Yi's trip to HK: Need some buying advice...

[Yi-Long]

ANY good movie worth seeing and that has a good quality R3 HK dvd with english subs, please PLEASE tell me

The IVL Masayuki Suo boxset immediately comes to mind, each title r2j ports with added English subs (good subs as well). Here's my review. I'll have to go through my collection later and see what nuggets are in there, I own a shitload of Japanese films on HK DVD but most of them are not exactly what you'd call good quality!

Never heard of those movies (apart from Shall we Dance), but you've given quite low marks for the video-quality for the first 2 movies in that box-set...
If I come across the set for a good price, I might pick it up... but only if I haven't bought much else.

[APPINESS]

Gawd, I just found out a large Chocolate Milkshake costs only 9,30 HK dollar (which is about 80 eurocents I guess)
If this ain't heaven, Gawd needs to upgrade His place!

Where in Japan do you live btw?
Gawd I love Japan. There's a very slight chance we might take a mini-vacation from Hong Kong to Japan, cause last year it was too expensive, but this year: Hurray for Swine-flu and Economical Crisis!!!
Should be a lot more affordable now, especially for people traveling from HK/China, cause the chinese are notoriously tight with their money in times like these, so I'm sure there will be some good prices!

I bought a place in Gifu city a couple of years ago. I work in Nagoya though as there is a lot more work there. WINGS among other things are a local specialty.

You can get a milk shake from McDs for \100, which is damn cheap. I don’t know the exact exchange rate but its about $1. The size is pathetically small however.

If you come don't go to Osaka or Kobe as that is where they're closing schools because of Swine Flu. But hey it hasn't stopped the students from going to the Karaoke bars and spreading it that way.

[Markgway]

Whay kind of people go to McDonalds in HK?

Where I'm from it's choc full of chav dog shit.

[Yi-Long]

Whay kind of people go to McDonalds in HK?

Where I'm from it's choc full of chav dog shit.

Isn't Scottland full of chav dog shite, no matter what place you go to!?

In Hong Kong all kinds of people go to the Mac. I think the most annoying people in the local McD's are the elderly people, who go and sit there for the free airco

[Yi-Long]

Gawd, I just found out a large Chocolate Milkshake costs only 9,30 HK dollar (which is about 80 eurocents I guess)
If this ain't heaven, Gawd needs to upgrade His place!

Where in Japan do you live btw?
Gawd I love Japan. There's a very slight chance we might take a mini-vacation from Hong Kong to Japan, cause last year it was too expensive, but this year: Hurray for Swine-flu and Economical Crisis!!!
Should be a lot more affordable now, especially for people traveling from HK/China, cause the chinese are notoriously tight with their money in times like these, so I'm sure there will be some good prices!

I bought a place in Gifu city a couple of years ago. I work in Nagoya though as there is a lot more work there. WINGS among other things are a local specialty.

You can get a milk shake from McDs for \100, which is damn cheap. I don’t know the exact exchange rate but its about $1. The size is pathetically small however.

If you come don't go to Osaka or Kobe as that is where they're closing schools because of Swine Flu. But hey it hasn't stopped the students from going to the Karaoke bars and spreading it that way.

I think the chance of us visiting Japan is quite small, but if the price is right, we might

Never heard of Gifu city. I'll Google Earth it later Is it expensive to live there, or is it mostly the big cities like Tokyo and Kyoto and such that are extremely expensive, and is the rest of Japan OK!? Hard to find an affordable decent sized place to live!?

What kinda work do you do there!?

How small is pathetically small!? Is it Grim's ego-size small!? (which is still OK), or is it Mark's penis-size small!?

[HungFist]

I was eating those milk shakes almost daily last summer when in Tokyo. The cheapest refreshments you can find (and they were needed considering the temperatures...).

Tokyo isn't really that expensive if you apply a bit of brain activity. Want to spend 1000€ for a hotel night? Easy. But I spent 50€ per night. And it was a good private room with bathtub, fridge, TV and proper air conditioning. Quite small of course. Good location, 10 minute walk from the Shinjuku Station.

Same with meals. 100€ in a western style restaurant. Certainly. I never paid more than 6€ for a meal. Usually less than 5€, actually. Besides, it's a lot more fun to eat in small places where you can see the chef cooking your food on the other side of the table and listen to some pop music on the radio.

[bradavon]

Tokyo isn't really that expensive if you apply a bit of brain activity. Want to spend 1000€ for a hotel night? Easy. But I spent 50€ per night. And it was a good private room with bathtub, fridge, TV and proper air conditioning. Quite small of course. Good location, 10 minute walk from the Shinjuku Station.

Where was this? I forgot what I paid (about £30 I think) but it had no facilities, just a room and small shower/toilet room. It was perfectly okay though. No Aircon but it wasn't needed, just an old CRT TV. Which I barely used.

Same with meals. 100€ in a western style restaurant. Certainly. I never paid more than 6€ for a meal. Usually less than 5€, actually. Besides, it's a lot more fun to eat in small places where you can see the chef cooking your food on the other side of the table and listen to some pop music on the radio.

