Black Balloon

So now I can shift Mexcel's blog from 'People I'd like to meet' to 'People I've met'. Yay.

A summary of how it went.

Ryan cancelled on us. Which is, like, expected, considering the past few weeks. I daresay he's getting worse and more buried in his obsessions lately. Either that or he'd rather be doing other stuff than meet me and my friends and Richie's friends.

Richie says, have no expectations, and you'd have no disappointments. Wise. So that leaves Richie, Richie's friends ( including Mex), Jujube, me.

Met Richie in Sim Lim Tower (aka hardcore geek paradise, Sim Lim Square's for the softcore ones)

1. Gay jokes are gay.

Nothing much left to do there, so, Sim Lim Square.

2. Meizu MP3 players are freakin cool for their price. But I'd never know if they'll last me even half a year, Richie says they will.

3. Call of Duty 3 on Xbox360 is freaking impressive, save for the frustrating controls. Well, I DID play 2 Medal of Honour games on the Playstation (the dual analog controls on them are surprisingly smooth), and Call of Duty 1 on the PC, but on the Xbox360 it just feels weird.

4. Following the scent is NOT the best way to locate certain shops in Sim Lim Square

Then, off to Plaza Singapura. Along the way there's this promoter with a microphone outside The Cathay trying to get some participants for something, and she went like 'it's not nice to say no to a lady' and 'how about putting down that big instrument and having a seat'. WTF.

5. Richie is a nice guy

6. People are bound to be late, so why bother setting times

7. Jujube looks perkier today. Mex's a cool alkie. Lum's a cool wannabe lawyer. Both are equal evils I guess...

8. You can't get food in Plaza Singapura on a Friday evening, unless you're willing to queue for hours. I swear it isn't even half as bad in Hong Kong.

So, we walked in the drizzle to The Cathay, in hopes of getting food without having to queue up. We have hungry. hungry people with us. FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION.

9. But I don't mind the rain/So strike me once again/I've got nothing to lose/And it looks like we are in for stormy weather - Jarvis Cocker

10. Ate at The Indulge in the deep dank recesses (a basement with more than half of the shops either closed/ not yet renovated) of The Cathay. No queue! Though the food took a long wait and they forgot the rice until Richie reminded them. WTF. Waitress stepped on my toes. As in, literally. What is it with me and having air stewardesses spill trays over me/waitresses stepping on my toes/etc? Maybe I'm so hot they're swooning over me. Yay.

11. Food was quite good. Albeit a little unusual tasting. The chicken was ultra-vinegary. But then I can drink vinegar by itself (allegedly Mathemugger can too) so it's alright. But the tofu sucks because, well, it tastes too much like tofu and I hate soft tofu.





12. Bored. Aimless. Walking in random directions. Richie had to go back early so off he went. And Mex was looking for his fix of moonshine, and logistical problems made us decide otherwise. HEY DUDES WE GOT A YOUNG LADY TO KEEP SAFE HERE Y'KNOW.

13. After being assured that Mex and Lum aren't going to rape Jujube on the MRT, I went home, all alone. Yay.

It was fun while it lasted. But dammit, I think I came off as an antisocial loser. First impressions of me always suck.

Nice meeting ya folks.

Last night I dreamed of being crushed by a truck and having my own consciousness ebbing out on me.

Cow Piss

Totally random picture and post title. Why are the Japanese sometimes so clueless about the nuances of the English language?

==

So, today's more lectures in an even stuffier room - and the crappiness of the posting finally dawned onto me, a few days late. I SWEAR my group has it harder than the rest.

I'm procrastinating and I don't dare to read the textbook. Yay. I wanna sleep right now at 9.30pm so I can forget it all.

Actually I've been sleeping alot. On buses, everywhere. Just to avoid the reality that pervades my life. But somehow I don't feel all that rested. All the bad dreams, the voices.

It's particularly depressing on public transport, as that's when I'm truly alone - without instant messaging on the computer, and without classmates in school, and without my family. And without the constant chatter and antics, one's thoughts tend to flow, and when that happens for me, I ruminate over my negativity, and there, I'm a sad mess by the end of the bus ride.

