Went Canoeing on Canada Day in Banff. A great way to spend the afternoon exploring the river and the mountain parks in general. Blue Canoe Rentals lets you take them out from downtown, although its bit pricey at $34 for the first hour + $20 every hour afterwards. Oh, and I’m surprised we never sank.

Well the Hong Kong trip has come and gone, and I’m over my post-vacation-depression period enough to begin writing posts on the blog again. Some quick statistics:

• Days in HK - 19
• Pictures Taken - 3824 (average of 201 a day)
• Pictures Uploaded - 520 (excludes a few family photos)
• Pictures with GPS coordinates - 362 (none are manually geotagged)
• Most pictures in one day - 668 (Tram to the Big Buddha and Tai O)
• Least pictures in one day - 42 (Peanut allergy reaction, saved by a Chiu Chow dinner)
• Number of times camera was bumped by people/objects - Once!

Helping my massive shot count was attributed to my camera setup, now using a modified R-Strap, which lets my camera hang close to me while trekking around and could be summoned whenever I needed! Never again will I use the standard camera strap! My D300 never hit any walls, and someone only bumped it once during the entire trip.

Also a wonderful change of pace was using a Nikon GP-1 to automatically geo-tag my photos (i.e. embed GPS coordinates directly into my pictures), so I could retrace my route at a future date. Check out where all my geotagged pictures were taken in Hong Kong, and I think we can agree that geotagging pictures is a fairly nifty technology!

Back to the recap. It is very hard to pick some of my favorite experiences out of the trip, so from the top…

• For tourist traps, Victoria Peak and the Big Buddha are the best not-to-miss choices. If you are going up to the Big Buddha via the 360 Tram, the Crystal Tram isn’t entirely worth it unless you like seeing the water and forest beneath your feet. A trip to the fishing village of Tai O near the airport has speed boats to take you out to the dolphins for only a few dollars. Walk Of The Stars in Tsim Sha Tsui is recommended for the view at night but not for the immortalized hands of famous stars, and the beaches are just that - beaches.
• For food, eating congee and Chinese doughnuts in the morning, Dim Sum or noodle soups in the afternoon for lunch, and briefly sampling the seemingly infinite variety of Asian and Japanese dinners is the best way to go. Just don’t forget to get a snack with the Little Egg waffles (雞蛋仔, gai dan zai) or Fish-balls-on-a-stick from the street vendors.
• Shopping is everywhere you look, so just remember to stick your head in every store and be curious. If you like big chains, look no further than Sha Tin and Ocean Centre (in Tsim Sha Tsui), and for the smaller stores, Mong Kok for clothing and random goods, and Sham Shi Po for the Golden Computer Center.

Some learned lessons that I will do on my next trip, and hopefully you will too:

• Bring a tripod! While a monopod is the best option on the top of the Victoria Peak, a tripod is the best way to get pictures of Hong Kong island at night. Yes, I did not take my own advice from my Toronto trip…
• The Hong Kong Moleskine book was the best touring guide ever. Not only did it contain MTR maps, but it also contained city maps and enough blank pages to plan out and record my travels. Be advised: it contains no recommendations, so you can plan your own journey!
• Camera equipment is marginally cheaper (up to 10% off), except for authentic batteries - authentic Nikon batteries were almost 50% off North American pricing. I bought most of my camera gear from Wing Shing Photo Supplies. Hat tip to my D700-toting uncle for the recommendation!
• Leverage VIP cards when shopping at big chains. If you’re spending almost $1000 HKD at a store, ask if they have a VIP membership. These memberships usually entitle you to 10% to 40% off your future purchases, so savings can add up fast!
• Skip Ladies Street (女人街). Goods there are extremely overpriced, even after bargaining! Everything sold there can be found cheaper elsewhere in the city.
• Most shopping malls look the same after awhile. Try to hit all the smaller shopping complexes with several tiny stores, as that is where you’ll find the most variety and less of the staple chain stores.

