Divine intervention at Choi Hung (彩虹) MRT station in Hong Kong (香港)

This evening I went downtown to the Temple Street area to take pictures. After I was done, I took the MTR back to Choi Hung station, where I intended to transfer to a bus to my apartment. The station is very large, with many exits. Several of the exits were indicated as having bus stops, but there was nothing to indicate which buses going in which direction stopped where. I went to the exit indicated as having a "Bus Terminus". I got out and indeed there were lots of buses there. I approached one that I thought would go by my apartment, but the driver said he was going in the other direction, and I needed to catch the same bus but in the opposite direction, somewhere else. He couldn't really speak English or Mandarin so couldn't give me much more detail.

I wandered around a bit more and ended up at a minibus station a couple levels above. I looked at the signs for the buses there and none of them were the one I was looking for. I stood there looking confused. The place was complete empty, except for one other person, a young and fashionably dressed young lady who was talking on her cell phone. She ended her conversation and walked over and asked in English if I needed help. I told her that I was looking for a bus back to the place where I was staying. She told me that to get that bus I would have to get across the street. She walked me over to the balcony overlooking the street and pointed across the street and said I would have to get across and then walk a bit. There was a pedestrian bridge across the street but she said it might be closed so she suggested that I take the elevator all the way back down into the MTR station, walk through the station, and come out the entrance across the street. I followed her instructions and when I came up the stairs across the street and looked up and over to where I had been, I saw her waving and pointing down the street. I waved back and walked in the direction she indicated.

I didn't see a bus stop right away, so when I passed by the entrance of a government office where there were a couple of older women in security uniforms, I stopped and asked them in English and Mandarin where the bus for my neighborhood was. They didn't speak much English or Mandarin, and talked to each other in Cantonese, then I remembered the name in Cantonese of another nearby neighborhood, and gave that to them and they were really excited and pointed down the street and said "前面", which I guess sounds the same in Cantonese as in Mandarin. I repeated "前面" back to them and smiled and we all laughed and I headed off. Eventually I found my bus stop and boarded the minibus back to my apartment.

I am always thankful that no matter where I go, whether in North America, Europe, or Asia, there are always people willing to take the time to help.

Sai Kung Public Pier, Hong Kong, November 2009

While I was wandering around Sai Kung, I also photographed the interesting public pier. It had a number of berths, I assume for boats and ferries going to outlying islands. When I was there I didn't see any boats, but I saw a lot of people fishing. There were also some nice views of the restaurants along the shore. I took enough photographs that I decided to put them in a separate, dedicated gallery. The pier appeared relatively new, and had an interesting, modern design.

Here are some of my favorites:

An evening in Sai Kung, Hong Kong, November 2009

Last night I had an opportunity to walk around Sai Kung, a town in Hong Kong. It is in Kowloon, but away from the more crowded areas, and quite pleasant. I think there is a big expatriate presence there but I don't know much about Hong Kong so am only speculating based on the skin color of the people I saw nursing drinks in the bars that I walked past. It is right on the water and there are some nice seafood restaurants. I just finished processing some of the photos, here is the gallery:

http://canghuixu.smugmug.com/China/Hong-Kong/Sai-Kung-Hong-Kong-China/10424871_8obFo

And if you just want my favorites...

http://canghuixu.smugmug.com/keyword/favorite-sai kung

Here are a few that I really liked...

Sogou Chinese pinyin input IME for the Android G1 (G1 搜狗拼音输入法)

UPDATE: I also posted a brief comparison of Sogou Pinyin IME and Google Pinyin IME.

I'm in Hong Kong right now.

For quite a while, I have been wanting a Chinese IME for my G1. I woke up early because of jet lag and having nothing better to do, decided to see if there was anything in the app store to allow Chinese language input. I found the Sogou IME app and downloaded and installed. So far it seems to work very nicely. I just send some test emails. I haven't explored all of the capabilities yet but I like what I see, and may install the Sogou IME on my PC as well.

The reason I am posting is that I wanted to share what I finally figured out about how to activate it after downloading and installing. I spent a while after downloading and installing wondering why nothing happened, and I was still seeing the old Android keyboard. The help section on the website didn't offer any guidance. Finally after poking around I found that I had to go to the Android Settings 'Locale & Text', then under 'Text Settings' turn off Android keyboard, and turn on '搜狗输入法'. Once I did that, everything was hunky dory, and next time I composed an email, the rather neat Sogou virtual keyboard was up there. Once I turned on the Sogou keyboard, I did get a warning that everything I typed, including credit card numbers and so forth, would be visible to the app. That didn't bother me, I guess I am naively optimistic that Sogou wouldn't do something mean like program the app to transmit everything I type to the 国家安全局.

If you are looking for a Chinese IME for your G1, go into the Android Market and search for Sogou Input and you should find it.

The settings menus for the app are all in Chinese, so they may be a bit hard to navigate for someone who is just learning Chinese. So far it seems to work fine without any fiddling with the settings.

Here are my attempts at translations of the menu contents...

搜狗输入法设置　－　Sougou Input Method Settings
键盘设置　- Keyboard settings

按键时振动 - Vibrate when key pressed
按键反馈音 - Feedback tone on key press

竖屏虚拟键盘模式 - Vertical screen virtual keyboard style

数字键盘 - Numeric keypad (like for T9 input)

全键盘 - Full keyboard

横屏虚拟键盘模式 - Horizontal screen virtual keyboard style

数字键盘 - Numeric keypad (like for T9 input)

全键盘 - Full keyboard

输入设置 - Input Settings

中文输入 - Chinese input

模糊音设置 - Settings for unclear sounds

中文联想 - Chinese linking/association

英文输入 - English input

自动添加空格 - Automatically add spaces

自动句首大写 - Automatically capitalize the beginnings of sentences

符号输入 - Punctuation input

自动符号成对 - Automatically pair punctuation

中文状态下自定义符号 - Chinese custom symbols

英文状态下自定义符号 - English custom symbols

数字状态下自定义符号 - Numeric custom symbols

更新升级 - Update/upgrade
词库更新 - Instantly update dictionary

软件升级 - Upgrade the software over the internet

更新设置 - Update settings

开户自动更新 - Turn on automatic updates

更新提示 - Update reminders

每天 - Every day

每3天 - Every three days

etc.

词库管理 - Dictionary management

词库备份 - Dictionary backup

网络备份用户词库 - Back up user's dictionary on the internet

词库恢复 - Dictionary restore

网络恢复用户词库 - Restore user's dictionary from internet

通行证管理 - Pass management

搜狗通行证注册， 登录和注销 - Sogou Pass registration, login, logout

帮助 - Help

与好友分享 - Share with friends

搜狗输入法帮助 - Sogou input help

用户反馈 - User feedback

关于搜狗输入法 - About Sogou input

After using it for a few weeks, I am generally pretty pleased. The English auto-completion/correction doesn't seem quite as good as the native Android system, but it is passable. And having Chinese language input is REALLY handy.

Here is the URL for the Sogou input for mobiles page:
http://shouji.sogou.com/

It is all in Chinese, but you may be able to get some sense of what is going on with Google translate. For more information about Sogou for Android, click on the tab at the top navbar that says 帮助说明. That will take you to a help page. If you look at the navbar on the left, you will see "Android 1.5 平台，使用帮助", click on that to get to a help page for the Android Sogou that you might try running through Google Translate or some other translator. The way the site is configured I can't link to the site directly.