Staring at my freshly-polished black leather shoes. I've a fetish for keeping my shoes clean and shiny.

But in school, at least I'm forced to put up a front and to act happy. But nowadays I can act so well I sometimes believe that I'm actually happy. Hypocrite me. Actually deep deep inside me I'm yearning for a warm caring hug.

Maybe everyone feels like this. Maybe we're all living in our own little bubbles, hiding away all our sad feelings from everyone else, so that everyone else'll believe we're happy and successful people, immune to the worldly emotions of desperation, fear and dejection. Maybe we all want to believe that emotions are only for the weak.

Or maybe it's just that I'm more messed up than the rest. But I'd never know, if everyone keeps all their true feelings hidden under that whitewashed facade.

==

In other news. I swear I do look better these days. New haircut, a leaner, meaner me.

I can look into the mirror without feeling that disgust and self-hatred I used to feel.

And one of my neighbours called me handsome and wanted me to tell my family that.

And another neighbour asked me how I did it.

And my classmates seem warmer to me these days. Yay.

And I get noticed by gay-looking guys on the street and in Bishan Park.



I swear that I'd screw myself if it was even possible!

==



Funny looking mushrooms.

I'm in the school computer lab

because I have 2 hours to waste, of which half an hour was already wasted on mediocre-tasting lunch. Which is real irritating because I'd be growing pointless fat cells for that. And I've been growing lotsa fat cells but those were made from the calories of the tasty food from Hong Kong, which I really don't mind. At least in the short term. So as long as I don't become a fat slob again.

==

I could plonk myself online for hours in the comfort of home, but somehow, on a public terminal, I just can't feel at ease enough to do the inane things I usually do. Blog surfing, MSN, et cetra. It always feels like someone's looking over my shoulder here.

So. Today was even more lectures, and I think my brain's about to explode from all that amount of information I have to cram in. Yay. If I had known better, maybe I'd be in another field? Screw medicine.

Though I'd probably bitch about how pointless it would be if I had studied basic sciences, or how inane everything is in engineering. The grass is always greener on the other side. (Well, the grass IS greener elsewhere like in the USA, but that's because there's less sunlight in those places, and therefore more chlorophyll in the grass.)

I'm dreading it when the posting goes into full swing next week. I'm scared. I'm really scared. The past year was a near-mindrape for me, and if I were to be somehow magically transported back to the previous year and forced to do it again, I can't do it.

==

Mathemugger has noticed that, well, the voices are getting worse. They're telling me to do things (specifically, when they had wanted me to get rid of my hair). And well, last night was particularly bad. Bad enough to wish that I had those benzos to drown them out. Dammit.

I'm dreading the next appointment. 1. Say that I had abused them benzos and therefore being sure that I won't get them anymore? But I'd get proper help if necessary at least, and I wouldn't be lying. Or 2. Lie outright and get the benzos which are oh so damned convenient when I just wanna sleep away a bad day?

Bah screw it. Maybe it's easier not to turn up at all. Screw things. I'll live.

I think.

Whatever

Argh. Stupid bug. I hate the feeling. Not exactly sick, but sickish. Walking's doubly tiring and I can't push myself to get any exercise the past few days. And the headache. And I know it's not psychological, as even my bowels are creaking under the strain of the bug.

==

Night, and I had this extreme compulsion to raze off my hair. As in, extreme enough to make me keep me obsessing over it and all.

You know, I'm not entirely crazy. There's a Wahl hair clipper at home, those kinds that you plug into a socket and let it chop the locks the way a barber does. And barber's scissors - well, I'm sorta experienced at using them (both on myself and others), and yes, I do mean on head hair.

Not too sure what made me this hellbent on getting my mop lopped off, but I can think of several reasons:

1. Long messy hair's frowned at by the faculty, and it's always tempting to be a good, meek student.

2. I hate the way my hair looks now. I don't wanna freaking be me anymore. Because being me sucks. I wanna change my hair, change my life!

3. It gets into my eyes.

4. It's a ritual. It cleanses, it makes me feel cool and simple again.

==

Decided to sleep the urges away. Which sorta worked, except that the hypnagogic hallucinations kept on goading me on. 'Do it! Do it!' However, them cheeky voices were no match for the sheer powers of sleepiness and inertia.

