RIP Dynamis

After 4 years, I think I'm finally truly done with Dynamis.

Soon returning from my HK trip, I find out the latest dynamis ls I was with decided to call it quits. At least the last one I was with was pretty silly... so it was a nice way to end it off. Although there are still a few pieces I was looking forward to getting, but they came too late in my FFXI career anyways. Dynamis-Tavnazia would've been nice to beat too (lol christmas music?).

RIP Dynamis.

Don't come back and haunt me, ok?

Hong Kong Trip - Day 19

It was the last day, I don't quite remember what we did. In the morning, we had dimsum at Pioneer again (that place is indeed good) and we ended up walking around shopping for last minute things in the afternoon. Me, especially, found some GREAT places to buy cheaper than major store (e.g Broadway) priced electronics but I was already low on money at the time, so I was only able to bring that knowledge with me for when I return the next time. I was able to find myself a better, smaller gaming headset (a la Creative) for my (rather rare) online gaming needs.

When dinner approached, we were invited to eat at a Malaysian restaurant by my Auntie Maime and Uncle Jackie. We didn't know the way, so we gave directions to the taxi driver to send us to the right direction. The restaurant was part of a giant driving range which was awesomely cool and had outside patio seating. Hey it was HK, so of course the weather was perfect for outdoor dining. They ordered us nothing but good food (I expect nothing less from our Dining Expert Family). They had this secret "tab" with the head waiter, so we weren't able to pay for the dinner. After food, we headed back to our hotel to grab our luggages and got the ride from Dickson's friend. As his kind of "service" was illegal, he dropped us off at a safe place in the parking lot and we walked the rest of the way. When we got there, my brother had already arrived, waiting for us. Auntie Maime walked with us up to the departures entrance before we said our goodbyes. I used up the last of my phone card money on sending text messages to my friends as we sat around for our flight to be announced.

On the fun 14 hour flight back, I watched Jay Chou in Kung Fu Dunk. Jay Chou is so adorable! I also watched the Golden Compass and some random shows... and then tried to sleep a bit. When I got back, I forced myself to stay awake the whole day to fix up our schedule. The whole trip felt somewhat surreal after coming back to Vancouver. But bringing back so much stuff is evidence enough that we WERE indeed there...

Now that the new changes to luggage limitations and stricter weight rules, it's going to be more complicated to travel.

HK is a great place to live, if you have the money to sustain yourself and without a crazy job that overworks you until you probably suicide. Good luck trying to find that kind of lifestyle though... Now I just gotta save up the money for the next trip back!

Hong Kong Trip - Day 18

The trip was nearing its end. And what's a better way to end it off with a bit of partying? That morning/afternoon, we did some shopping and then I headed to where my brother was staying so I could reserve our seats on the plane for our trip back. I then met up with Jenny and Amy (in which I was the last to arrive, being late as ever!) at Times Square and we wandered about the mall for dinner. We ended up picking this place called 798 Unit (not very restaurant-like, now is it?) in the Food forum, and we all had some form of pasta. I treated the meal (side note: I was a total noob with the credit card and signing as it was all so different) and then we went on our way to Lan Gwai Fongz.

Most of the places on the main streets were already packed by the time we got there, so we headed to the upper street and lounged there. We couldn't stay for long cuz Jenny wanted to train home so we only had a drink or two. K so it didn't turn out to be an insane of a party as we'd hoped, but we did have some private girl talk time. We vowed to return with a better knowledge of the area and a longer curfew by the next time I returned!

Hong Kong Trip - Day 17

Gambling? HORSE-RACING?

We dressed semi-formally (to the best of what we had available) for the annual GOME-sponsored (GOME's equivalent to our Future Shop but from Mainland CHINA) horse racing event called "GOME SPIRIT", and we were invited to sit in the Clubhouse with the other rich, civilized folks. One of my mom's old best friends was married to a rich business man (and the whole story about she fell in love with a handsome airplane driver but he wasn't rich, and this other guy who was ugly but was rich loved her too so then she decided to take the si lai rich life), and she invited us to join her. We first got picked up in a comfortable leather-seated family CAR with AIR CON (my first time sitting in an actual CAR in HK!) nearby our place and got driven straight to Sha Tin's race track where the gathering has already begun. He drove into his exclusive parking spot in the "horse owners" section and then gave us each a badge to get in. We headed inside, flashing our shiny badges and took the elevator to the clubhouse level. We were greeted by friendly employees (star treatment a bit?) and were lead to our table where we were fed with dim sum and the such. Then came the main purpose of our visit... BETTING ON HORSE RACING!

We weren't crazy gamblers so we basically took a good [random] swing at every round, betting 10 or so bucks (which was the minimum) and tried out a variety of betting styles (Win, Place, Quinella, Quinella Place, Trio, First 4, Double Trio, Double, Treble, Six Up...). We also referred to the cheat sheets which were provided by their acquaintances who were good at "predicting" the wins. SUPPOSEDLY, anyway. Each race was also sponsored by an technology company (e.g. Sony Ericsson, LG, etc) so they were named after them. The runs ran at about half our intervals and lasted until a bit after 6. Most of the time, me and my brother picked silly horse names like "KING PRAWN" and other times, we'd pick based on their racing history. All in all, it was a great experience, and at the end, we ended up breaking even.

