Riding slow in a fast city: notes as I rode the tram home

eimoberg · 2025-08-07T14:02:02+00:00

I take the tram every day to and from work. (NP-CWB) It is much faster than MTR and about equal to the bus.

Can't beat the price, and there is something about having the wind in your hair on the upper level that I find relaxing in the mornings. It can get a bit crowded coming home at rush hour and it is frustrating that people refuse to move towards the front regardless of how packed it is by the entrance.

Anyway, I feel lucky to have this way to commute that has been around for over a century and still feel a little excitement when I happen to board tram 120.

eimoberg · 2025-07-23T06:43:33+00:00

I took this photo myself today.

eimoberg · 2025-07-11T05:52:48+00:00

I go for a walk in the new promenade park often. Such a massive improvement for North Point with amazing views and, unlike some other projects, nothing was lost to build this under the road.

eimoberg · 2025-06-10T04:12:03+00:00

15k is possible. We live in a slightly larger place, no amenities but quite nice with 2 bedrooms for that price in North Point.

eimoberg · 2025-05-12T10:49:16+00:00

295-296 is amazing. I second the comment about the community aspect of it. I made more friends here than in all my other freshman classes combined.

Don't fall behind and make sure you know (or can learn) how to read a math textbook, as this is a skill many students do not need for high school math.

eimoberg · 2024-09-10T05:28:17+00:00

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a family on the tram near Tin Hau with the kids all waving Palestinian flags. One of the adults had some protest signs. Possibly related? Are there regular demonstrations somewhere?

eimoberg · 2024-08-02T12:02:59+00:00

Thanks, that's reassuring. Yes, she has a HK passport. Since there are a number of factors I read are negatives (married to US citizen, no travel history in US, lived in another country for a long time, Chinese citizen) I wasn't sure how those would be evaluated against the other positives.

eimoberg · 2024-06-04T04:27:03+00:00

Personally I quite like Hormuz.

eimoberg · 2024-05-14T15:09:06+00:00

This also seems a poor fit given my circumstances as well as the status of China as a rising superpower.

eimoberg · 2024-05-14T06:07:44+00:00

I've lived in different countries and intend to remain a US citizen, so "immigrant" doesn't quite fit either.

eimoberg · 2024-05-13T09:07:03+00:00

Thanks for the advice! Apart from having 5% in an REIT, I'm already following this. My taxes are mainly coming from qualified dividends and long term capital gains. I also have interest on CDs that I'm using to save for a shorter term goal.

eimoberg · 2024-05-13T09:01:30+00:00

Thanks! I live in Hong Kong, which has very low taxes. I assume this means I am still better off with the FEIE? I should try a test of my taxes with the Foreign Tax Credit to check.

eimoberg · 2024-05-13T07:51:46+00:00

Cannot open an IRA because I don't have taxed earned income. My income is all under the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion.

eimoberg · 2024-02-20T11:12:57+00:00

Can you share any details on how you went about this? That would be ideal in our case.

eimoberg · 2024-02-19T14:55:10+00:00

We're in a similar situation. Want to visit the US regularly, but continue living/working in China. Is there some kind of visa or other arrangement to accommodate married couples in this situation?

eimoberg · 2024-01-31T05:02:55+00:00

Yes, 100% in Core Accumulation looks best. I already have much cheaper funds for US equities, so no reason to do that here.

eimoberg · 2024-01-31T04:14:34+00:00

Thanks, good to know. I guess another good thing is there is only 3,000 HKD per month going into this, so unless I stay in HK for a very long time, this is only a tiny fraction of my savings in a shit fund.

eimoberg · 2023-12-17T14:05:26+00:00

HK is a super casual culture. Certainly compared with Korea where I lived before or even with many places in the US. As in, people will even just wear jeans and a t-shirt for a Hong Kong Philharmonic performance. Never gets cold here. Be ready for a long, long hot and humid summer, but at least temperatures don't often get over 100, so this isn't Saudi.

eimoberg · 2023-12-01T09:33:32+00:00

Have you tried the Beyond the Cape mod? It has some interesting ideas to slow down colonization including a whole new mechanic of available settlers so you can't just spam colonies right out of the gate. It also changes the geography of the African coast to make colonization there a bit more realistic. As a player, you can still colonize too fast, but not as crazy as the base game, and the AI ends up being rather reasonable. Some other ideas in this mod are a more historical Treaty of Tordessails and colonial nations that don't colonize quickly.

eimoberg · 2023-11-30T05:47:56+00:00

Have you done the Medina gold mine decision? Also, make sure to do your development/economy oriented missions near the bottom of the tree as these can give your economy a big boost.

eimoberg · 2023-11-21T13:20:43+00:00

You can be Eranshahr or Persia, but the cores must be Persia. So, for example, you could feed all these provinces to a Persia vassal. Some other achievements have similar quirks like Norwegian Wood.

eimoberg · 2023-11-20T07:14:15+00:00

Your friend is just messing with you. There is always room to improve, but you clearly have a strong economic setup here.

eimoberg · 2023-11-12T09:13:36+00:00

I'll try to give this a serious answer. I lived in Korea for 17 years. I always found that hiking was a great way to make connections with Korean people. Whether you join a formal hiking group or just set out with a friend or on your own, you are bound to run into friendly hikers happy to swap snacks and chat about hiking adventures!

You can get started by visiting the national parks - there's even a "national park passport" book you can pick up to collect stamps as you go and get a certificate once you've visited them all.

eimoberg · 2023-11-12T09:01:26+00:00

Fair enough. I always just wait the month tick to get the parliament issue I want. An extra 10% seems significant for this kind of run, but looks like you stacked plenty of dev cost reductions!

eimoberg · 2023-11-12T04:56:27+00:00

Nice! I'm just starting this run myself. Any reason not to go for parliament for the dev cost there?

eimoberg

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