My crown of hair won. At least for the night.

==

Day 2 of the hell that is called school. Usual stuff. Lectures, that are way beyond my understanding. The prospects of doing a field involving the betweens of a woman's legs is... terrifying. I wonder if it bites.

Lunch break, and I could stand the urges to lop off my hair no longer. Off I went to Dover and for $9, I got the deal done. Got it cropped short at a Malay Barber - not Army-short or anything ridiculous, but I guess I like my new hairstyle better.

==

Though when I got back, a couple of friends did a double-take, they didn't expect me to SERIOUSLY go cut my hair when I was just lamenting about it an hour ago.

Mixed opinions. Well. Apparently I now look like a punk.



==

Afternoon was a stitching workshop. ugh. I suck at it. I'd never be a good stitcher, and rest assured I promise I won't pretend otherwise.

Was planning to meet up, but got snubbed again. I guess there are reasons, but methinks this is getting a little absurd. Augh.

Ambled back home, feeling totally exhausted. I must be sick or something.

I blame the world

I knew, even as a kid, that I'd grow up a cynical old fart; just like my parents and grandparents, like the disgruntled worker rushing up the bus to face another boring day in his low-paying job, like much about anyone on the street who's no longer a kid.

I just didn't guess that it'd be so soon. But now I no longer feel excitement or joy or whatever.

As a kid, I was young and curious, and walking through the wet market with mommy can me so rich and memorable I'll probably remember it to my last breath. Now, I'm so old and jaded, everything's all dull and plain to me. I can probably forget days at a go because they're SO boring.

I'd just see the sad and the bad in every waking moment of my life.

==

It's the end of the freaking measly 3 week holiday break and school is back in full force. A particularly intensive 8-week posting to boot.


And it feels horribly meaningless and dreadful when it seems that the faculty in us doing lotsa paperwork and documentation (they say, hey, it helps you keep track of learning but well, none of us students believe that), rather than learning and excelling academically.

Maybe I'm just a boring old fart, but that's how I saw things, and it's not going to be right for you to deny me of my freedom of seeing things my own way.

==

Some administrator there insisted we wear ties, and maintain unreasonable punctuality, and et cetra, to the extent of affecting learning itself. Guess what, I've half a mind to tell him off, making him realise his stupidity, leaving him speechless, then getting away with it. Cause I'm right and he's wrong.

==

I'm a boring old fart because I can bitch about all sorts of things on my blog that doesn't even interest the audience.

==

On a brighter note, it seems like I'm slowly getting on with learning how to appear cheerful and jovial no matter my mood. I can crack a joke and look like I mean it. And that comes in useful, because who would want to befriend or work with me should they know my true colours. Yeah. damn you, shallow people. Damn you, reality.

==

School today was harrowing, but at least I got out early. There's so much homework/paperwork/criteria/etc to settle, so little energy in pathetic me.

And no matter how hard I convince myself to look at things objectively, it seems, that, I'm being shrugged off by someone.

==

Oh, expect my blog to be boring as hell over the next 8 weeks, because:
blog = about my life
my life = school and nothing else
school = boring

Therefore: blog = boring

New Internet Meme!

(usual disclaimer of how this isn't meant to be derogatory to any beliefs, but hey, it's just a humourous adaptation of Russell Peter's famous quote)

Feel free to spread this around!

A dollop of randomness

Achey. Stupid run to Yishun proved to me how unfit I am, and I have abrasions on my feet and achey calves to prove it.

My my my my TV makes me so bored
Makes me say oh my Lord
What is this garbage here?
Wanna cover my eyes and plug my ears
It sucks, and that's no lie
It's about as much fun as watching paint dry
Lowers my IQ one notch
And that's the reason why, uh, I can't watch
- Weird Al Yankovich - I Can't Watch This

Last night was a weird medley of dreams, and I am so glad that it was only a dream that I found my brother's tag on the cbox on my blog. I slept for 10 hours, yay.

STOP! Primetime!

