Well technically minus two days from the front and back for traveling.
I left on the Saturday 10th, had Denny's breakfast for lunch with my dad and bro. Me and my bro bummed around the airport 3 hours before flight as told. The 14 hour flight there was absolutely dreadful. I forced myself to stay awake the whole time to ensure I was tired enough that following night to sleep. I watched a few in-flight movies: The Duchess, Hellboy 2 (lol, gawd it was bad).. then two off my PSP: Red, White and Brown (lol not a movie but still :b), and Penelope. We arrived at 8pm (11th) but somehow ended up arriving and settling down at our hotel at around 11~12pm. The location of our hotel was really interesting this time around - it was located right in the middle of a red light district. We luckily don't get attacked walking through the area as we blended in quite well with the locals.
Monday 12th - We had some awesomely cheap but good lunch at a nearby corner restaurant. Our first important task of the trip was to store browse our favourite places for our stuff! At night, I joined my brother and his friend for all you can eat Japanese at Issen in Causeway. It was everything but your typical sushi rollages - sukiyaki, shabushabu, fried potatoes, strange dishes full of Japaneseness. It also just so happened to be a special dessert night. The restaurant treated us to a special mochi ball that had a salty meat taste in the inside, soaked in a sweet broth. It was interesting, but I was already too full to really enjoy it fully.
Tuesday 13th - We met up with my grandpa for dim sum in Sheung Wan. He was already there with another associate when we arrived. After food, we accompanied him for a few hour walk around Tsim Sha Tsui's high class malls.. Apparently he wanted to look at "nice clothes" lol. 5 rolled around, and I jetted from the group to meet up with Jenny at Mong Kok. We walked the building she brought me to the last time until Amy got off work to meet up with us. We finished up the building and headed to Grand Century Plaza for dinner. Our first pick was completely full (or so the lady claimed) so we went to a Thai restaurant instead. It was good, minus the roti.
Wednesday 14th - Early morning (aka. 9am) we promptly headed to the Immigration Tower for our appointment. We managed to complete the whole Residency process and even get our temporaries, however taking all of the morning. We started with taking the elevator to the 25th floor, getting a ticket number, handing in papers, get approval, head back down to ground floor, take escalators to 8th(?) floor for another ticket and some forms, headed back down to ground via escalators then back up to the 25th floor via elevator, waiting for letters to get printed, get letters, head to ground, escalator back to 8th(?), getting a yet another new ticket, waiting, go in and get fingerprint scanned and photographed, get sent to yet another waiting area deeper into the floor, waiting, go to final station where we fingerprint scan again and get our temp papers. The whole process was unexpectedly smooth (just time consuming really)...
For lunch, I met up with Patson at 1pm at the Mong Kok station. He brought me to this rotating sushi restaurant (Itamae Sushi) which had really good sushi and self serve tea that came out of a pipe on the wall of your table. We tried out foie gois (my first time) on rice and it was GREAT. Well, everything we ate was really good except the disappointing eel that he decided to order because his friends seemed to order it a lot. Even though we (or at least me) were super full, we went and had dessert at Hui Lau Shan.
After the awesome food, we said our byes and I remet up with my brother in the area. We walked down the cheap (touristy) street markets for some of our cheap needs. I then suggested that we visit a few toy/figures stores in the area I found online - JACKPOT! We, again, just only did our browsing, checking prices and whatnot. Later that night, we met up with our Auntie Maime and Uncle Jackie for dinner at a Spanish restaurant they visited often at Knutsford. I experienced squid filled with rice, cooked in its own ink. It was messy but it was pretty interesting. There were also a bunch of other strange new tries as well.
Thursday 15th - It was supposed to be saved for the trip down to Guangzhao but it didn't happen. My grandpa felt unwell and told us not to go down (up?).
For breakfast, we ate at the corner restaurant again. It wasn't particularly filling so we had lunch a little later at McDix and had their new promotion sandwiches - Malah Pork & Chicken Sandwiches.