Definitely. Eating in the local outlets is much more fun. I've done it but always find it odd eating in and eating western food when in Asia.

[HungFist]

Tokyo isn't really that expensive if you apply a bit of brain activity. Want to spend 1000€ for a hotel night? Easy. But I spent 50€ per night. And it was a good private room with bathtub, fridge, TV and proper air conditioning. Quite small of course. Good location, 10 minute walk from the Shinjuku Station.

Where was this?

http://tateshina.co.jp/eindex.htm

Located approx here (I also marked the most simple way to get there):
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v716/ ... eshina.gif
(they have a little red sign on the on Yasukuni dori so you'll know when to turn left.)

Shinjuku 3-chome station is actually located right next to it, but I preferred to use the main station because a) it's cool area and you can stop by to listen to some musicians playing outside the station and b) gives you an excuse to walk through Kabukicho :twisted:

There's also at least 4 dvd stores in the Shinjuku area. I don't mean any HMV crap stores but small second hand retailers. I have a papermap somewhere (edit, found it) with locations marked... The best dvd shop, Recomints, is in Nakano, though.

[APPINESS]

Never heard of Gifu city. I'll Google Earth it later Is it expensive to live there, or is it mostly the big cities like Tokyo and Kyoto and such that are extremely expensive, and is the rest of Japan OK!? Hard to find an affordable decent sized place to live!?

Gifu is in the centre of Japan. Not many people have heard of it. It's famous because it was the home of Nobunaga, who was the warlord who tried to unite Japan.
Gifu castle appeared in the game Onimusha.

Land prices are a lot cheaper in the countryside and small cities compared to Tokyo. I got a 1% interest, 35 year mortgage and the repayments are about $800 a month. Not bad for a 3 bedroom house with a nice size garden. I would have to pay the same in rent for a one bedroom apartment.

What kinda work do you do there!?

What most 'Gaijin' do there. Teach English.

How small is pathetically small!? Is it Grim's ego-size small!? (which is still OK), or is it Mark's penis-size small!?

About 250ml.

[grim_tales]

Are you saying I have a big or small ego Yi?

[bradavon]

Thanks Hung. They'll be useful when I go back to Japan next year.

[Yi-Long]

Never heard of Gifu city. I'll Google Earth it later Is it expensive to live there, or is it mostly the big cities like Tokyo and Kyoto and such that are extremely expensive, and is the rest of Japan OK!? Hard to find an affordable decent sized place to live!?

Gifu is in the centre of Japan. Not many people have heard of it. It's famous because it was the home of Nobunaga, who was the warlord who tried to unite Japan.
Gifu castle appeared in the game Onimusha.

Land prices are a lot cheaper in the countryside and small cities compared to Tokyo. I got a 1% interest, 35 year mortgage and the repayments are about $800 a month. Not bad for a 3 bedroom house with a nice size garden. I would have to pay the same in rent for a one bedroom apartment.

What kinda work do you do there!?

What most 'Gaijin' do there. Teach English.

Sounds awesome, man. Well done! You must be very happy there.
Are we talking 800 US dollars!? That IS very cheap.

What credentials do you need to be able to teach English in Japan!? I was an A-student when it came to English here in Holland (one teacher was even convinced I was cheating and was complaining to the other teachers he could never catch me in the act, only to be told by my english teacher from the year before I just had a talent for English )

How small is pathetically small!? Is it Grim's ego-size small!? (which is still OK), or is it Mark's penis-size small!?

About 250ml.

Aw, that's OK. Sadly not as cheap as the milkshakes in HK, but cheaper than here in Holland.

[Yi-Long]

Are you saying I have a big or small ego Yi?

You have a small ego, Grim. You shouldn't.

[APPINESS]

What credentials do you need to be able to teach English in Japan!? I was an A-student when it came to English here in Holland (one teacher was even convinced I was cheating and was complaining to the other teachers he could never catch me in the act, only to be told by my english teacher from the year before I just had a talent for English )

Why are the Dutch so good at languages? The British suck. It's taking me forever to learn Japanese.

Most places ask for you to have a degree for visa purposes. Other places want native English speakers but I do know there are a lot of non-native speakers working as teachers, usually in Elementary schools. Some form of teaching certificate would be useful but not essential.

Aw, that's OK. Sadly not as cheap as the milkshakes in HK, but cheaper than here in Holland.

Sorry, I never know what currency to put things in. It was in American dollars. It gets a bit more expensive when you include property tax but that is partly subsidized by the government for first time buyers.

[Yi-Long]

What credentials do you need to be able to teach English in Japan!? I was an A-student when it came to English here in Holland (one teacher was even convinced I was cheating and was complaining to the other teachers he could never catch me in the act, only to be told by my english teacher from the year before I just had a talent for English )

Why are the Dutch so good at languages? The British suck. It's taking me forever to learn Japanese.