In a freaking good turn of events:
...students are required to sit for a Medical Ethics Vignette Test on (date/time) in place of the Ethics Case Study (ECS).
A one-off test is wayyyyyy better than the long drawn torture of doing that thorny case study thing. Yay for Dean's Office not being total prats. Still can't forgive them for the way they tell us of posting details only on the friday afternoons before the week of the new posting.

I've lotsa library books that are due, and I barely read them. The comics, I did, but novels, bah. I no longer have the concentration or drive to read them cover to cover, at the ripe old age of 22.

Agenda for the rest of my pathetic 3 week break:
Visit frog farm with family on Sunday
Get HK photos totally sorted out, cropped to 3:2 to print
Return library books, maybe trying to finish 1 more
Bring crappy MP3 player to repair place
Textbooks for new posting

The conclusion of a 3 week break, and it didn't even feel like it ever started. But it's all right now, in fact, it's a gas!

My foot hurts. So I'm preserving my mobility for just going to the library today and frog farm tomorrow. Not seeing a person this weekend, which cumulates to not meeting up since 2 weekends ago, and not until next weekend. Which may well be a good thing.

Die, days, die!

Days are stupid.

This is what happened post Hong Kong:

Tuesday: Slacked around at home.

Wednesday: Felt like crap, and well, I finished about 7.5mg (from vague snippets of memory) of amnesia and sleep inducing lorazepam cause I couldn't bare facing the day awake.

Thursday: Woke up hung-over, barely able to walk, stumbling alot.



Let's just say that I got my dosages a little wrong (wanted to keep myself safely asleep and sedated the whole day) but it ended up with me stabbing my pillow with a screwdriver cause I swore it was talking to me.

I don't remember much. That drug causes anterograde amnesia, which means you pretty much forget everything that happens when you're on the drug.

Double vision. Realised I didn't shower at all yesterday. Mysterious coffee stains on shirt. Slowly got better towards the night.



Met up with AS and YC until late at night cause they wanted to make sure I was safe and all. Changi Beach's pretty fun at night, Jalan Kayu prata not so. Crapped alot about everything and hell, it was fun, AS driving us around, teasing bapoks in Changi. Thanks many many, dudes for being there when I needed some company the most.

Friday: A long jog (actually I walked alot) to Yishun just to clear my mind. HL Chocolate milk is the bestest sports drink (alternate it with plain water) if you can tolerate the nausea it causes. It provides you the sugar and protein you badly need on a long run. Took the bus back, as I was pretty damned bushed and semi-comatose by Yishun.

I'm back!

I'm back from Hong Kong!

Day 1 - Flying (of the plane ride, culture shock, seafood and scenery)
Day 2 - Playing (of big buddhas and DISNEYLAND!)
Day 3 - Learning -NEW (of the rich and famous and their culture)
Day 4 - Exploring - NEW (of Hong Kong island, escalators, transport and shopping)
Day 5 - Homecoming (of wet markets, food, shopping, flying back)
(Consolidated via tags: Hong Kong)

Homecoming

After a good morning of sleep brought to me by the letter L for lorazepam, it's homecoming day! To be honest, my parents and I had more or less finished on what we planned to do on this trip, and hell, there's really nothing to do for the rest of the day before meeting at the hotel in the afternoon to take the bus to the airport.

Tea eggs! Off to the wet market we went, and we got ourselves 5 tea eggs for the heavenly price of HKD$10, so that's SGD$0.40 each.

These are extra tea-ey, extra tasty tea eggs without the sulphourous smell one often gets with overcooked egg yolks.

Tasty! And you just don't get as them as good in Singapore. Or as cheap, for that matter.

Next is the cooked meat stall, where we bought some fried belly pork and char siew (barbecued pork) to munch on.

That's a whole load of fat!

And where do we go from here? As we've already seen and done everything, it's just mindless ambling around.

The wet markets in Mong Kok area are equally impressive, with ueberly fresh produce everywhere, like those in Central the previous day.

Feeling utterly lazy, and the weather's pretty cruel too, so we went to Langhan Plaza, which is this sprightly new shopping centre that popped out of the ashes of Kowloon area.