I promised my family and friends that I would be back in two years. I’m certainly looking forward to it!

[Flickr: Hong Kong 2009 and Map]

Hong Kong-style Milk Tea (top right of the picture) is one of those things you must experience in Hong Kong, alongside a good solid bowl of fish-cake noodles and egg-shaped waffles.

Milk Tea (奶茶, lai cha) is made up using black tea, evaporated milk, to which you add your own helping of sugar. It is one of my favorite hot beverages, which is as enjoyable in the summer as in the winter.

Introduced by my dad, one of the best places for Milk Tea in Hong Kong is in Mong Kok (Kowloon), at the “tea restaurant” shown above. Apparently this place has won Milk Tea competitions (probably similar to the Barista championships in North America), and the price for a milk tea is only a few Hong Kong dollars with your meal. Add it to your “must-do” list of things to consume in Hong Kong!

Located on Sai Yeung Choi St., between Argyle St and Nelson St, beside a Wing Shing Photo Supplies store

Trying to upload pictures while I have a little reprieve of internet!

To see new pictures being uploaded, check out the HK Flickr Set during the trip!

That is all!

With no more Tim Hortons Roll Up The Rim cups anywhere in Calgary anymore, now is probably a great time to put a pretty bow on this year’s contest results.

This year’s 4 - 60 record was a particularly bad year, and rivals my historically worst year - in 2005 I had only won 3 of 48 cups total! I was laying out the cups this Sunday morning to get the above shot of the sea of RUTR losers. It surprised me how many cups it takes to fill a typical kitchen island, and I had to later rearrange it to put my four winnings on the counter was well. Kinda gross when you think about it…

So I’m done with Tim Hortons this year… after I drink these 3 steeped teas and polish off this muffin. Until 2010’s Roll Up The Rim contest!

Final Statistics:
Record: 4 - 60
Spent: $102.06
Won: $10.04
Probability: 8.26% (in the bottom 15% of winners)

[RUTR 2009 Results and pictures]

Dad’s Birthday was a few days ago, and so I decided to give him something for his coffee addiction - a shiny Rancilio Rocky. Grinds wonderfully consistent. We’re not connoisseurs in coffee, but we will be soon.

Ack, I’m missing two cups somewhere!

Current Statistics:
Record: 3 - 39
Spent: $66.80
Won: $7.47
Probability: 15.93%

[RUTR 2009 Progress]

We got refreshed laptops at work, and I was lucky enough to choose this snazzy Lenovo X200s. Its a wonderful combination of being super tiny and light-weight, perfect for those 1.5 hour long bus rides to work.

And I’ve only won once since the brier last week. Sad indeed.

Current Statistics:
Record: 2 - 30
Spent: $50.90
Won: $4.98
Probability: 17.88%

[RUTR 2009 Progress]

How can you not love the Brier? Taking place at the Calgary Saddledome until the 15th, the Brier is the national men’s curling championship of Canada. Once you get past the rules, the game is exciting to watch and watching it live is much better than on TV.

Michelle and I were there on Monday to witness this lack rock by Ontario to win the game. Amazing.

You can still easily get tickets at Ticketmaster for approximately $30 to $50 a ticket, just in time for the finals on Sunday. Go Alberta!

I finally won my first coffee, which dragged me out of the dirt to only slightly below average. Also went to the Brier on Monday night, which was super exciting/confusing/puzzling/awesome.

Current Statistics:
Record: 1 - 18
Spent: $30.35
Won: $2.49
Probability: 25.34%

[RUTR 2009 Progress]

So while I’ve given up on the prospect of winning a single cup this year, I’ve moved on to other more leisurely activities. Killzone 2, released last Friday, is a fairly solid Playstation 3 game which I much enjoy. It dulls the pain from the constant Roll Up The Rim losses… temporarily, anyways.

Current Statistics (Updated 3/5/2009):
Record: 0 - 15
Spent: $23.99
Won: $0.00
Probability: 17.09%

[RUTR 2009 Progress]