Weekend's here and it's gonna leave soon!

Friday (24 Oct)

Peter went to meet his mother who was going to be here for the weekend to settle some stuff with the President of the hostel, Mdm Chee. So, poor Ruiming kinda had to wait for me for more than an hour (Peter left office at 6pm, I only managed to finish by 7.15 :/ ).

We met Aunty Lay Hwa briefly at Mannings (yes, it's just Guardian pharmacy-like) where she was going to pass me the 3 Halloween Bash tickets for next Friday's Ocean Park trip. She didn't want to accept the money that I managed to squeeze out from the boys to pay her! It costs HK$285 per ticket and she just wont take it, saying: "No worries! Enjoy! Hopefully you 3 will remember me for every halloween." - totally not helpful at all! I warned her terribly that my mother would scold her, which was promptly done :) Thanks anyway Aunty Lay Hwa - the tab is just filling up for my mother when she pops by HK next time :)

Anyway, Ruiming suddenly had an idea to go to Tsim Sha Tsui so we took the MTR from Quarry Bay to Admiralty, changing lines before dropping off on the red line at Tsim Sha Tsui.

Finding our way around that area, we ate at this Korean-like restaurant. I realise I do that automatically now. View the prices put on the outside, BEFORE figuring what I am to eat haha. It probably irritates the boys to hell though :)

I had some beef slices noodle with soup for HK$26 i think.

Ruiming had some Ma Lah (Si Chuan Spices) beef noodles with soup.

Walking around we were on his mission to find my slippers, which was not fufilled in the end :/ But the night skies were pretty as we took the ferry back to HK island :)



Saturday (25 Oct)

Ok I have to admit, that lately Ruiming has been showing me some animation fight scenes from the Japanese cartoon, Naruto. I don't exactly know the full story, neither am I as addicted to it as Grey's Anatomy, but I have to say that some of the fight scenes are pretty nice - haha sometimes the characters are just plain funny or well, the fighting scenes are just rather entertaining. (See it all stems from the Jet Li movies la).

So last night, I kinda slept reeeeeally late. Not only cos I was having my fruits down at the boys' room, but also cos Ruiming had distracted me with a animation chapter was pretty intensed. I ended back in my room at 4.30am. But slept only at 5.30am - because my room mate was up (they all went to Ocean Park too and got back only about 1-2ish so they were still up) and with my basic minimal embarassingly limited mandarin, we actually conversed until then.

In the end: no running and no tidying up of the room (though the other girls in the next room were awfully impressed that I can keep the room super clean!).

Jeremy (came by to play soccer with Peter at the court before work) woke me to say they were back from the game and were gonna leave for lunch soon. Ruiming didnt even go play either! Haha. Well, lunch was with Peter's mom - Aunty Joyce, who wanted tim sum, so the only relatively-priced place we knew was in Admiralty near Queensway Plaza which Uncle Yee Sang brought us the last time. Bill came up to about HK$500 for 4 of us.

Ruiming, Aunty Joyce and Peter, all of us sitting on some pumpkin seats outside Times Square. They had some area that was all decorated for Halloween.

Lim Wwei, see! Same dress! Haha :)

Next up, taking a tram, we made a little walk around Causeway Bay cos we brought his mom to Times Square. Peter (finally) bought something in awhile, at Zara. This time Ruiming and I were pretty quite disciplined - with no purchases :) Tea was done at the mango dessert shop at Causeway Bay called Xu Liu Shan i think. We had amazing mango desserts again - Pomelo Sago in Mango Juice with Mango Ice Cream and Strawberry and Mango chunks in Mango Juice with Mango Ice Cream and Rice balls. Sounds like hell alot of things in only two bowls right, haha.

Then suddenly out of the blue, we were invited to go meet the President's friend, Uncle Paul (the same guy who sang really well the last time at the Karaoke outing!). Mdm Chee was away in Singapore so she couldn't join us. He picked us up from Causeway Bay and drove us over to around Happy Valley, near the horse racing course and Ocean Park. We were going to have dinner on a boat!

The entrance of the jetty. Damn bright right!