This area used to have its buildings limited in height, due to the nearby airport. However, ever since the airport had moved over to Lantau Island far away from the city districts of Hong King, tall and new buildings have sprouted in the recent years. Langham Plaza, which is a shopping centre built upwards rather than outwards (it has at least 12 floors of shops) is one of them.

Settled for a Starbucks Java Chip frap and a blueberry cheesecake to be shared 3 ways. They taste the same way they do in Singapore, which is testament to their consistently high quality. Prices are similar to Singapore, which would mean that this would be relatively more inaccessible to Hong Kongers, considering how much less other foods and drinks cost them.

I shopped around while my parents lazed at Starbucks and got myself a nice Nike black/yellow/grey bottom! Yay!

Back at Starbucks and we were still feeling lazy, and I whipped out my DS together with the 2 girls at the one side of my table and the lady at the other side. Gosh! The school hols are ending and yet I'm not through with Pokemon FireRed!

Seems like the DS is slightly more popular in Hong Kong than Singapore, and the games and accessories are priced about the same though I notice literally everyone uses a flashcart. Yay for piracy!

Oh, and we got sat kei ma, an eggy, floury biscuit made of biscuit bits stuck ogether with sugar. I've always been a sucker for these, so I bought 3 packs of them, along with egg rolls and sesame mochi!

Yay for my keen eye for hidden snack places!

Ambled around mindlessly until it was time for a late lunch, before heading back to the hotel, getting our stuff and going back to the airport.

It's sad, 5 days of Hong Kong and it's going to end. I hate endings.

At this point, parents were getting cranky and whiney again. This is bad. Sigh. Damn you ageing!

We went to this off-the-main-road eatery near Mong Kok MTR and ate the last few classics that we had not tried yet.

Can I comment on the milk tea first? The milk tea here is GOOD. It tastes tea-ey and thick, the way Bishan S11 does it.

==

And as for the food, here's to a visual feast:


Fishball noodles. The fishballs are chewy rather than soft, the fishcakes are soft rather than chewy, it's a personal preference kinda thing!


Beef kway teow. I didn't like it - the Thai Express one has better meat and stronger flavours - but mom liked it. Personally I find the meat soft and gooey and all, and it must be all that fat in it.


Back to the hotel, and the tour guide passed all the groups the Hong Kong pastries which we had ordered earlier. This is lao po bing/wife biscuit, which is a classic in both Hong Kong and Singapore. It's this crumbly pastry on the outside that wraps a jelly-like sweet paste. Tasty, though I wasa little disappointed that it wasn't as mindshattering as it's hyped up to be.


Unindentified pastry. Madde of almonds, and well, I haven't tasted it yet.

==

The flight back home:


OMG Singapore Airlines put us on a 747-400 instead of a 777-300, so the plane ride was going to be way noisier and cramped. This sucks.


Sunset from the plane. And things got a little hairy when turbulence got bad. Tried to soothe the nerves with a glass of white wine, but it only made me feel bad enough to quickly call for pineapple juice to dilute the alcohol that was already swirling in my tummy.

Distracted myself half-watching Letters from Iwo Jima, and it isn't exactly the best feeling to be bumping around in your aeroplane seat while watching the Japanese shooting down American planes. (Gee, and they're PROBABLY Boeings too) Couldn't really enjoy the movie - turbulence, sleepiness, and hell, the screen was dim and blurry and the subtitles were barely readable. It's a wonder how anyone can enjoy movies on a flight. Anyway the movie's pretty good from the parts where I had managed to concentrate on watching, though it's one hell of a sad movie.


Dinner was beef-something with potatoes. And a smoked salmon salad. Bun and crackers, with a pack of really good garlic cheese.

Oh, and rock-frozen Haagen Dazz chocolate ice-cream, Did they leave it in the unheated cargo area or something before that?

Turbulence got worse. Air stewardess spilled some of containers right next to my seat while clearing the trays. That's who bad it was, and the the pilot didn't even switch on the seatbelt sign. Ugh.

