let me check where I am again..I've told about the days in training, the day without training and the day going to the buddha and back.
Instead of going straight home after a tiring climb up the Buddha's hill and then a ride to the edge of Hong Kong to an unfamiliar fishing village, it was around 6pm-ish and my host suggested we go to Mong Kok. Initially i wanted to go to Mong Kok because I was there with my guy colleagues on Thursday and found a Camel shoe that cost less than RM 200. However, because I got myself a jacket that day, I decided against further spending in an effort to avoid going on a spree.
So we took the train back to Kowloon area and boy, was it a packed train. Now, in the past few days I've been in Hong Kong, all the while the trains have been well occupied but not crowded. This time, however it was. To the brim. I guess that's what happens when you take the train from one end of the line to almost the other end of the line.
About 45 minutes later we arrived at Mong Kok. Other than hunting for my shoes, my host wanted me to try out the street food which is kind of famous in HK. While the shoes were hard to find, the food was not. The sky was already dark, but the streets were brighter than ever. Hong Kong sure knows how to use electricity.
Now I know street food is not healthy. I also hear people say 'chou tau fu' is not healthy either. But if you're going to be in HK once every 10 or so years, without really knowing if you'll ever return in your lifetime, too bad for health. I went for the broke. I had 2 pieces of 'chow tau fu', grilled squid, fish balls and even some gizzards. Yum. Sinful, but who cares? (Ok, you weren't expecting any OTHER kind of sin, were you? ME? That? how can??) But that wasn't the only sin I committed that night. Oh, just like to comment that there were probably as many kids/teenagers as there were adults on the streets that night...Scary...
My host was constantly on a look out for new games for his PS3. In addition, he is a collector of miniature robots, like Gundam and such. HK is like a haven for people with that interest as they seem to be selling them everywhere. So while I was limping my way through Mong Kok (by now my knees were killing me softly. It's nice that for the first time it's my knees giving me aches and not my feet. I DID WALK ALOT, you know...) we went around the area looking for toys and games. To think we're both over 30. Anyone believing in the New Testament stating 30 makes a man, man should rethink as we're both hardly men. (Ok, he's probably more since he's got a wife and kids to boot. No offence to the wife and kids as I don't literally mean they get booted like Beckham from Fergie or Bush from the Iraqi journalist, but you get my drift).
So one of the shops we stopped by actually sold PC games. Another quick aside, I've been looking for this PC game Neverwinter Nights 2 for a long, long while. There's lots of it sold in Malaysia, but they're not original. They don't sell the original in Malaysia (or my lousy hunting skills found nothing) and I can't buy them online as they don't ship to Malaysia (they won't let me download them either..zzz). So here was I, finding a copy of the game, in it's original form. I was hoping it was and incompatible copy, as most, if not all games in HK are in Chinese. A quick ask and the shopkeeper told me the one on display is the ONLY ENGLISH copy he has. I asked my host if I should buy and his reply was (somewhat like this) " You're asking a gamer. I don't wait until it's old so that I buy them off cheap".
Suffice to say my credit card had another charge from HK for about HKD 290. This game was more expensive than my jacket, mind you...(Sorry to disappoint anyone expecting more juicy 'sinful' stories. hehe). After that, I told my host I'm not getting the shoe as I didn't want to bust my budget. I actually could afford it (I actually manage my credit card quite well, mind you..:P) but as the other day, key to stemming a spree is to stop short from starting it.
The rest of the day/night was relatively uneventful. No, I didn't bathe in cold water again as I already knew how to operate the heater by now. Oh, it's still bloody cold.
*******
Saturday was a slow day. My host I guess had a long night as I slept much earlier than he did. By the time he woke up it was already afternoon.
The plan was lunch, then Star Ferry. HK still has this ferry service that gets people from the island to Kowloon, at only HKD 2.20. As usual, its not exactly light speed when you compare to the other transportation services available. But it was quite crowded as well. I mean, I'm not the only tourist you know..
I'm thinking and thinking and I can't recall what I had for lunch. It was something, I guess. So we went to the Star Ferry after a train ride. The ferries look a little old, but it was still fun to ride. I mean, at HKD 2.20, who cares?
That's me posing inside the ferry. Must have done something right since my eyes returned. Wonder if doing sinful things have anything to do with it?
That's a picture I took while I was on the ferry. I have no idea what it is or where it is, but of the other pictures I also took, this looked best.
Alighting on the other side, we were just next to Harbour City, another huge shopping complex. Oh, I must have forgotten to mention, HK is just one big shopping complex after another. No wonder the people earn so much, since retail theraphy is probably the most convenient one they'll find to kill the stress/blues.
I wanted to show more of the majestic deco the entrance had, but again poor skills *whisper* (equipment) let me down. There was a cruise ship docked nest to the complex, but the picture had my host in it so lack of photoshopping expertise meant that picture got the cut (the irony, hehe..)
A lot of walking and window shopping later, we decided to walk to the nearest MTR station, which neither of us knew where it was. Asking the locals only got us in the right direction, but somehow we seem to miss the nearest station anyway and walked all the way to the next one. By now my knees really, really hurt but somehow being on a holiday kind of helped me keep walking.
