Saturday, February 26, 2011

Celebration in the Air

I’ve been dancing my butt off! Thank Baryshnikov I love to dance. They’ve got us working like crazy. This is the park’s 5th anniversary and they’ve got tons of great stuff planned. There will be all kinds of shows & parades that they’ve never done before and I’ll be in some of them. The theme is “Celebration in the Air”. I’m pretty lucky to have come here when I did. This year should be a total blast.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Hong Kong Apartment

We finally found an apartment – yay. It’s small and very different from anywhere I’ve ever lived, but at least we’re more settled and not living in a hotel anymore. The bathroom is small and everything’s all in one room. There’s no bathtub. The shower is just a corner of the room. We didn’t see many bathtubs during our apartment hunt. Most of the bathrooms we saw were even smaller than ours. The kitchen is just a sink & stove against the wall. There is practically no counter space at all. There’s also no oven. We didn’t see a single oven during the hunt. There’s a tiny balcony with a washing machine. All apartments have washing machines, but nobody has a dryer. Everybody just hangs their clothes out to dry on the laundry balcony. I don’t know how safe that is, but I guess they’ll dry faster outdoors than indoors.

The building looks ugly & dirty on the outside, but everything’s nice & clean on the inside. All of the apartments around here look ugly, except the really expensive buildings. Someone told me that the Chinese don’t care what the outside looks like – they just clean the inside. Looking around, it’s easy to believe. All the good architecture is reserved for large skyscrapers and old temples. Most of the places where people live all look the same – just a bunch of dirty rectangles.

We don’t have the internet hooked up yet, so I’m still going to internet cafes. I found one near our apartment that’s cheap compared to the first one I used, but it’s still a lot more expensive than just having the internet at home. When we get hooked up I’ll upload some pictures of Hong Kong. I’ve got a ton already.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Thoughts About Hong Kong

I’m still getting used to Hong Kong. It’s so different from home in every way.

Right now it’s raining, but even when it rains it is still warm. At home when it rains, it’s automatically colder. Usually much colder. Sometimes when it rains here, it seems hotter. When it rains at home, it can rain all day. Sometimes for days on end. When it rains here, it rains for an hour and stops. One time it started pouring really hard and stopped five minutes later. Even when it rains every day, it never rains all day. There’s always a break. Usually quite a few every day.

The money here is pretty weird. It’s all different colors and the smaller bills are coins, but there’s a HK$10 bill and HK$10 coin. There’s no HK$1 bill. It’s only a coin. The smaller coins seem pretty useless. You can’t do anything with the 10 cent coin. That’s worth about a penny. I guess you can’t do anything with a penny either. The HK$10 bill is the weirdest. It looks like a purple neon sign. There’s even a hole in it. It’s some kind of security hologram deal, but you can see right through it. When I first saw it I thought it was fake. The higher bills look more like real money. The HK$100 bill has a big ol’ stately lion on it. If it sounds like I’m rich walking around with $100 bills, it’s only $13 American.

The food here is awesome. But not everyone speaks English. I’m sure I’ll learn some Chinese just to order food. I’ll have to.

When we first got here, we ate at a lot of tourist and “western” restaurants. Not western as in steak and BBQ, but western as in "American" food. Not really American, though. More like British, or the Chinese version of British. Lots of fast food chains are here and lots of restaurants with familiar food and people who speak English, but those places are the most expensive. Eating where the Chinese people eat is much, much cheaper – $1 for a meal versus $20. Everything about Hong Kong seems expensive, but there is cheap food in every direction. You just have to find it – and learn to order it in Chinese.

There seem to be people selling food on the streets any time of the day – literally. Walk around at midnight and you’ll see people selling food from their little carts. I’m a little afraid of cart food. It must be ok if someone is eating it every day, but I don’t know what anything is and I’m really not sure how to order any of it, except by pointing. I’m also not quite ready to dive headfirst into suspicious looking chunks of food-like substances. I’ve seen a few things that take away my appetite pretty fast.