Most places ask for you to have a degree for visa purposes. Other places want native English speakers but I do know there are a lot of non-native speakers working as teachers, usually in Elementary schools. Some form of teaching certificate would be useful but not essential.

Sounds interesting

And about the Dutch being good at other languages: I don't know if that's true. Most can speak and understand a little english, cause we get most programs in English instead of dubbed, but many aren't great at it.

Personally, I absolutely SUCK at other languages (besides English), and even Dutch for me is at times hard (grammatically), because languages like German, Dutch and French aren't LOGICAL. They use all kinds of exceptions and weird rules for many situations, plus you have the male/female/non-specified kinda words you have to take into account. It's kinda hard to explain, but let's keep it at the fact that English is a logical language, and French, German and Dutch aren't.

I'm not sure how I'd do with japanese. I do know that I'm having huge problems with cantonese, but that's mostly because of all the different tones being used for the same words, just so they will have a different meaning. I just can't remember all that stuff. It's probably because after a certain age it's much harder (for most) to learn the difference between different tones.
Japanese doesn't have that problem, and I always hear Japanese isn't all that hard to learn. If it's logical, it might be possible that I could learn it quickly, but to really learn a language I think you need to be around that language each and every day. Be it through watching TV/movies/anime all day, or just being in Japan and communicating.

Aw, that's OK. Sadly not as cheap as the milkshakes in HK, but cheaper than here in Holland.

Sorry, I never know what currency to put things in. It was in American dollars. It gets a bit more expensive when you include property tax but that is partly subsidized by the government for first time buyers.

That seems a bit over the top for a milkshake(!)

[Yi-Long]

Ok guys, I'm almost off. I'll leave in about 30 minutes for my girlfriend's house, spend the night there, and tomorrow I'm on my way to Germany, back to Holland, and then to Hong Kong.

As far as my pick of camera, it will most likely be either the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3, or the Panasonic DMC-TZ7.

See you guys in a month orso (or, in case of a plane crash, nucleair attack by Korea, or me losing my life while fighting a big salami-lipped guy with man-tits in the Kumite, I pick Grim as the heir to my BNB-crown! Yes, it's a huge responsibility, Gwimmy, but I know you can do it!)

Ciaoz guys!

[bradavon]

People of English speaking countries only suck because they can afford to be lazy and not learn another language at an early age, plus the media/movies/music we get is all in our indigenous language. Whereas in most countries on the Continent at least, it simply isn't.

Asian languages tend to also be much more complicated for the most part.

[gasteropod]

Catch you later Yi, have a delightful trip! (And yeah let's all hope Korea doesn't launch a nuclear attack )

[Yi-Long]

Thanks Gassy

Anyway, I'm back now. Didn't buy all that much.

Games weren't that interesting compared to the prices now with the weak pound in England, so didn't buy any of those.
Also the DVD's and Blu-rays seemed expensive compared to the pretty low prices we are now all used to over here when ordering online.
However, in my last week I came across a quickly set-up store that sold 'bootlegs', so I picked up a few movies that I will most likely pick up anyway in the near future, but wanted to check out first: Ip Man (coming this fall to R2 Blu-ray), and Red Cliff 1 & 2 (heard good stuff about it but since I'm not a big fan of costume epics, I wanted to watch it before I'll splash any cash on a BR version or something.
Also picked up the new Bond flick. Haven't seen it yet, heard it's much worse than CR (which I loved) and has the shakey-cam bullshit, so needed to 'preview' that as well. I hope I end up liking it, but I'm affraid I'll hate the poorly filmed action-sequences and short length.
I paid 100 HK dollar for those 4 movies together. Only quickly checked out the quality of Ip Man but seems to be OK.

Didn't buy a camera afterall. Turned out that because of the economic situation here in Europe and the USA, the tables for some products have turned somewhat. Plasma-screens are now cheaper here than they are in Hong Kong, and camera's were pretty much the same price.
Apart from that my girlfriend brought a pretty good camera, so in the end there wasn't an immediate need for me to buy one, cause she usually gives the camera to me anyway for me to carry and shoot pictures...

I bought some ink-cartridges for my Canon printer, 2 nice Street Fighter 4 controllers and wireless adapter for my 360, plus a couple of art-books and some new Crocs. I'm especially happy with the art-books (one of Street Fighter, and one of Houden Eizo, which sadly isn't fully in colour).

Apart from that, I really didn't buy much apart from some gifts here and there.

As expected, the food was once again very nice, McDonalds was ok but not flawless this time, and once again we found a bunch of new stuff to discover and learn about (like 'The Bride's Pool' or a nice well kept valley which looks kinda out of place in Hong Kong).

People were mostly nice again (apart from her psychotic bitch of an aunt), and overall we had a pretty nice time

[Yi-Long]

Ow yeah, forgot to mention this, but it came back to me when browsing the KFC-forum: I saw Donnie Yen 'in the flesh'. He was in the huge mall in Times Square (I think that's what it's called', plugging some new Nokia phone which was being released that day.

Get some fucking self-respect, Donnie.