hk diary two - how do you say comfort room in english?

there was a bit of rain, shy, unassuming, irregular, visible from the glass walls of ifc mall, when i made my way up through a slow moving escalator to meet a friend at the third floor. it was chilly too. the mall must have turned up the air conditioner because it was summer. good thing i was still wearing the jacket that i wore in the plane, so i felt warm.

but my friend, a former office mate in my just resigned company in manila, must have been acclimatized because he was wearing a flimsy cotton shirt and city shorts, and his favourite nike running shoes. an umbrella, obviously a giveaway from his (and my former) company because  i could still read the big, bold logo printed on it even if it was folded, on hand.

"you're finally here!" my friend said, smiling cheerfully. we have not seen each other since he moved to hong kong a few years ago. he was still working for the same company. he reached out for my bigger luggage, but i was embarrassed to let him carry it because it was so darn heavy, so i handed him the smaller, less heavy one.

"i am, can you believe it?" i said, as we made our way into the taxi stand. there were several others, all from the airport like myself, who were lining up to get a cab. a few minutes later, an old red taxi stopped in front of us and we hurled my two pieces of luggage at the back of the car. the taxi man, old, grey, thin, had a hard time closing its lid.

we talked a lot on the way to the apartment, my temporary shelter until i found my own.

the apartment booked by my new employer, where i would stay for a month (all paid for by the company that hired me in manila. one of the perks given to me along with a free airline ticket to hong kong), was just a few minutes away from ifc mall. i was grateful for this because i usually hang out at malls after work not really to shop but just to sit down at a corner and watch people. (in fact, a few days after, i walked from the apartment building to ifc mall to buy food and other stuffs).

it was still raining when we arrived and entered its glass doors. an old man in red shirt and black pants, the apartment building's uniform for its employees, opened them and helped us carry my bags. my friend said it was a good omen. a blessing from heaven. he added that i would surely have a great time in hong kong. i said amen silently, filled, surprisingly, with dread.

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after i deposited my luggage in the room, took a quick shower, and changed outfits, my friend asked if i was hungry. i said i was "famished." so we headed out into hong kong's rainy, busy streets.

we were having (very late) lunch when i told my friend about the mist that covered hong kong when i arrived earlier that day. he laughed. big, loud, distracting, and contagious. i couldn't help but laugh myself. good thing there were only a few diners in the chinese restaurant, where we were having yang chow fried rice (a favourite), a few dumplings, pan-fried duck, some vegetables.

"it was so romantic," i said. "it made me think of baguio and tagaytay."

"it was not mist, hello!" he said, still laughing.

"huh? what was it then?"

"smog."

"what?"

"haze. pollution. dirty and dangerous smokes coming from the factories in the border between hong kong and mainland china."

i would learn later on that hong kong's air pollution could sometimes reach hazardous levels because of the smog from these factories. oh well. and i thought i said goodbye to manila's dirty air when i moved to a more progressive, less filthy city.

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in my first few weeks in hong kong, i learned a lot.

- when riding an escalator, you have to stay on the right side if you're immobile to give way to those in a hurry and use the escalator to accelerate their travel. otherwise, you would hear a lot of complaints, be pushed, and even be cursed for it.

- i learned to say um goi (thank you), mai dan (for bill please. now this is very important because i eat out a lot.), wei (hello, especially when answering a phone), jou san (good morning), among other basic words and phrases to get me by. (sorry, i may have misspelled some of these words here.)

- you say toilette instead of rest room or comfort room. i once ask a colleague in the office where's the comfort room and he said we don't have that in the office. i nearly fainted.

- you say "take away" instead of "take out" when ordering food in a restaurant that you intend to bring home or to the office, or to somewhere else.

-when entering malls, offices, you don't have to be frisked by a security guard and there is no need to open your bag to show him its content. in manila, it's standard operating procedure due to a series of bombings in public places, as well as threats of bombings.

- when it's raining, offices, shopping malls, and just about any other building, have plastics hanged near the entrances that you could use to wrap your wet umbrellas. di ba sosyal?!

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here's one funny incident.

on my first day to go to the office, i decided to take a cab. so i won't be late and lost. i was still not that confident and comfortable then to take the crowded mtr, nor the tram. my biggest fear then was that i might get off at the wrong stop. it was not difficult, by the way, to get a cab even during the rush hour in hong kong unlike in manila.

when the driver asked me where i was going, i told him, in my perfect british accent "landmark" (the popular high end mall next to my office building. that's where the biggest louis vuitton store is located in central), the driver asked loudly and irritably: "where?!".

so i repeated it again, this time very, very slowly. still he could not understand what i was saying. his voice was getting louder and i was beginning to get irritated as well. so i said it fast and sounded like this: "lanmak!" upon hearing this, the driver smiled and then quipped: "ahh, lanmak. ok. i tek you."

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aside from the mtr, the cab, i also learned how to take the tram. now i love trams. they're so old worldly. riding them made me think about living in london during the victorian era, or in new orleans, or in new york before cars became the norm. it's also way, way cheaper than the mtr or the taxi. the only downside is, it moves so slowly that you will likely be late or miss your appointments if you take it.

when i was not in a hurry, i would usually take it. my favourite was the double-decker and i would sit at the upper deck. it offered a better view of the city. these trams, by the way, aside from its old-world charm, have become an effective channel for advertising. you could see most of them covered with names of companies, products and photos of celebrities endorsing them.

you could even hire them for special events, like parties. i am not kidding.

i remember when abercrombie and fitch opened its first ever store in hong kong, its shirtless, well-sculptured and need i say fabulous male models rode in trams around the city, attracting wild cheers, a lot of photo opps, and even more handshakes from locals and tourists alike. as for me, i met several of them in a bar cum dancing club and i was not impressed. chos!!


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to sum it up, my first few weeks in the former british colony as an international financial journalist covering bonds, stocks and the economy, were dreamy. dazzling. wild. i met a lot of people from different countries around the world as though i was attending a united nations convention, worked with some of the most talented, brilliant and hard working people in the planet, learned a lot about hong kong and how to survive it, fell in love with a lot of handsome young men, especially those who roamed around the city shirtless on sunny weekends. there.

most of the time, i was dorothy in the wizard of oz. sometimes, i was neo in matrix. in other times, i felt like a goddess, especially when i was surrounded by gorgeous young men inside a bar.

it was fun. until it became a bore.

(to be continued. next adventure, the house hunting.)