoo and botanical, between government house and u.s. consulate, ice house street, then queens road. lined along the sidewalk of an entire block in queens road were people manually sorting freshly unloaded newspapers, literally doing inserts. (photo, above). 

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al molo

very nice italian restaurant - the name's "al molo". saw it when i took photos of that yacht the other day and decided to go in.  ended up doing a 4-course meal.  :) (i was very hungry!) not cheap tho.  raw oysters for starters (french -  if anyone tries to make you feel guilty for not consuming locally-sourced food, carbon footprint and all that, take him to this restaurant and feed him french oysters), a glass of sauvignon blanc, hand-made pasta with mushrooms, sea bass fillets, some dessert with a name that i think translates to "granny's cake", and a double espresso, plus tip, amounts to HKD 950.  was yummy tho, and the staff were nice. i'll be back.


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tûranor planet solar in hong kong

not sure what this was but it sure was more interesting than the light show yesterday. i googled it and turns out it's some solar-powered german-built yacht that intends to go around the world, currently in its hong kong stop.  tûranor planet solar. here's their own website.

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hong kong's symphony of lights

i found an unused hong kong ferry token among my coins, probably from when jane visited, so i took the ferry to tsim sha tsui and watched the light show.  it was bleh.


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eta: someone told me that this used to be much better, with a lot more buildings participating.  too bad i never saw that version.  still, i think it would've been much better had don dorsey done it.

what can you buy for $20

as an experiment, i invited my nephews and nieces (and kids) to submit a gift wish for the early christmas celebration - with the condition that it should cost US$20 or less, and that if i can't find it in the price limit, they'll automatically get PHP50 instead.  you should've seen the list they made:  lens for a digital camera, wrist watch, desktop speaker with subwoofer, and the one that takes the cake, a complete kitchen package from ikea. well that one's from my youngest sister, and of course she'd pay for it, but i'm in hong kong and she actually expects me to put the whole thing, cabinets and all, in one door-to-door box.  between her and my eldest sister who thought up the early christmas celebration, i wonder why i bother making up fictitious characters for stories.

anyway, kids today have a very grand idea of what a gift can be, and no idea of the value of money. no one asked for a certain book, or cd (i suspect they all just download anything they want), or any traditional toys, or some special food, or something really basic, like a new pair of socks. sign of the times? i remember when getting ANY sort of gift was a real treat - now it has to be branded products and electronics, and only the latest ones will do.  in a way i guess it's also a good indicator that all the basics are well provided for.  now that's really something to celebrate.


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early christmas shopping

norie, my eldest sister who lives in california, decided she wants to celebrate christmas in september in the philippines (and why not, right?). so we'll have a reunion/christmas party.  i expect lots of food and noise and fun.  photo above is from last year's christmas eve party games.  there'll be a hired band for the party so there'll be lots of singing as well.  in the past it's my nephews and nieces who make up a band, but now two of them have moved to california. we'll also have an exchange of gifts, that's why i'm going christmas shopping this weekend, in the middle of august.


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i'm stuck.

remember how i said i'm on to my next screenplay?  well i am. only i'm stuck.  how does one write dialogue for an old and grumpy italian-american male and a young black female? i've got the whole story  (another short one) and even camera set ups but i can't put words in my characters' voices.  most of my adult life i've taken pride in understanding most english accents to a point where i can actually ignore them and focus instead on the message, and now it's come back and bitten me in the behind.

hmm.  skip and move to another one?

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eta: photo above has nothing to do with this, of course.  i just wanted something to link to my photography page and this is the only photo i have with an italian-ish and old-ish-looking guy (character i have in mind is older).

the next day

i know, it was photo overdose of this place from yesterday. i just thought i'd put this one up, taken early morning of the next day, because that lone figure in the water may or may not be me bathing in the buff.

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