Something Hong Kong really has going for it is public transportation. The subways go everywhere you want to go. There’s a private subway line just for Disneyland. The buses seem to go everywhere, but I haven’t figured out how to use them yet. There are double-decker buses like in London. I thought they were for sightseeing at first, but they’re just regular buses. There are boats that go all over the place, which makes sense since Hong Kong is really a bunch of islands and a peninsula. There are taxis everywhere, but I don’t see the need since they’re more expensive than anything else and I’m told most of the drivers don’t speak English.

The subway is really the way to go. It’s called the MTR and it couldn’t be easier. All the signs are in English & Chinese, everything’s color coded, it seems pretty efficient and on time, it’s really clean for such a large city and some of the stations are interesting all by themselves. The Disneyland station is really something to see. It’s like an old Paris or Victorian London train station. It doesn’t look like anything in Hong Kong at all. The trains that go to Disneyland are special Disney trains with all kinds of Mickey decorations – even Mickey windows.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Face Characters

Ryan started his rehearsals yesterday. He’s playing in a house band that does backup for live shows and does smaller gigs around the park. His rehearsals are very different from mine. He’s just playing music while I’m playing characters.

I should also be able to play some of the famous characters and walk around the park taking pictures with people and just being goofy – but not Goofy. Ryan’s too tall to be any of the characters. I guess they would rather have us fit the costumes than fit the costumes to us. They’re pretty strict about it. The funny part is, Ryan is not all that tall back home. But anyone over 5’2 is never going to be Mickey. That’s not good for some of the Australians. They’re a tall bunch. I guess it’s better for the Chinese. They’re not exactly the tallest people in the world. Face characters have to speak English, though. I don’t think Mickey & Minnie speak at all, so they can be Chinese. At their height, they certainly can’t be Australian.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Apartment Hunting

We started looking at apartments. This is nothing like finding an apartment at home. First of all, nobody on the apartment hunt speaks English. Everywhere you go in Hong Kong, signs are in English and lots of people at restaurants and tourist sights speak English – and practically everyone at Disneyland speaks English. But we haven’t found any English speakers in our apartment search. I guess the landlords don’t need to know English if all of their tenants are Chinese.

Second, the apartments are tiny. I mean tiny. We don’t need anything huge, but we looked at one that was the size of our old bedroom – the entire apartment. Too many apartments don’t even have bathrooms. I don’t need much, but I need a bathroom. One building had a bathroom on every floor – and it was coin operated. You had to pay to share it.

Nothing we’ve seen had anything close to a kitchen. Most just had a hot plate on a table. Some didn’t even have a sink.

These are the apartments in our price range. I’m sure there are better options out there, but they get very expensive very fast. Even what we looked at wasn’t cheap. We want to save money while we’re here, but it looks like we’re going to have to spend more than we bargained for on rent. Compared to Minneapolis, Hong Kong is a ridiculously expensive city.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

First Rehearsals

We started rehearsals today. I’ve done a lot of musical theater, so I’m used to singing & dancing at the same time, but this was grueling. I’ve never done so much work in one day. I probably have, but this seems rougher in the moment.

I met most of the people I’ll be performing with. There seem to be more people from Australia than anywhere else. I guess that makes sense since it’s the closest English speaking country. Americans mostly go to Florida & California. British people can always go to France, I guess. You know how much those two countries love each other.

All the singers and face characters have to know English. I was surprised by how few performers were Chinese. I just assumed I’d be performing with mostly Chinese people. This is Hong Kong, after all.

It seems like everyone is friendly, but I really didn’t get a change to get to know anybody. We were just so busy. My legs are pounding from all that work. I love it!

Monday, February 7, 2011

First Day at Disney

Today was the first day of orientation. I work at Disneyland! How cool is that? I think it’s pretty cool.