Later that night, we met up with cousin Angel and cousin.. (he has no english name?! I'll call him GK for Gok Kerng) so cousin GK at a rather expensive restaurant a bit south of our hotel area which was actually considered the more high class area. The place was a chinese fusion restaurant and I usually don't have good thoughts on "fusion" places but the food turned out pretty good.
Friday 16th - Our cousin Angel wasn't available for lunch due to the short notice so we had Cafe de Coral for lunch. Dude, the most budgeted food place ever. No wonder it was insanely packed. I had a full meal with 22 bucks HKD (divided by 6.5 = $3.38 CND LOL?). The biggest peeve in HK fast food restaurants is the fact that you had to share tables with complete strangers and you had no say in it.
I grabbed my "reserved" amazon.co.jp Danboard Jr. at Mong Kok in the afternoon. I also picked up my two sexy Code Geass artbooks to compelte my awesome artbook collection of awesome. Awesome I tell you.
Later that afternoon, we headed to Central to my Aunt Maime's haircutting studio where we both got cuts (and dyes - me anyways). We finished a bit before 8 to make it in time to my Auntie Aileen the 2nd Aunt's rather big company dinner in which her family was also invited as well. Half way through dinner, there was this little game where she went to each table and gave us three random trump cards. The combination of the three cards determined the number you got. I ended up getting the biggest number on the table and earned myself a red envelope with $1000HKD in it (!!). I decided to go all out with this 1k bill and use it towards something beautiful despite its costs.
Saturday 17th - My brother was unhappy with his haircut so we woke up a bit earlier and went to a local barber to get it fixed up a bit. Before that, we had lunch at a wannabe pho restaurant only because they had some free seats. While I waited for his haircut afterwards, I wandered my way to a clothing store that had my kind of clothing. I shopped there and he came to find me when he was done. After I finally got my fill on clothes, we got even more busy.
We headed to a computer centered area in the New Windsor mall to grab myself the iLap I had my eye on the other day. I am using it right now and mmm, my lap is not hot anymore - it's great! I thank you Auntie Aileen for granting my wish to get this iLap!
We went back to 188 for our final decision on our games and toys. I picked up my luberly 1/7 Hayate Yagami figure by Alter there. The size of her box was frightening... I wasn't sure how I was going to bring it home at the time actually but I would make it work somehow! I decided to keep my loot count low this time around and only grab one (the most difficult one to bring back) and leave the other ones I want for my trip down to AX later this year.
Sunday 18th - Morning I met up with Amy at the Central station where we made our way to the Peak tram. The Peak tram ride up was actually scarier than I expected as the way up was extremely steep and you can clearly see that the tram was being pulled up and down by a mere cable. It frightens you quite a bit. There was a point where our neck started to hurt from trying to defy gravity up that steep hill. When we finally got to the top, we were greeted with the wax museum. The admission was expensive but Bruce Lee was free outside so we snapped a picture of him, however only from a distance because he was actually kinda scary looking (too real perhaps). We kept going up, visited the rather big EA store slash display slash game displays/stands and then finally reached the very top of the Peak where we took pictures like the tourists that we were. The sun was insanely bright from that height so all our pictures had all of us squinting ugly lol. After being all touristy, we had McDix for lunch where I got to try out the rather talked much about Big n Tasty burger. The McDix there tastes so much better than the stuff they make us back in Canada... North America even. You can tell, from just the normal french fries even. Once again, we had to share tables with some other family, so we unluckily got the super sunny side of the table. Our backs were on fire the whole time but that pushed us to eat even faster. When we were done, we looked around a bit more and then took the tram back down. You had to sit backwards when heading down the tram AND they purposely stop the tram in the middle of the steepest part of the ride. We couldn't stop laughing to hide our nervousness lol~
We arrived at the bottom safely and then decided to take the old school trolly from where we were (Central) to Causeway because of all the time we still had before the meet up time with Jenny. The bus driver (trolly driver?) gave us the wrong directions and had us get off a few stops too early so we ended up having to fast walk/dash our way. When we arrived at the meeting destination, there was a giant swarm of people attacking this costumed by for free stuff. There was nothing to lose to I jumped into the swarm of people to get myself a free whatever-it-was. The swarm of people were ruthless - they pushed and screamed as if they were giving out free money, and the people were bums and had no food or shelter. The free thing turned out to be a little hanging good luck charm so it wasn't actually that big of a deal. As soon as the freebies were all gone, the swarm immediately dispersed too. Scary.