Evil tip, but if you're on Singapore Airlines, remember to bring a 2-pin earphone adaptor so you can use your isolation, earplug-style earphones to block out the engine noise while getting good sound quality. But even better is, as they hand you their own headsets rather late and collect them back rather early, you'd get a whol half hour more with the inflight entertainment with your own earphones.

Then the boring details:
Touched down (the landing was surprisingly smooth.)
Flurry of SMSes as I finally got to replying those I had received while I was in Hong Kong.
Airport. Arrival hall.
Bought duty-free beer and wine.
Lugged everything back to the taxi, and the ride cost $17.

Home! A flurry of unpacking, and here I am.

Exploring

Breakfast at Metropark Mongkok is a bad way to start for the day. For 50HKD, you get cold pancakes (than never got refilled when the tray was empty), mushy scrambled eggs, pastries that ranged from 'I can finish this if I just force myself to' to 'my &*@^#knife can't penetrate it'!

I hate to say this but: The hotel is OK but the food is really horrible. AVOID.

==

As planned, a bus trip (buses are crowded on weekends here) on a Kowloon Motor Buses-run Volvo B9TL ALX500 (those brand spanking new wheelchair accessible buses, similar ones found in Singapore).



Star Ferries. At HKD$2.20 you get to ride in the air-conditioned deck from Tsim Sha Tsui Terminal to Central Terminal, which is really a steal that pwns any mode of transport in terms of price or scenery. I'd wager that it's one of those historical modes of transports that the Hong Kong government pours money into to sustain, same for the tram system.

Surprisingly fast and smooth. Though the view got a little boring after staring at so often already.

If you come to Hong Kong, take the ferry at least once though! That's what all the guidebooks say!



Spartan but comfy.

==


On Sundays, Central area is teeming with Filipino domestic workers, as it's their designated off-day of the week. Every shopping mall, every corridor and every nook becomes their picnic spot. They even gotta cordon off a couple of roads for them.


Mom suggested taking a look at the world's longest escalator, which links to the Midlands, somewhere near the foot of Victoria Peak.



Went off track to explore the REAL Hong Kong. Its markets, its alleys. This is the real Hong Kong we'd been missing the past 3 days!




Vegetables here are particularly fresh cause they come right of Mainland China or the New Territories.


Roadside stalls.


Traditional stepped slopes. But oh wait, where's my sesame paste dessert! I just can't seem to find it! It's a classic must-try in Hong Kong, but it's nowhere to be seen.

Went back on the Midlands Escalators and passed by SOHO, short for South of Hollywood Road, where the British expatriates love to stay. It's pubs and bars galore, not to mention next to Asia's clubbing capital Lan Kwai Fong. Naturally, property prices are sky high.

And oops, the crowds started to thin while we proceeded on the escalators. And we found ourselves off the town, and in some upper-middle class residential area.

And no buses. No MTR. KC to the rescue! Bright KC decided to hail a cab all the way west to Sheung Wan, then tram all the way west, making mental notes of where to go to along the way. Then alighting at Causeway Bay and walking east again!

Taxi ride was harrowing. It descended the distance we took an hour to ascend in minutes. Ears popping. Scary. The cool thing about Hong Kong taxis is that the front seats are bench seats, so instead of the driver's gearbox you get an extra seat, allowing for 5 passengers.

==

Tram ride, at a miserly HKD2 flat fare. It's probably running at a loss too, but with the government pumping in money to preserve it. Popular with the Filipinos and the Happy Valley horse-racing gamblers.

It's really slow though, so if you're neither into sightseeing or dirt-cheap transport, avoid it. Even the oldest Leyland buses overtake you at the snap of a finger.

After you get your bones jolted enough once you'd never want to ride on a tram anymore, unless you find yourself a miser in Hong Kong.

But, hey, you just gotta try it once, no? It's like Hawaii without the beaches or France without the Eiffel.

With butts still ringing from the vibrations, we got off at Causeway Bay area.





==

Hong Kong fast food! The biggest chain's Da Jia Le, and it has a really wide menu though with a couple of hits and misses. The (unnamed) tomato-seasoned-chicken-leg-over-rice tastes great, though the fish is strictly in the 'bleagh' category.