After all the small change gambling excitement, we returned back to our place, rested a bit, and then headed to dinner. It was a giant family dinner with all my grandpa's children and relatives (however without grandpa himself and the failure as a son uncle the rest of the family despises). We ate at this restaurant I recall going to years ago when I first visited HK, and it was with the same people too! I had pissing prawns (lol direct translation.. for real) for the first time and it was GREAT. I also met some uncles for the first time as well. I also met Uncle Dick, who had a son, and they didn't have an English name so we called him "Dick" and "Dickson" - it was great lol. We ate and talked into the night... so late that the DOOR closed on us (wtf). We were locked out until the late night guy came to free us.

It was never too late for some drinking, especially in HK, so some of us walked to Uncle Jackie's studio which was in the area to chill. It was located on the highest level (penthouse-like) which was actually an extension for that extra level. I was lured into his recording area to do KARAOKE and my OWN SONG (gasp!) but my problem was finding the right song to sing! Another problem was finding the karaoke track for it... the actual songs I wanted to sing aren't all that readily available on the internet so I ended up picking an anime track, ahem, Bouken Desho Desho from a la Haruhi no Yuutsu. Call me a stereotype or whatever but it's a fun song so I went with that! I had to sing through the song a dozen times to get the parts right... I was also given a few tips to sing and was assured I don't sing as bad as Cecilia Cheung (ahem :b). If we had more time, I would've kept singing it even more but my vocals were getting tired, being untrained and all... so we left it as that.

He DID send me a glorified version of the song sung by me in mp3. I don't think I can hear myself sing so I'll probably never open it...

Though, I did felt like quite a star after doing that.

Hong Kong Trip - Day 16

My dad was cranky for food early in the morning, so we suggested to eat somewhere different. We made our way to Admirality station's Pacific Place since my mom mentioned briefly that she worked in that area when she was younger. Pacific Place was a high-end mall, so we expected high-end food to go with it. However, forgetting about my dad and how he dislikes high-end food, he got all grumpy and refused to try anything there after merely looking at the prices.

Me and my mom got so fed up, we went towards Causeway to find something cheaper instead. We then met up with my brother, who was lead to Admirality and stayed in the MTR to wait for us. We ended up calling Auntie Maime for suggestions of what to eat in the area. She had the time so she joined us to bring us to Malaymama's, which was an awesome Malaysian noodle house in the back street. She already ate so we talked a bit and she went on her way, suggesting us to go stroll down a wholesale street which sold mainly jewelry and accessories (around Jordan station?... I don't remember).

So all the stores basically sold the same things... It was safe to assume they all imported from the same places (similar to Shenzhen), and since there were so many to begin with, it was a bit overwhelming. Unfortunately I couldn't find anything that interested me anyways, but my mom was able to find a few cute things. Besides jewelry, we found quite a few clothing stores as well. To our treat, we picked up a few things.

We were invited to my mom's big brother's place for some good old homemade dinner, so we set out early to head to his place. We found our bus stop in the area that went straight to Tuen Mun and started lining up around 5. When ours finally came (after a few same ones that went the same way), we hopped in and took the upstairs seating. It was nice and A/C'd so it was a wonderful hour+ bus trip across HK, plus wunderful sight seeing opportunities out the window.

When we got there, my mom constantly harassed by cousin Angel via cellphone for directions of where to go. We finally arrive at a peaceful community of "Lun Houses", tall apartments huddled closely together - basically your typical HK housing district. All the houses were named ______ Lun House and me and my bro got a crack out of it. We even took a picture of their little directory (which may give you a good enough idea how much we enjoyed it hahaha). My mom's brother cut his chess game short to come and greet us, while his wife came back with the rest of the ingredients required for dinner.

A funny thing about HK elevators, apartments especially: They may have more than one elevator but each elevator goes to different floors. One may take the odd numbers, one may take evens, another may not stop at the first 10 floors, another may not stop at a chunk of floors in the middle. It was a strange concept to understand but I guess it kinda makes sense as it relieves waiting time, in a sense.

So we were on around the 30th? 50th? 60th? floor, and boy was it high up. Due to my non-SLR camera and super shaky hands, the night scenery pictures didn't turn out all that well. As for the main event, the actual dinner part, it was great! Good ol' hearty home food and fat choy (aka. HAIR). After food, we sat around and talked... talked a lot about grandma and her funny antics, what she left behind... it was a very warm, fuzzy family gathering. It was a rare moment but alas, time flew as usual, and we needed to get going before we couldn't transit our way back. My mom's brother's daughters and sons came to walk us to the bus stop where we disbanded and went our separate ways.

Just gotta remember how to make my way there again the next time...