Zooooooom.........

Wow, time sure flies...I'm gonna be going back to good 'ol Van-city soon. yay!! I miss home soooooooo much. Although I hafta admit, HK was a good time away to hangout with friends that I don't see very often and to have lotsa thinking time =) Now when I go back to van it'll feel so weird not seeing my friends that are living in HK every week.
What I will miss from HK:
- friends
- NO TAX!!!
- cheap food...yuuuum, fooooood.....*drool*
- cheap shoes and clothing (generally)
- basically all kinds of shopping

What I will NOT miss from HK:
- weather and humidity
- pollution
- the crowds
- ppl smoking inside restaurants

Self-esteem rollercoaster

I have realized that you must have a good steady self-esteem to be able to live in HK. One day you can be considered fat and the next you can be called "lang lui" by some person in the market (although they just say that to make sales...but still. haha) Honestly, I am probably considered fat in HK and I definitely don't think I'm fat. When I go clothes shopping, people look at me funny when I tell them that I'm not a size 24 or I'm not a size small. It's funny...sizes here must be like super smaller cuz I usually never wear size med and yet that's the size I usually get here in HK. hmmmmmmmm

Talking about beauty...it's so funny here. Over in Vancouver, people want to be tanned. They don't want to look pale. Yet here in HK, ads are everywhere about whitening your face - you want to have a milky white face so use this product or that product to help keep your face "pure" looking. Well, I think i'll stick with the tanned look...too pale makes you look like a "say see". hahaha. Oh well, I guess it is true - beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Yet another weekend

I find that weekends are really tiring...that's cuz I go out from morning til night with friends =) This weekend was a shopping weekend for me. Boy oh boy, did we ever walk a lot. On saturday, my friend and I went to this mall in Kwun Tong which we thought was a 24/7 mall. It's called apm...and we had heard that this mall is a 24 hr mall. Man, were we ever duped...it's not!! We spent a lot of money going there (cuz it's far and we took the MTR) and then found out that the stores close at 11 pm. Harumph. The mall is pretty big though...but nothing too special. Plan B was going to Mong Kok. Now that was cool. Lotsa little stores and shoes galore! haha. My kind of stuff. And things were cheap! Shoes for $50 or less (HKD). Went through the ladies market too. I think we ended up shopping for like 6-7 hours! insane, eh? Today I went with another friend to Mong Kok and I bought another pair of shoes again...lol. You get the picture...a definite shoes frenzy weekend. haha. But alas, I'm all shopped out. Or am I?

On another note, why do people hafta make out in public? blech...

A Blur

Wow, it's already Tuesday...these past few days sure went by like a blur. I guess the good thing was that I wasn't really bored. YAY! hmmmm, most of the time I spent with friends from the good ol' Van-city. How I miss home already. Bunch of them were leaving after the weekend so we all tried to meet up. It was nice =) Went out to eat a lot and walked around with some of them. I also got my haircut this weekend. Nothing too drastic...not that daring. LOL.

Yesterday was Buddha's birthday apparently...so another holiday here in HK. Went to Ocean Park with my aunt and cousins. Man, was it ever HOT! And it wasn't even super sunny!!! But I guess I shouldn't complain because the night before it was raining pretty hard so I prayed for no rain and there was no rain. Me being the person who doesn't like rides,went on kiddie rides cuz my cousin wanted me to go with her. Those weren't bad (thank goodness...haha). We saw a bunch of those animal shows and also saw some pandas. Those pandas are soooooooo cute!!!! Took a ton of pics of them. hehe.

Panda

Sleeping the day away

Transportation

I think I've taken most of the common transportation here in HK. The most expensive is of course taking the taxi unless you're with 4 or 5 people then a taxi might be cheaper than all other types of transportation. The mini bus here is really cool. It only holds a max of 16 people and you can tell the bus driver where you want to get dropped off (as long as it's along the route). There's no specific bus station for the mini bus. If you want to get on, you just wave your hand and it'll pull over. The ferry is cheaper to take than the MTR. You can get some nice view of the harbour from the ferry. But usually I take the MTR (subway) b/c it's the most convenient way to get around. I live on the HK island side so if I want to cross the harbour it'll cost more on the MTR than the ferry which is why sometimes I'd rather take the ferry. The cheapest tranportation is taking the tram or what we call the "ding-ding" (b/c whenever the tram driver honks, there's a bell sound making that ding-ding noise). It costs only $2 HK (so about 30ish cents canadian). Cheap, eh?

