For Every Bad Thing a Good Thing Occurs

Time: 7:47pm
Mood: Upset and happy.. all at the same time
Song of the moment: Black Eye Peas - Don't Lie

I havn't blogged in a while! I guess I've been out and about.. havn't had much time to blog!

Let me see? Where to begin? I guess I should start with my normal format: the backwards recap. Today I spent most of my day w/ my pau pau. She hasn't been feeling too well lately, we don't know what's wrong with her, and her doctor suggested that she should get a variety of things tested. I took her because all my aunts and uncle's were working, but honestly, I would have done it regardless just to spend some time with my grandma. I took her to 2 different clinics, luckily they were withing walking distance of each other. That took up the first half of the day (we had to do a lot of waiting :S it was crazy...). After that I met up with my uncle to go get my camera fixed. Yeah you heard right.. my brand NEW camera is busted.. the LCD screen is cracked. I donno what I did :( I don't remember hitting it against ne thing :( Anyway, it's gonna cost me $480HKD to fix.. quite a bit of money but considering they were planning to charge me $900HKD for it.. I'm not complaining too much. *sigh* so that's the bad thing. The good thing (it's good there's always a flip side) is that I just found out Rita's coming to HK for a couple of days! Hooray! We're both going to my dad's cousin's wedding. She's going for that, plus she really wants to spend time with our grandparents, who flew in from Toronto on Saturday. I'm looking foward to see Ri and our grandparents on Thursday (the day of the wedding).

Yesterday was quite eventful. I went on my first ever boating trip with a bunch of Freddy's friend's friends. It wasn't too expensive either.. $140HKD for the day including food :) Nice! The boat took us out to this beach area where people either chilled on the boat, went wake-boarding or went swimming. I opted for swimming :) I took my friend Johny along for the ride. it was kewls.. we ended up meeting some fellow Torontonians.. Tiffany, who just finished her undergradate degree and Stephanie, a girl doing an internship in Japan. I spent most of the day hanging out w/ Freddy, Steph and Johny.. fun times :D I think I got darker.. which sucks cuz I just bought foundation for my face. probably doesn't even match my face ne more! haha! After the boat trip, I rushed home, took a shower, then ran to Tsim Sha Tsui to meet up with Nancy and Masa. Masa came in from Japan for the day (it was his long weekend.. he flew in Sat nite.. and he left this morning!). We went to this really nice restaurant called Habitu, which was right by the harbour so we got to see the HK island night view (well.. sorta.. haha). I guess I was pretty dehydrated from the boat trip because after taking 5 sips of a martini I was DONE! haha! That has never happened before! I was red from both embarassment and the alcohol! haha! It was definitely great to see Masa and Nancy again :) I havn't seen them in a long time!

Last week my mom took me to Macau. It was my first time going :) People mainly go there to go to the casino but my mom and myself are not big time gamblers. So we walked around and saw the historial sites... mainly churches. Still intersting though.. it's very european because it used to be a Portuguese colony.

omg I still feel so dizzy... :S I felt like this yesterday at the restaurant when I was w/ NC and Masa... I felt like I was still on the boat.. and I still feel that way :S maybe I'm just tired...

As for pics.. here are the links:

Daejeon

Seoul

Macau

Hong Kong

I'll be updating the HK album from time to time ;)

WAH! Fireworks!!! :D

Time: 9:03pm
Mood: Laaazy..
Song of the moment: Foo Fighters - Big Me

I finally bought my camera! Hooray! I ended up getting the Pansonic Lumix DMC-F9. It's a purdy camera :D Cost me a bloody arm and a leg.. but it's so damn nice! I've been playing around with it all day :D My Uncle Daniel and I headed up to Causeway Bay (again.. I swear I've been there every day I've been in HK!) to buy the camera. After shopping around, we found a place that gave me the best price. They even threw in an umbrella as a gift! HAHA what a bonus! LoL!

