On a 2-week free trial at Pure Fitness right now, so been going a lot to get my non-money's worth! Anyways I don't think I'll join but dunno... I thought about joining a pilates studio but I think cost-wise is about the same (meaning, really expensive). Well I love the free trial though. Location-wise it's awesome, exactly halfway btwn my office and home. I love not having to bring anything except shoes, b/c they provide clothes (don't even need shoes if doing yoga/pilates class). I like showering there, in general, can launder my own towels less and not worry about running out of hot water, etc. And steam room, good for detox. Hm I like pilates a lot more but yoga is supposed to be more om, so I guess it depends what I'm going for.

It's no secret that I have a thing for Langham Place Hotel in Mong Kok. It's modern, cool and artsy - and I mean downright dedicated to contemporary Chinese art. It's 5-star. It has a Michelin-starred restaurant. Its spa is fancy schmancy. Its theme colors are baby pink, gray and gold. So cool. It's part of Langham Place, an awesome mall. Langham Place offices have the most interesting and innovative elevator system I've ever seen (yes... elevators are fascinating). Langham Hotels also has an elaborate Press Club that's specifically for buttering up the media with gifts and events, but I am being entirely (somewhat) objective here.

Langham Place's website and press releases are written in their characteristically young and casual style, which I kind of love. And they have also produced my favorite problematic headline in one of their press releases from May touting a new spa treatment for men:
TENSION DESTROYING MASCULINE BLISS AT CHUAN SPA

I was perplexed for about 5 seconds upon reading the above headline. A few thoughts that crossed my mind: There is a problem at Chuan Spa. Sexual tension causing problems? And they are announcing this... why? Destroyed masculinity - sounds dire. Is this about a botched massage? Is this about sexual frustration? This is supposed to be funny, right? Are they addressing a virus that renders men impotent?

Well, a hyphen would make a big difference:
TENSION-DESTROYING MASCULINE BLISS AT CHUAN SPA

(Adding a verb wouldn' t hurt either: Experience Tension-Destroying Masculine Bliss at Chuan Spa)

I'm in love with this... this choir makes me tear. And this is one of my all-time favorite songs. Of course I think the soloist is awesome.

To just simply quote crazysexylife.com: "The P.S. 22 chrous is lead by music teacher Mr. Breinberg, more fondly referred to his students as Mr. B. Mr. B, who arrived at P.S. 22 in 1999, convinced the administration to let him become a full-time music teacher and start a chorus choir at the school in spite of financial cutbacks in the arts. Instead of teaching traditional children’s songs, he had his students singing contemporary adult songs. In addition to “Viva la Vida” by Coldplay, the P.S. 22 chorus have also tackled covers of songs by Tori Amos, Stevie Nicks, Bjork, Journey, and others."

Beyond inspirational.

How I feel about the new apartment

We moved to a new place that's on Glenealy. The only entirely accurate thing I can say about it now is that our apt is a mess of boxed up junk of course and I have no desire to unpack. I had major reservations about moving here because it's right above Lan Kwai Fong and I dunno how I felt about that... you know? Because I can't stand posers and whatnot. And also the apt is smaller. And also no more sea view, just carpark/back alley view. And old building. Well, so far, I'm freaking in love with living here. I walked to work for the first time yesterday and was like, OMG THIS IS SO CLOSE. This morning I walked to work again but cut through LKF, and you know how LKF is so dead quiet in the mornings/daytime? Well, it's just magic. So is Soho, quiet. It's so nice. And today I walked home and cut through Soho and took Wyndham, and it was of course all "happening" with the restaurants and bars all loud and stuff, but I loved it. I felt so part of the darn world. And then I get on Glenealy and it's completely empty again, and in my apt it's totally silent.

9 days

So much to blog about. So what happened was I took a week off and went to Singapore for 2.5 days to Stephen H.'s wedding. Then Viv and I went to Tioman Island, Malaysia, together by boat, ferry and 4WD to do sea turtle conservation for 5 days. Then back to Singapore, then back to HK.

The sea turtle project is not very hardcore conservation. It's definitely half vacation. I can't even properly blog about it because the whole experience was way too rich to sum it up in a few paragraphs. But basically, we got to live on this practically empty, gorgeous beach for cheap, watch the red sunrise every morning right smack in the middle of the ocean, float around, snorkel around scarce small tropical fish, hike this crazy not-easy trail, ride bikes, get eaten alive by an insane variety of bugs, eat the best freaking little village food ever, have blue-ass skies everyday except when it was going all torrential downpour, experience true kitten loyalty, handle a blind 3-year-old turtle, handle a nest's worth of freakin cute baby turtles, meet cool people, learn to use water pumping machinery, overdose on insect repellent via skin absorption, take cold showers, drink mountain water from the tap, and generally be thrown into a totally new, foreign, opposite situation.

This is where the turtle project was, blue skies, palm trees, sand and all:

Luckily, we got to witness the release of baby sea turtles on our last morning:

The cutest kittens alive:

Sunrise:
Thought I'd throw in a pic from Singapore that I love. In this pic, all of us Northwestern peeps (except the table behind us is HKIS) traveled to Singapore for the wedding. I love this pic oh and my new camera (Canon G10!):