birthday

haven't posted in quite a while. today is the big 26 for me. I'm starting the day of properly - with no shoes. When going to the airport last thursday, I left my dress shoes at headquarters in shinjuku, and have been unable to pick them up yet. i borrowed my roommate's "men's slippers" that, although they are a bit embarrassing, have been doing the trick. i'm hoping hq will be open early enough today that I can get my shoes for class.

hong kong was cool. saw my old pal chris from college. he just finished med school and is specializing in GI. going to do his residency in providence, which seems a little insane to me, being that he's been at brown for 8 years now. seems pretty happy though. he came to japan the week preceding my trip to hong kong and i saw him for a bit. he was staying with this investment banker dude in roppongi(white sleazy capital of tokyo) and I think the japan he saw and the japan i see everyday are drastically different. i went out with him and his friend there and the bars reminded me of the one time cam and i braved players in chapel hill for a (very brief) drink, except possibly more disgusting. lots of smoke machines, shitty hip hop, neon lights, and cheap liquor in plastic cups.
.......anway, i went to hong kong with my roommate marguerite and her coworker/pal henry. we all got along pretty well. henry occasionally got on my nerves because of his desire to smoke about every 5 minutes(including around people who asked him not to and pregnant women) and his desire to come along early in the mornings even though he kept insisting he didn't know if he could. the skyline was a sharp contrast to that of tokyo, and it really made me feel like I don't live around any tall buildings here in japan. everything in hong kong went straight up. i read while i was there that part of kowloon(the part of hong kong directly across the water from hong kong island) has the highest population density in the world. ....
we met up with marguerite's sister's friend terry(also a banker) and she showed us around for a day and took us to dinner. She definitely knew where to eat. we had some amazing dim sum and ate really good seafood at a restaurant in happy valley - i ate giant clam, which looks more like a white eel with a tiny shell attached - it was good, but pretty gross to look at.
terry also liked to talk and was a bit blunt, which I appreciated, although sometimes she would make sweeping generalizations and then change the subject, especially about japanese people. she also told me I looked very "east coast" because on the "east coast people read books and don't care as much about their body as they do on the west coast". ha

ok, well I'm off to work. i think tonight we're going out to celebrate b/c a few of us have may birthdays(me, vicente, and his ex). should be alright. I'm just recovering from a bit of food poisoning from my trip, so I hope my stomach will be friendly.

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