The main reason I haven't updated this blog in a week is because my Macbook, after 5 years of failthful service, has finally given up the ghost. I killed the battery about a year ago by leaving the poor thing on standby for a week, and on Monday night the hard drive died. After making an appointment for the Genius Bar online, I took it in to the Apple store in Causeway Bay (Exit F1, and you WILL have to walk down a long corridoor underground with no ventilation - not good when humidity is at 85%). The store is open until 11pm on weekdays, which is extremely convenient, and you can make appointments up until 9:45pm. The 'Genius' sales assistant said they could replace the battery and the hard drive, give it the new Mac OS (what is it now, 10.7? 10.8?) for $3300, which I thought was pretty reasonable. But then I pointed out that my Mac has only 1GB of RAM, so wouldn't the new OS chew through that pretty quickly, leaving exactly no room for Apps? "Oh yeah. Well, you'll have to buy new RAM then" says the Genius. But he was nice about it and recommended I go to 298 Computer Zone on Hennessey Road and buy it there (which I later walked to and found it is a huge electronics building with lots of tiny shops and lots of good deal to be had... if you know exactly what you are looking for). And if I wanted I could also buy the hard drive there, and Apple would install the new OS for me and only charge for labour. The thing is, my Mac currently has trouble playing videos over 720dpi, so I would have to look at a new graphics card too (if that is even possible).
BUT, my Mac is the 2007 second generation Intel-procesor WHITE Macbook. Today, all Macbooks - Air or Pro - have the most boring, most impersonal, grey-and-black colour scheme. So... if I have time time and inclination, I might try and source some parts to just keep my darling alive, but when I return to Hong Kong I'll go to Computer Zone and see what I can find in terms of light, fast netbooks that can play all my movies (that I keep on my external hard drive) and that I can use for uni work.
Which brings me to my next point... I might not update for the next week because I'll be in Japan! For family who read this, I'll be posting on Facebook while I am away. But one last note about Hong Kong before I leave.
Next week is Lunar New Year - the one week of holidays I have all semester. I had booked flights to go to Japan before I left Australia, because this THE busiest time of the year to travel in north Asia. Last year I was in Korea in January and I had to change my flight to return home earlier than planned - ALL flights on Cathay Pacific that week (it was Lunar New Year) were booked out - except Business Class. But that's another story! So, knowing my flight was leaving HK at 8:30am, meaning I had to be checking in at 6:30, I decided to book a taxi for 5:30. The long and the short of it: because I had been told there are no taxis really available that early, I booked a taxi to pick me up at the Taxi Stand of University Station at 5:30. I was at the taxi stand at 5am. I stood there for 15 minutes, and in that time 3 taxis showed up. By the time a fourth taxi (a green one - the ones that are cheaper because they only service the Airport and the New Territories), I called the taxi company to cancel my taxi and just got in the one available.
SO, moral of the story - taxis are available, but I would suggest just get to a MTR station taxi stand early and wait. There will be taxis pulling in even at 5am.
OK, I'm off to Japan. Happy Lunar New Year everyone!
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