Edited: According to Lonely Planet, Jumbo Kingdom Floating Restaurant looks more like "Beijing's Imperial Palace crossbred with a Las Vegas casino," and well, it's quite true to that the food is so so. Nevertheless, it was really quite a spectacle to see the ship with gazillion bulbs and lights - I wouldnt want to imagine how their monthly electricity bills have been.

It's basically a four-storey anchored ship that sits near the jetty area, which you have to take a small bumper-like boat to this big ship.

The boat we have to take to the big ship.

This is the 'jetty' that we leave from.

This time with knowledgable Uncle Paul in front!

The restaurant

Apparently it has been around for more than a decade or two. See, it's pretty gaudy. It's like Red Star restaurant in Singapore, but MUCH more gaudy, brightly decorated and preeeetty expensive. Most of the dishes I think were in the many hundreds.

Called Jumbo Floating Restaurant, this is what you see close up.

The interior had many intricate designs and colours of mostly in red and gold, with dragons and carvings.

This is some Chinese picture-tiled wall that is pretty massive and intricate.
Probably done up from a painting and had some handwork of workers cementing mosaic tiles to create this picture.

They had live seafood too (which would probably be cheaper and fresher at Lamma island, which we three wanna go one day!) and had this immensely HUGE garupa. Like SUPER huge.

Ok doesnt look like it in the picture of course,
but it's probably the length from my head to my navel!

Aunty Joyce thinks it probably can last a person more than a month's worth of meals, if eaten everyday.

Anyway, the dinner was pretty good: Mushroom/Tofu balls, shredded crabmeat with brocoli, fresh fish, fried rice, etc. Here are just two pictures.

Fried prawn with taro paste

See dad! I am eating fish! Or least, whenever there's a chance :)

Uncle Paul likes to write pop songs! The mathematician who is actually an Engineering lecturer at the Open University of Hong Kong, likes songs by the Beatles and Elvis - no wonder he understands the complicating bits of music and well, he sings well! :)

Dinner was really quite an interesting one, with him telling us the difference in the Northern and Southern people and the fact that he cooks too. Haha plus the need to explain why Ruiming doesnt eat fish and prawns everytime we eat out with someone new :) It's a psychological thing, cos Ruiming is very into marine life and knows hellava things about marine. He has kept fish and prawns at home thats why. I guess in my shoes, I wont eat dog meat since I have Tehping (ok before that, Lucky and Happy) too.

Anyway Uncle Paul then drove us up to The Peak to have a glimpse from the Peak Galleria and Terrace, the HK landscape at night. Very different from that taken in the day!

Haha we were really very intriged by the pretty powerful binoculars (can you imagine going bird-watching with it!)! Haha through them we could even see clearly many people's homes and what they were doing!

Peter managed to see this family with a huge plasma TV, watching X-men! Well, there weren't anyone changing in their toilets, or swimming in pools, though I did see that there was this living room with terrible-looking cushions - smileyfaced ones can?!

The wind was awfully cold and strong up there and we three are hoping that autumn/winter would come soon to that temperature! Had to take out my scarf to use after, especially when I was in a spag dress.

Uncle Paul, Aunty Joyce, Peter and Ruiming

After that rather spectacular look over the city, Uncle Paul brought us for dessert at a dessert shop nearby Aunty Joyce's hotel and our hostel area.

In HK, the menus are typically placed on the walls. And cranking up our rusty mandarin image reader in the head, we always try to read the words. If it all fails, we usually just choose some meal that would have 'Beef' or 'Pork' in 'Rice' or 'Noodle' and see what lottery we strike. :)

Today Uncle Paul was the translator, which saved us the use of our mandarin image reader. Like the dessert shops back in Singapore, we had bowls of warm dessert.

We had bowls of Black Sesame Paste, Grass Jelly, Green Bean Soup, Red Bean Soup and I decided to try this Egg Custard thing - which is said to be really traditional and well, it's like realllly really smooth steam egg that is sweet. Reminds me very much of dao hui though!

Alright, there's church tmr and we have to all leave at 7.30am again :/ so goodnight! It's already 2am!

P.S. My face has yet adjusted to the air/water/food here, this is just not good :( oh and i reeeeeeeally think i shouldnt wear my sandals out anymore, it is just too risky for my liking :/