After that I met up with Freddy and we pretty much spent the entire day together. We stuck around Causeway bay. He took me to a lot of small malls that I would have never went to myself.. they sold strange stuff.. fobby stuff :s haha! We met up with Johny later that evening to catch the fireworks. Yesterday (October 1st) was China's national day, where they celebrated the founding of People's Republic of China. With any big Chinese celebration comes a huge fireworks display the night of. We headed to Wan Chai after dindin and OMG just the amount of ppl there was just insane! I felt like a cow being herded into a barn.. just massive amounts of people. It was so hot and humid too.. I just felt bloody uncomfortable. But man it was a great fireworks show! It was hilarous, before the fireworks started, Johny told me that Chinese people had a tendancy to say "WAAAH!" during the fireworks show.. and they say it in unison. He wasn't kidding. I found this quite entertaining and I even joined in.. partially to mock them but some of the fireworks were pretty spectacular! I love a good firework show (right Jimmy? heheh ;D). After the fireworks, and being herded out of the harbour area, we met up with Freddy's friend Joyce for dessert. It's good.. I got to practice my Chinese with her. I'm slowly getting less timid about speaking Chinese, but I still feel a bit uneasy :S

Today I was supposed to meet Johny for dinner but I had to cancel. Why? B/c it was SO friggin hot today! and smoggy.. I took a walk outside with my mom this afternoon and I felt so nasty! And it was a bit hard to breathe. So I wanted to just stay in and chill. It doesn't look to smoggy now.. it just rained (actually it began to T-storm right after I got off the phone w/ Johny! hahah). I donno what to do tomorrow.. I was thinking of chillin' but I did that today. Perhaps I should go make-up shopping tomorrow... :D

I'm really beginning to miss Jimmy a lot. His internet is down.. so he's never online :( And we talk on the phone.. probably every other day but not for too long.. I can't wait til he gets here! 17 more days til my baby comes to HK! Hooray! :D

Half and Half

Time: 9:50am
Mood: Happy (I went shopping yesterday!)
Song of the moment: Franz Ferdinand - Do You Want To

It's almost been a week since I've landed in the motherland (haha) and finally the weather has been co-operating with me. The first half of the week has been rainy, the second half, rather sunny and damn humid. I'm still getting used to the humidity although my skin is loving it here (it's so smooth!! yea!). I've spent the past few days mainly with my mom. On Wednesday I went up to the Yuen Long (the New Territories) to visit my grandpa's younger brother (suk gung) and his family. I found out very quickly he's very knowlegable in ancient Chinese history because when he found out I was going to China, he gave me a brief history lesson. I must say it was quite interesting (I was surprised I understood 70% of what he was saying! haha).

Thursday I headed out w/ my mom to see her old violin teacher and his family. They're still pretty good friends after all these years.. in fact he even came to visit us with his family in Toronto many years ago. I re-met some of his kids.. his son Henry works at Disneyland and he told me he could get me into Disneyland for free! Hooray! haha! His sister Helen is an airplane stewardess for Cathay Pacific, and told me she would take me to one of her yoga classes! haha! :D! That evening I met up with Frankie and Bernard for dinner. I hadn't seen Frankie in a while, so we caught up on each other's lives :D ah it's so fun meeting friends in another setting :D

Yesterday was my major shopping day! My mom first took me to see her cousin and an old highschool friend she hadn't seen since HS graduation. It was fun listening to them ramble on about the old days. Made me wonder if I'm gonna end up doing that too in my later years. I probably will! haha! We headed to "Women's Street" after lunch to do some shopping and boy did I shop! I managed to buy 3 handbags (1 is for a friend), 4 messenger bags (2 for my sister), and... I don't remember what else I bought, but yeah.. I think I spent a total of 250HKD! not bad not bad! Still got the bargaining skillz! so much better than in Seoul.. because when you walk away, these Chinese vendors actually try to get u to come back by lowering the price! Excellent! haha!

Oooh gotta run! gotta meet my uncle.. he's takin me camera shopping (finally! hooray!)





Me waiting to get on to the MTR. It's my "I hate crowds" look. Thanx Freddy for the pic! hehe :D

In HK

Time: 9:46am
Mood: kinda sick..
Song of the moment: Mariah Carey - Shake It Off

I'm finally here! Hong Kong! My birthplace.. my motherland.. whatever you want to call it! And I'm loving it so far! Just being here makes me happy! The moment my plane landed I felt a sense of being home. Aside from my 9h layover before I went to Korea, the last time I was in HK was 7 years ago. Things havn't changed too much since I was last here except the fact that my grandparents don't live near a MTR (subway) line :s just makes getting around a little bit harder.

I've been here for 3 full days now (this is my 4th) and I've done quite a bit. The first two days I spent with my Aunt Fanny and Uncle Daniel (my mom and my Pau Pau went to Shanghai for a couple of days). I also spent some alone time window shopping for a camera and my soon-to-be Coach purse :D Now that my mom's back, I've been pretty much spending time with her. I'm glad she's here, because I can actually visit relatives without feeling a bit awkward. It's not their presence that makes me awkward, but the language barrier. My chinese is a bit rusty to begin with, and I'm still quite shy about speaking chinese. In fact, I spend most of my time conversing in english, except to my grandparents. so it's good my mom is there because she can do most of a conversing.