My host needed to get some movie tickets for the next day, so we ended up stopping somewhere in the middle of the MTR line and went to yet another shopping complex. The only thing worth mentioning was how my host proved to be a Sony faithful when he bought a Sony camera after asking several stores and finding the cheapest one. No, he didn't ask about other brands, just Sony.
It was getting late, so it's time to return home. My host suggested dinner near the apartment as there's suppose to be some nice 'low mien' for me to try. I also finally caved in and tried HK's chilli oil. It's like sambal in Malaysia, except that it's oil. Just oil. (Ok, some colouring and maybe chilli, but mostly you only see oil). I also bought some egg tarts from the restaurant we had dinner with, since everyone said their egg tarts were good. Me? So so only.....hehehe
Oops. Somewhere between the night on Friday and the night on Saturday, I returned to Sogo to buy some 'wife biscuits' (lou poh pang). It was the only biscuit I knew it's kind of HK specific and because I bought it for my Singapore colleague on Wednesday night while he went clubbing, I had some experience in getting 'that'. It was funny as I started of asking for a box of 'wife biscuit', but noticed there were other things there that wasn't too expensive. (The 'wife biscuits' were HKD 4 each. A box holds 6). So I asked for 1 each of 2 other kinds of biscuits, only to try them after a short while and found them nice. So I brought my host a round back to the same shop so I could get more biscuits. Last I checked, they were a hit back home. I obvious didn't buy enough. Unfortunately now I don't know what they're called either..hahaha..
Back to Saturday night, after dinner, my host asked if I wanted to check out the club house. Inside they had an indoor pool, 4 bowling alleys, snooker, pool, badminton courts, tennis courts, some space for boardgames and most importantly, a music room. If only I knew! I'd have sneaked in and destroy the piano!! muahahahaha. He did ask if I wanted to bowl, but by now my knees were close to giving way so that option wasn't taken up. I probably saved myself some humiliation anyway...
There was a picture taken outside his apartment compound, but it looks a little out of focus (my skills are bad, but my hosts are.....ahem...:P). Back in the apartment, we played Winning 11 and I got trashed. Well, he did have the PS3 and all I have is some rundown PC. Besides, I have the dexterity of a klutz.
******
On the final morning in Hong Kong we did what all hongkies love doing. It's 'yum cha'. That's just people visiting a nearby reataurant, order a pot of tea and then random dim sum to spend the day. my host says some older folks actually spend the whole day that way. To think the restaurants make it a point to cycle through customers as fast as possible, I guess it's not happening in a 'yum cha' place.
What I do like about HK dim sum is that the ingredients are really good. They use large prawns for their 'har kau' and in most of their dim sum, you don't get this feeling of being cheated with inferior ingredients. Its the expectation there anyway, and as with the rest of HK, the expectations of quality and service is way higher than I am used to. Not like I mind one bit, but definitely hope the standards can be met back home.....alas.....
As I was about to leave, I couldn't help thinking that I never tried their 'siew yuk' as well as Burger King. With my plane leaving at 3.50pm, I knew if the airport had Burger King then I'd have time to taste it. So as I leave the dim sum restaurant, the sight of them hanging the 'siew yuk' to dry just did it for me. before you know it, I had a takeaway of 'siew yuk' (which cost me HKD 44). I had plan it to complement my Burger King as lunch, but, as you'll find out later, didn't quite work out.
It's time to go. It so happened that from my hosts place there is a bus that sends me all the way to the airport for a meagre HKD 22. Also, it's a double decker bus!!
I tried my level best to take a proper photo of myself on the bus, but that's just as good as it gets. I got on the bus at 11am, expecting the ride to take an hour or so. However, since it was a Sunday there was hardly any traffic and the ride was faster. But, as highways are and always will be boring, so was the ride. Luckiliy some random person decides to sms me while I was on the way, so that kept me busy for a while. :)
I arrived the airport slightly before 12pm and proceeded to check in. Little did I know that the ground crew was going to offer me a seat on the plane departing at 12.55pm! I was worried that my 'siew yuk' would be a problem, as it's neither properly wrapped or can I eat it straight away as I was still quite full from breakfast. The crew thought nothing of it and before long, I was racing away to the customs to avoid missing my plane! (I know I should have waited for my own plane, in that way no rush at all, but really, who wants to wait in the airport for 3 hours??)
All that rushing meant 2 things; 1) I couldn't eat my 'siew yuk', so I'll have to take that back home. I hope customs doesn't decide to have a look, as they might not fancy the smell or the sight. 2) My Burger King!!! :(( I had no time to queue for a Whopper as the time it took me to get to my terminal was longer than I expected. Burger King is a big miss for me.....:(
The flight back was a complete non-event except for the fact I already planned to watch Dark Knight on the return flight, only for them to have a broken copy of the movie on board! I ended up watching X-Files, which was crap. sigh..
5 hours after departing and saying goodbye to HK, I was back home again.....
It has been fun, so i'll list my thoughts and learnings in the next post!
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