But as always, the desserts are the clincher, and they have this really tasty red bean ice cream drink with the red beans just done right so that they're still chewy rather than soggy and mushy.





==

'Beating little men'. The customer asks the medium to curse a person by whacking a paper effigy with a wooden clog.



==

After some walking in circles (the maps we had aren't exactly accurate) we found Times Square, which is, like, THE shopping mall of Hong Kong Island.

PageOne (moved to 9th floor rather recently) there is good for getting postcards, but books aren't cheap. There's a G2000 at the basement where I bought formal shirts. There's a huge departmental store, and lots of upmarket restaurants.

And yay, CD Warehouse had my L'arc En Ciel CD at a reasonable price! Mom got a Phantom of the Opera DVD.

Quirk is, the whole building's 12 floors of shopping, and some areas aren't quite connected, so it's quite a mess.

Hong Kong's adopting Singapore's foodcourt culture, instead of small eateries in shopping malls. You can sometimes find Singaporean favourites like roti prata and char kway teow in these!

And finally! Sesame paste at the void-deck food court!



==

Went back to Kowloon by crowded MTR, to get some trinkets from the night market Temple Street (affectionately termed Men's Street in contrast to nearby Lady's Street. Actually they sell similar stuff.)

Got a bunch of fridge magnets at a good price. Yay for mom's bargaining skills!

And on the way back, I led my family to the wrong direction of the main road, which was a really good thing because...


We found yet another Hong Kong classic! Steamed egg pudding! We got the traditional egg custard one and the milk + egg white one, and though my parents preferred the original, I found the overcooked-egg-yolk taste too overpowering and polished off the egg white + milk one instead.

Yay! Another to-do off the list!

==

Had a quibble with dad. so I should not correct him when he's obviously in the wrong? Bah.

It sucks when parents are getting old and senile and start acting like little kids again.

Took a REALLY crowded bus back to the hotel, which was a bad decision because we couldn't see where we were going, until we heard 'Sham Shui Po' on the PA (they have an electronic system that reads out and displays the stop name) which means that we had overshot the hotel by 1 MTR station.

A long walk.

3 cranky people.

Argh.

And I've got this chunk of plastic broken off my spanking new camera and I don't know how.

I felt sad.

==


The pirate booty.

Felt jittery and couldn't sleep, so popped a couple of those lorazepams.

Learning

After 2 days of light rain, fog and muted sunlight, the scenery's glisteningly gold again! Yay. This day oughta be good.

How's Hong Kong so far? It was tiring, activities packed from early morning to late at night, for the reason that Hong Kong hardly sleeps, neither will you. In places like Australia, shops keep a tight 8-5 schedule, while you get major shopping malls closing at 11 or 12. The hotel room's pretty much just for sleep alone. There's so much to do, so much to see, you're pretty much on your feet all the time.

Expect to get very achey calves when you visit Hong Kong.

Dim sum breakfast again! These are fried pastry thingies with prawns in them which was the highlight.

We're sharing today's tour leader with another group, which means 30+ people tagging along, making everything a major squeeze.

Did I mention? My family was meant to be on that other tour group which flew into Hong Hong a day later on Cathay Pacific rather than Singapore Airlines. However, the travel agency wanted to even out the numbers between the two groups, and thus bumped us up to Singapore Airlines for free (usually at a $70 per person premium.)

Of course, what we really wanted was to have the tour guide for ourselves rather than spread out among a larger group of 20. And yay, we got the good tour guide!

Well, there's the prerequisite salted pork congee (yuck) and har gow (steamed prawn dumpling) and siew mai (steamed pork dumpling) - which were all good anyway. Better than yesterday's at least.

==

Repulse Bay, south of Hong Kong Island. Where the rich and the famous live. Where the lifeguards outnumber the swimmers, and are so tanned and well-built, I suspect they're there to ogle at each other.

I left my camera's white balance to the wrong setting by mistake, which made everything extra blue and scenic!

There's this shrine along the beach that the older ones in the tour group took extra fancy to. Supposedly, the rich and the famous come to pray and remember - never touch the feet of the statue or your devout wishing would all go to waste!