On a totally different topic, I watched a horse race for the first time on our apt's balcony. I thought it was really cool. Of course none of my cousins were impressed b/c they see it all the time (there are horse races every wednesday). Horse racing is such a big thing in HK. So many people follow it and make bets on it.

What to do...?

So the last couple of days I've been quite bored out of my mind. The weather has been crappy so I've been stuck at home doing nothing. It's been raining and pouring with some thunder and lightning. The good thing is that I've gotten a lot done in my planning for the September practicum. The sucky thing is that I feel like a blob. pooey. Started to tutor my cousin today. Went through some SSAT with him (some exam that he has to take to be able to apply to private schools). One thing about having to tutor is that my evenings are all booked up. I can't really go out with friends cuz I need to stay home to help my cousins with their homework. I'm free during the day but most of my friends are working. I guess I have the weekends to look forward to. yay.

I can't believe i'm saying this...

The day has come where I have to admit that I don't want to eat anymore. Me, the lover of food has gotten tired of eating different things. The past few weeks I've been eating soooooooooo much, that finally I can't take it anymore. By dinner time today, me and my bro both agreed that we're sick of eating (after having to eat so much for dinner...not that i'm complaining that dinner was bad cuz it wasn't. We had peking duck).

Well, today is the last day that my family is here in HK. They'll be flying out tomorrow to return to Vancouver. Then it'll be one full month by myself here. Hmmmm, that will be interesting i think. I bet my cousins are probably sad that my bro is leaving. Now we don't have 4 ppl to play card games...it'll only be 3. And we don't have 4 ppl to play MJ. hahahaha (I taught my cousins and bro how to play...oops, guess i'm kind of a bad influence...hehe)But at least i still get to go bowling for free at the HK Cricket Club (relatives have membership there). hahaha. Bowled my best score today ever! Not that it's high or anything. I got 135. WOOHOO! hahaha

I've never heard of this until today...eye lens replacement. My great-uncle told us today at dinner that he got it done. At first me and my bro thought he meant that he got his glasses lens replaced but then as he kept talking about going into surgery and having your eyes pulled out of your socket and replacing your lens with some gel-like lens to correct vision, we were both like.....oh my goodness! (and kinda grossed out cuz you are still awake when they do that). So when i went home, i googled it to see if it was real (cuz my great-uncle jokes a lot and i wasn't sure if he was serious or not...). As it turns out, it's real!!!! Is that crazy or what??
http://www.eyemdlink.com/EyeProcedure.asp?EyeProcedureID=13

I still don't get it...

Lamborghini

So this Lamborghini was seen outside of an expensive restaurant that my whole family and relatives were eating at. My bro saw it and went goo-goo-ga-ga over it. He quickly grabbed my camera and went picture crazy. But to me, it's just a car. Guess I'll never understand why guys just go crazy over cars. On a side note, outside of the restaurant had great view! You could see Repulse Bay from there. And the funny thing was that there was a wedding ceremony/reception area that was being set up. My uncle wants his daughter to have her wedding there when she grows up...she's only 10 and he's already planning it for her!! hahaha. Then he tried to convince me to have my wedding there when i get married. LOL

Well, the past week or so has been a blur. Not much to do other than bumming around and cleaning up the apt. weee, how fun....blech. But I have been watching this korean soap opera "dai cherng gum". The finale just finished this past sunday. What a good soap opera and this is coming from someone who hates watching soap operas! hahaha. I missed the first half of the series so I'm gonna watch it all over again since my aunt borrowed the whole set from her friend. YAY! something for me to do.