We ended up having to wait for Jenny an additional 20 or so minutes. When she got there, we made our way to the rumored Maid Cafe behind Times Square. It took us a while to locate it. The place turned out to be a total disappointment! Firstly, the insides were all renovated so it looked like it wanted to look a bit more higher class (black walls and chandeliers) and perhaps a bit more bar-like. We were not greeted with "Irrashaimase" or "Okaeri Goshujin-sama!" ;_; and there was no maid until some girl disappeared behind and came back a maid lol. Ok there was anime on the TV but it only lasted as long as the TV station that aired it. In the background, we listened to American R&B and Rap music lol. The drinks were decent but nothing too special. At least it was a good place to just sit around and hang out. However, due to its location and relative price compared to other places to hang out, I don't think we'd wanna go back... Jenny did mention that they were hiring male hosts so perhaps there still may be some potential? :b
After the nice break, we headed to Baby Blue where we had our dinner. The place seemed to feature seafood and pasta so that's what we ordered. The interior was nice (the dim, dark and modern candle-like look) and the food was decent. After food, me and Amy rushed to Tsim Sha Tsui to watch the laser show at the avenue of stars. It was pretty cool 'cept I was disappointed at the fact that the lasers that came out of the top of the buildings only shot out green light. My favourite building was the triangular Bank of China one. After the 15-minute show, we walked down the Avenue of Stars and took some more shots.
Monday 19th - For lunch, we had dim sum with cousin Angel at Causeway's Lee Theatre building. After food, we were lead to a few stores to find a few last minute things we needed. I met up with Simon at around 5 and brought him to 188 just to pass the time and I thought it would be cool for him to see the place that I thought was cool the first time I visited it. He wasn't too impressed, however, as he isn't that into games anymore and he had his toy/figurine fill in Japan already. After walking a bunch, we headed to Amy's workplace and waited for her downstairs as we chatted. When she was ready at 7, we headed to the meeting place to where my brother and his friends were waiting. When we got there, we waited even more for more of his friends. Finally, when everyone was ready, we made our way to Mr. Steak for good seafood and steak. After examining their menu for a good while, we all decided to take on the All-You-Can-Eat option. We tried everything and asked for seconds on most of the seafood such as conch, mussels, clams,... and meat like sirloin and lamb rack! It was insanely good. The dessert did not disappoint either.
When we were all fat and plump, us three made our way to LKF. We only managed to stop at two places for drinks before it was too late to take the MTR home. The place (Azure?) on the 26th floor had the most amazing view and atmosphere inside. It was a good find by Amy.
Tuesday 20th - Time to go home already. We woke up at 10 and did some last minute packing. Sat around and waited for our shuttle which arrived at around 12. We got there in a bit less than an hour. There was still a lot of time left, so I took the opportunity to figure out what the heck to do with my huge Hayate Yagami figure of awesomeness. It obviously couldn't fit into the size limit so I ended up taking her out of the box and left her in her plastic. That way, they managed to accept it as it is. I was only asked at every security check and checkpoint what the fruit it was. That was no big deal to me if I'm able to bring this all the way back home!
The trip back wasn't as dreadful as it only lasted 11 hours. I allowed myself to sleep this time around. I watched Eagle Eye and The Mummy with the Jet Li dragon (which was shiet). The food on the way back was pretty crappy too.
I'm glad I'm back now... I'll be gladder when I catch up with my school and with the right time schedule.
I felt sick to my stomach (literally) earlier today which included massive headaches when I got to my 8am class. I felt like shit. I hope it's only the jetlag.
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