It's embarrassing when the tour guide's assistant told me to pose with this deity that provides bliss in getting a girlfriend or something, since I'm, well, supposedly at that age. Ugh.



==

Aberdeen port, where all we really did was to take in the skyline and ride on this really bumpy bumboat that made me near seasick. The tour group took each others' family photos, but urgh, mine's to embarrassing for here.

There's this really cool floating restaurant smack in the middle of the harbour that looks really grand and all, but the guidebooks all say it costs a pretty penny.

Altogether, I won't come here again, not for the seasickness, not for the boats or sampans or ferries which we see all over Hong Kong anyway.


==

Jewellery factory. Boring. They're just out there to sell stuff. No pictures.

==

Wong Tai Sin temple. Supposedly the most popular of them all. But with lots Chinamen jostling and with me being a totally unreligious person, I was bored to tears. Or, wait, it was the incense making me tear.



==

Lunch was roast goose, which, to be honest, tastes ENTIRELY like duck. The tour guide says that many other smaller eateries try to pass off duck as goose, and I honestly don't care. Either way it tastes like chewing on a shoe!




Some hits, many misses.

==

Shop selling dried herbs and seafood for boiling soup. Boring. They're just out there to sell stuff. No pictures. It's a hot and tiring day and I drifted asleep on the bus...

my last memory being shifting my head as I had been drooling onto my shirt...

and the next moment I was jolted awake.

==



Avenue of Stars! Not too much about the handprints (Eric Tsang's hands are surprisingly stubby) but the view of the sea is just terrific. But the heat is scalding, and we had to stop at Pacific Coffee halfway to chill.


Bruce Lee terrifies Hong Kong Island!


Rich men in their helicopters.

The tour ends, and parted ways with the tour group, and went to nearby Nathan Road at Tsim Sha Tsui to shop. Didn't really buy anything, walked all the way to Harbour City, which is Hong Kong's equivalent (only bigger) of Vivocity, with shops of every kind. Oh, and they have staff stationed all over to guide people to the various sections. (It's REALLY easy to lose one's way in there.)

==

There's this CD shop, but sadly, no L'Arc En Ciel which I was hunting all over for.

Stuff there isn't cheap that's for sure. Especially sportswear.

==

Reached Wellcome supermarket there. Did you know that Hong Kong's Wellcome, 7-11, Manning's and Singapore's 7-11, Cold Storage, Shop n Pay, Jason's, Guardian and Photo Finish are all under the same parent company Dairy Farm Group? Now you know.

They sell sandwiches with lotsa veges inside, Subway style at half the price, and they gave out samples that tasted excellent. Also, their custard rolls are to die for!

Bought various stuff, including the obligatory stocking up of chewing gum (they ban the sales of chewing gum in Singapore.)



Short notes: Mcvite's biccies are cheap here. Hong Kong Coke Zero is way sweeter (though not as sweet as Coke Light) than the Korean imports we get in Singapore.




Skittles bubble gum is like the normal stuff except it leaves a little wad of gum when the sugar dissolves. Pop in another Skittle to refresh the taste, and you get a larger wad of gum. Repeat until you get a large, blowable gob. Managed to blow a teeny weeny bubble only after many tries, so I wonder how y'all do it!



Popped by an Internet cafe, checked mails, caught up with stuff. And yay, did the transaction all in Cantonese.

==



The MTR is easy to use. In fact, it's used in the exact same way as the MRT in Singapore. Press the destination's button on the machine, put in the coins, and collect your tickets. Easy peasy. It's a friggin replica of Singapore's MRT, down to the prominently-labelled exits and tunnel smell.

==


Hotel. The eatery nearby. I know you're gonna be grossed out, but well, this is beef organs, and hey, it doesn't taste bad at all.

Parents aren't too naggy or irritating. I think it's the tiredness setting in. Waking at the crack of dawn and returning to the hotel rather late at night sure keeps people too tired to bitch and moan.

The next day's totally free and easy, and it'll be a day of exploring Hong Kong Island proper!

Stared at the map silly but still couldn't decide on an exact plan to explore the place. Heck, we'd adlib along the way once we start off taking the bus to the Star Ferry terminal then enjoying the views as we cross the harbour.