They covered all the details about working in a foreign country and doing everything the Disney way. I’m so glad they did because I had a lot of questions. Today was exceptionally informative. They spoke in detail about visas, but it seems like most of the other foreigners are Australian, so the rules for them are not the same as the rules for me. They went over benefits like medical & dental, discounts and all that. They talked about the volunteer program they have which is called Disney VoluntEARS. The name sounds hokey, but they do good things for poor children in the area, so I’m jazzed about that. They also have all kinds of Disney names for everything. I’m not an employee, I’m a Cast Member. That has nothing to do with being on stage. Everybody’s a Cast Member at Disneyland, whether you perform in a show or scoop ice cream.

I start rehearsals Thursday. Orientation was for everyone, so they didn’t cover any of the specifics about what shows I’ll be doing and what characters I’ll play. That comes after we start rehearsals and the musical director makes all his decisions.

I hope I get Belle.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Chinese New Year 2011

Chinese New Year is the best thing ever! It’s still going on, but I’m totally wiped out. It’s like everyone in the country is going to a party at the same time – and there are a lot of people in this country. We don’t know anyone here, but we’ve already been invited to meals and parties. I hope the Chinese are this friendly all year.

Speaking of food, I better watch out. I’m going to gain a ton of weight if I keep eating all this great Chinese food. Everywhere you turn there is something amazing. I don’t know if it’s because of the New Year or if it’s always like this, but this is food paradise. I know there is special food for the New Year, but I don’t know what’s what. It’s all new to me. Chinese food in Hong Kong is nothing like Chinese food at home. The flavors and textures are completely different and there are all kinds of dishes here that nobody would ever eat at home. Some of it is a little disgusting, but I’m trying to keep an open mind since I’m the visitor here. We probably have something at home they find disgusting, but I can’t think of anything. Maybe hot dogs. I have never seen any hot dogs here.

Today was a huge fireworks show in the harbor – or harbour. Everything has the British spelling. That just makes it seem more foreign. I’m glad there are signs in English since I can’t read a word of Chinese, but the British English just reminds me that I’m in a foreign country instead of just in some Chinatown somewhere.

We saw a dragon show that was incredible. I don’t know what any of it means and what all the symbolism is about, but those guys are real athletes. The things they did – jumping on boxes, dancing around – all under this huge dragon costume. I’m sure it takes years to master.

As if all that wasn’t enough, the legal drinking age in Hong Kong is 18. I can go into any bar – or pub since it’s British here – and legally order any kind of drink I want.

Alcohol, exotic food and the biggest party of the year. I am so going to pay for this later.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

First Day in Hong Kong

I’m in Hong Kong! I almost can’t believe it, but I’m finally here.

We’re staying in a hotel right now until we move into our temporary housing – provided by Disney. The internet in the hotel is really expensive, but I’m told there are plenty of cheap internet cafés all over the place. I just have to find one nearby.

My first impression of Hong Kong is hot & humid like a son of a mother. Coming from Minneapolis where it’s -0° right now, Hong Kong feels like a sweat box – and it’s still winter. What’s summer going to feel like?

My second impression is that it’s crowded and everything moves fast. I’ve been to big cities before. I’ve been to New York plenty of times, and up until just now, New York was the largest city in the world. As it turns out, the world is a lot bigger than Americans wrap their heads around. But everything changes when the world is in a language you don’t understand. I know I’ll get the hang of it, but in the immediate present, it’s just a whirlwind of people & cars.

My third impression is that I’m totally lost and this was all a crazy idea, but I think that will pass once the dizziness stops. I hope so because, as much as I’m spinning in circles, I also think this is beyond exciting. I’ve only been here two days, but I already know this is going to be the best thing ever.

Tomorrow is Chinese New Year. There are decorations all over the place. There’s an excitement in the air. I can’t tell if that’s coming from the Chinese people or me. Maybe moving here during the Chinese New Year was not the calmest time, but it gives one hell of a first impression.

There’s just so much to talk about, but this is costing me a dollar a minute – I think. I still haven’t got the money worked out yet. I think US$1 = HK$10. I’m not too sure about that.

Anyway, hello Hong Kong.