At an angle

Yesterday, my day started at 7:30am when I made the trek to Kowloon Tong (HKBU campus) to meet up with the international writers (from the Barbados, Ireland, Indonesia, Taiwan, Australia, Poland, Greece, etc.), their families, and some newspaper reporters. We went to Stanley, a beach town, and disappeared into the winding streets of the Stanley market (a bit tourist-y). But the waterfront is a really nice break from the skyscrapers. We also went to the Murray House, the Maritime museum, and had a fancy lunch at this Spanish restaurant (amazing fried sardines) with a view of the water. It was really great to talk to the writers and get to know them better (and the places where they are from). I also had some nice discussions on poetry: constraint-writing, experimental work, writing from documents. We then went to Central and went up the imfamous peak tram to Victoria Peak (the tram even stops at one point so you can feel the angle). Exhausted, we finally ended up at a typical Hong Kong-style restaurant for dinner near where I live. They seated us - there were definitely like twenty people or something - in this long corner where we would have to all get up to get out. It was pretty hilarious trying to figure out how to order since the waitress was all the way at the front. And then we passed down food, Thanksgiving style. I also talked (with the help of his niece translating) with a writer from mainland China who spoke Putonghua. He was really funny and taught me how to count in sign language, the Chinese way (only one hand is used). More on the writers: http://iww.hkbu.edu.hk/index.php?fl=writers_vw_2007

I made it home at 10:30 and promptly fell asleep surrounded by books and my computer.