Yesterday was the most eventful day so far. I went out with my mom to apply for my HK ID card. I'm eligible for one because I was born here :) We had lunch at Causeway Bay and did some window shopping before she went up to visit an old friend. We spent quite a bit of time in Sogo, where I bought myself a new bikini! It was $100HKD! Sweet deal! After Sogo, we headed to my mom's friend's place. This friend was her old accupuncturist teacher.

After leaving her friend's place, we parted ways. She went to see my Gung Gung (I've visited him quite a bit since I arrived in HK). I went off to meet Freddy. I havn't seen Freddy in years.. and it was good to see a friend in a different surrounding. We went to Starbucks to just chill and catch up on each others lives. He had to go teach english on the Kowloon side and was wondering if I wanted to ride the MTR over there with him. I thought, why not, because I was supposed to meet Bernard (my other friend), and I knew he lived on the Kowloon side. The MTR ride there was just crazy.. so busy because it was rush hour. I was just sandwiched between people :s Before we got on the train, Freddy and I having a debate. HK follows certain British-isms such as driving on the left side of the road. So while on the escalator, we noticed that people stood to the right and people passed on the left. We found this peculiar. He told me that someone told him in the UK, the passed to the right, but I told him otherwise. While on the tightly packed train, we noticed 2 British men standing near us, so to indulge our curiosity, Freddy asked them. Turns out the they stand on the right, pass to the left! hahah!

I met up with Bernard in Mong Kok. It was 7:00pm and the streets were pretty busy. Bernard took me to this local restaurant for chicken and rice.. it was pretty good! He took me back to his apartment because he had spilled ice tea all over his pants (aww hahha that really sucked!) and he needed to change.. and man! His apartment was sweet! not because it was spacious (because it was pretty small). But all the rooms had a bed that was stored in the celing! He showed me... the bed is suspended by these thick conveyor-type belts and it slowly lowers from the celing. it was crazy! most awesome thing ever! haha! Afterwards, we went out for dessert, then I had to head back (didn't want my mom and grandma to worry. for flips sakes, I have a curfew here! I havn't heard that word in so long! and I'm 25 *grr*)

I'm going to visit my mom's aunt today.. apparently she's not feeling to well (she's a bit under the weather). Gotta rap this up (my mom is impatiently waiting for me!)

Seoul

Time: 8:59am
Mood: Tired
Song of the moment: Bon Jovi - Someday I'll Be Saturday Night

So I'm @ the Seoul Incheon Airport right now waiting for my flight to go to HK. I managed to switch my flight from a flight w/ a stopover in Taipei to a direct flight to HK. It leaves a little later but it arrives a bit earlier.

So this means the end of my time in Korea.

Rita and I headed to Seoul thursday night. I got to ride a bullet train for the very first time! Quite exciting! We were going so fast my ears were popping (is that normal? haha). The ride to Seoul was super fast.. I think we got there in under an hour! Seoul was a lot of fun (if you exclude some of the rude ppl we had to deal w/). It was spending going to various markets (we hit Namdaemun & Insa-dong markets) and I got to see the the Gyeongbokgung, which is one of the most famous palace in Korea. Pictures are definitely to come!

The shopping here is just crazy, but I didn't buy too much.. must prefer to shop in HK where I can actually bargain w/ the vendors. I found here in Korea, no one really cuts you a deal. Esp if you speak english (so English speaking travellers BEWARE!). One incident we had, Rita was looking into buying a purse for her sister Wendy. We went to this one stall, and she asked the vendor in Korean how much the purse was. He said $20. We walk in the store to check out the other purses.. then walked out. We began to look @ the purse again and another vendor (same store), told us it was $25.. just because we were speaking english. So we yelled at him, telling him his friend told us it was $20. Then we walked away because we were so not impressed. And everytime we asked them to lower the price, they didn't. See.. in HK, if you start walking away they usually try to reel u back in by lowing the price even more. I guess it makes me appreciate HK so much more...

Other than the rude vendors (and some rude ppl on the street), Korea's not too bad. But I can't say I'll ever come back. The country is definitely full of culture and traditions that they take pride in, and I respect that.

well, my time is almost (I paid for internet!). Pictures to come.. I know i've said that before.. but i'll put some up soon!! :D