Friday night my Tita Miriam and her family came in to town from the Philippines for a bit of shopping and oh did we shop. Saturday morning I slept in a bit (until 6:30AM…) and headed outside for a run. Since it was Saturday and I didn’t have to rush to work I was able to run a bit further than I usually do during the week and it felt really nice.
We headed down to the MTR and rode to another part of Hong Kong Island to a mall. I bought Oh and check out this t-shirt Tita Miriam bought me
By the afternoon I was worn out from all the walking and we finally made it back to Uncle Eli’s apartment for a short bit before heading BACK to the mall (the IFC!). We ate dinner at Isola, a pretty Italian restaurant in the IFC overlooking the harbor. After dinner I had plans to meet up with Peter.
The story behind how I stumbled upon Peter is actually pretty creepy of me, but I’ll confess it anyways. Levi has been rooming with his friend Sam out in Bryan, so I was creeping on Sam’s facebook and happened to notice someone mentioning something about Hong Kong…aka Peter. So I messaged Peter who happens to live here in Hong Kong and managed to convince him to meet me and not think I was horribly creepy. There you have it folks. Creeping turning into friendship. Classic.
Peter met me in the IFC since I was familiar with it and then brought me to Lan Kwai Fong where there was a Beer Fest going on. It was pretty bustling with tourists and foreigners and even his parents’ friends were there (the husbands are pilots for FedEx who are based in HK!). We got lucky and missed most of the major rain showers that came in and out and eventually made it to Wan Chai where we spent most of the night at a bar where Peter knew a lot of the musicians that played there. It was a perfect people-watching spot. Not only was I fascinated at seeing grown-ups partying hard, but what was even better is that Wan Chai is notorious for being like the red light district of Hong Kong so Peter and I spied on all the awkward guys trying to pick up the Asian hookers. Hookers. Dancing. Cover band. I was thoroughly entertained for the evening/morning and so glad Peter was willing to take me out on the town for the first time in HK!
Sunday was an early wake up (6:45AM) considering I had been out the night before until 2 or 3AM! Auntie Marie, Uncle Eli, Auntie Miriam, Johann and I hiked a trail near a reservoir instead of Dragon’s Back this morning which turned out to be very lucky for me since the hike was about an hour instead of 3! Not sure if my tired self could have handled the latter! It was a beautiful hike though with spectacular views!
Afterwards we took a cab to the nearby Stanley Market. I did a bit of souvenir shopping in the market and then we all regrouped at a Stanley Market favorite, The Boathouse, for lunch.
I had been wearing one of my Class of 2012 A&M shirts and as I walked by a couple eating at The Boathouse I heard an absolutely horrendous comment from behind me…”hook ‘em horns!”. What? Who dareth speaketh such heinous things? And in Hong Kong? Turns out it was a lovely couple (I say lovely because they didn’t end up being Longhorns!) who had spotted and recognized the maroon & white (whoop) on my t-shirt and figured I was from Texas A&M! They live in Katy (super close to Sugar Land!) and are home hunting in Hong Kong in anticipation of plans to move here soon! How neat! What a small world this truly is!
By lunchtime I was completely exhausted! I think 3-4 hours of sleep the night before + a hike + shopping was definitely a bit difficult for me. We rode one of those neat double decker busses back to Central and I did my best to nap when I returned to Uncle Eli’s place. Unfortunately my body resisted and I basically just laid in bed for about an hour before getting up to shower and meet Peter in Kowloon.
Uncle Eli dropped me off near the Central MTR Station and I hopped on the MTR towards Tsim Sha Tsui where Peter would be meeting me. This short adventure through the MTR stations was another excellent example of my terrible navigating skills and short attention span. I finally made it out of the TST Station and found Peter waiting. I hopped on his motorcycle and we rode a bit through Kowloon and to an area full of different street markets. There were tons of fresh fruits & veggies (of unusual size I must add) and plenty of shopping (anything from jewelry and t-shirts to artwork and even some risqué paraphernalia). Peter brought me to a jade market with tons of different stands set up. I ended up buying a ring from a little Chinese woman who kept saying things about how beautiful I was or how handsome and tall Peter was. What a sweet talker. Guess it worked since she’s the only jade salewoman we bought from! Of course she said it all in Cantonese and Peter translated for me. I am thoroughly impressed with his Cantonese speaking abilities as were the other market salespeople! One man that I bought a couple of canvas paintings of Hong Kong from was so excited and impressed by Peter that he gave me an awesome price on the paintings!
Soon my once empty bag was getting a bit heavy and we met Peter’s mom and their group of friends for dinner in the night market. I can’t believe I forgot to take more pictures, but they had a bunch of tables set up along the streets and the group ordered a big assortment of Chinese dishes. It was actually really tasty and it was so neat being in the streets of Kowloon where the Chinese culture is much more prominent than in Hong Kong Island!
On a last minute whim Peter and I also decided to have our fortunes read by one of the many fortune tellers, tarot card readers, and palm readers along the streets. This particular guy had a cage of birds that apparently picked your fortune for you. ( Please note I have a fear of birds so when the guy opened up the cage to let the birds out I was like, yikes bikes! ) Peter’s said something rather general about how to make a relationship work or something, and then the guy predicted that although Peter is single now, he will have a girlfriend…just not this year…next year….hahahha My written fortune said something like in relationships I always think the other person is way more in to the relationship than I am, but by the end of the year I’m going to find out that I’m the one that needs the relationship and not them…how rude! I thought we paid for “Good News from Fortune Bird” not, “Disconcerting News from Fortune Bird”! He did say that he knew I had a good boy waiting for me back home, (but don’t get too excited Levi because he could have been talking about one of my other boyfriends ;) )
Next Peter brought me on his motorcycle out to the New Territories. I had never been that far north in Hong Kong and it was really different from HK Island, but really cool too. We stumbled upon a random pier where you could look out across the water and see the sparkling lights from Hong Kong Island and from Kowloon. It was a spectacular view!
I am glad to have crossed off a couple of things from my Hong Kong to-do list this past weekend, but every day the list just keeps growing!! Still to go…
1. Cable cars to Big Buddha
2. 10,000 Buddha Monestary
3. Macau
It’s going to be difficult though when work M-F 9:30-7 is still on the list too! I think I’m going to have to start leaving the office a bit earlier every day…
Love, stine
Glad you're making the most of your time. Sounds like fun. Can't wait to see more pictures!
ReplyDeleteNot bad, not bad! Now lets hope for 150,000 hits
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