I guess I am indirectly benefiting from the Beijing Olympics. With all the limelight on China and the Chinese, I get more than my fair share of Orientalistic flicks, a great surge over the past few years. So I went for The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor yesterday.
(Spoilers ahead)
This Mummy instalment, again, proves to have ample action and humour. I particularly liked the part when the boys compare their guys and invoking certain sexual innuendos, which I don’t think many people in the cinema caught, or perhaps they were too embarassed to laugh. Brendan’s character said “It’s not the size that matters, but the stamina.” I’m sure he meant the guns, of course. And I liked the Yeti too. They are quite cute, even though vicious. The three-headed dragon that Jet Li morphed into is so Western. Chinese dragons don’t have fat hind legs, nor do they need wings to fly. Chinese dragons ride the clouds and rein the fog. Chinese dragons are slim, streamline, not that monstrous excuse for a fat-ass as shown in the movie. They must have reused the dragon from Harry Potter and mounted the skin only Fluffy or something. Utterly unglam, and an inaccurate cultural potrayal.
With regard to the cast, I have absolutely no idea why they had to choose a Malaysian actress who doesn’t speak an ounce of Chinese properly. Sure, she’s famous, and knows some kungfu, and has that benevolent face, but seriously, no other better candidates? And why does General Ming decidedly Eurasian, and whose Chinese sound like Russian (or the likes)? Very strange, and very very puzzling.
Nevertheless I enjoyed the movie. Angela and I were pretty convinced that English is fast becoming a World Language, that sorceress 2000 years old can speak English, and cast spells in English. Great.
(And I’m so happy I have quite a few activities lined up for these last few precious days of my vacation before term starts again. ContraDiction, KTV, Angel-ism. I so don’t want school to start.)
I admit this; the field report draft was typed as the competition proceeded, so it was coherent. By the time i got home yesterday, I haven’t slept for 36 hours, and so was incapable of coherent thought, and so did not blog more in detail of what else had transpired at the competition.
Let me start by mentioning that the Game Master was none other than Dr. Robin Loon. So what happened was that M (as mentioned previously) and I were walking to get more tea, Dr. Seet met us and called us over to talk to him. He actually remembered my name, down to my surname. (I guess, then, the Happy Teachers’ Day and Happy Chinese New Year cards have not gone to waste.) So he asked me what I was doing, and upon knowing I’m going onto Year 4 in EL, he mentioned that he never sees me in the department. Like … I’m supposed to hang out in the department doing … ?
Anyway then Dr. Loon came over and he introduced us to Dr. Loon and the first thing Dr. Loon asked me was, “why not major [in Theatre Studies]?” I said I don’t know. Frankly speaking, I know quite very well why I didn’t. I hate group projects enough already, let alone having to put up a full-scale final year stage production. I might not have mentioned this, but I did get A- for my level 1 theatre module. My best grade that semester. I did struggle a bit deciding between English and Theatre. I liked both, but somehow English won me over. I decided to do English despite getting a B for my level 1, taking that step into the unknown. So looking at my grades now, I’d have to think I’m pretty lucky.
Then Dr. Loon asked me to take Dr. Seet’s other modules because it’s all fun. I took a couple, Theatre level 1 and that module about Singapore English Language Theatre. And then they said there’s still Marketing Theatre and the Arts. I promptly asked if there was group project, because that is just one thing that stops me from doing modules (except schedule clashes, of course.) He said there is, and I said I hate them.
But the bottomline of me recounting this is that I am very delighted and happy that they are such nice people. I don’t know, I’ve always felt that they are quite distant from students because they are too smart. You know, there are certain professors out that who cannot get close to students because not only that they are on a different wavelength, they are just so smart they have no choice but to treat us like babies when trying to teach us? Yes, that feeling. So now I know I can say Hi to two more lecturers when I hang out in the department. Maybe that’s one incentive for me to even want to step into the EL honours room.
This year the competition is held at the Eurasian Community House at Ceylon Road, and we are very fortunate to have it in the hall, with tables! It felt entirely like going to a Chinese wedding banquet sitting at the 10-person round table lined with purple tablecloth. There is this group of teenagers who are so rah-rah and excited that they had their laptops out on the table before the event started. I told a neighbour that it looks like it’s part of some LAN Gaming competition or something, which that many snazzy laptops out on tables. I guess because of the round tables, I got to know other people.
There’s this lady M, who’s a drama teacher with the MOE from a secondary school. She asked me if I was part of the Youth category (I’m so flattered) and then I realized she’s five years my senior and in all sense of the word “senior”, she graduated from FASS with bachelor degree in English Language and Theatre Studies. Hurh-hurh. And apparently her batch of students are still in contact with Dr Seet, and they just had a gathering recently. Amazing.
And then there’s this guy A. For the past four years I’ve been in the competition, I see him each year without fail. Never really figured out his name, and this year I met him at the drinks station and made small talk. (I feel so pretentious when I make small talk with people, really.) So that’s that. The only reason why I remember him each year is that strange accent he sports, and because he looks way too young to be his age. Regulars might know who I’m talking about, huh.
This year we have got sponsor for cookies and cakes, by Crumbs Cupcakes.
Crumbs Cupcake
The uber yummy chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter topping.
(I apologize for the badly taken photos. My cell phone camera just ain’t up to it.)
Their chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter topping is fabulous. Do check them out. We were also provided with copious amounts of Subway soft-baked cookies. So we were well-supplied with sweets and drinks (tea, coffee, etc.) to keep us filled and happy.
The first stimulus is the starting line of the play, which goes, “I don’t know, it has always been like this.” I guess the oversensitive linguist in me just had to analyse the sentence. The cogs in my brain started cranking and analyzing the sentence is the only thing I did. No reason to start writing at that point, since everything’s DEFINITELY going to change after the other stimuli kick in. So I decided to wait, sit around, feast on cakes and cookies, play my DS Lite, and chill. Add to that list, secretly smirking at people who are frantically scribbling/typing away. Not that that’s anything wrong, just cute.
The second stimulus at 8pm was “Beijing”, the city. I wish you could have heard some of the groans in the hall from the fast writers and their sudden realization of misfit. I’m not gloating, seeing how I was like that 3 years ago.
The third stimulus at 12 midnight was a non-specific stimulus. What happened was that we were all given a piece of tissue paper, and were told to line up in front of the Game Master who proceeded to issue some fragrance blend. This, then, forms the 3rd stimulus. Interesting huh.
The fourth stimulus at 8 am was too a non-specific stimulus. It involved us taking a 20-minute walk around the Joo Chiat area, seeing different types of architectures, like a mosque, a Chinese temple, Peranakan houses, old shop houses, and the President’s house (ok the last one is unintentional). We are free to identify and use any element of this walk in our play, but of course, it has to be recognizable. My partially shut down brain simply decided to bring my main character on such a walk to hunt for a famous biscuit shop.
The fifth and final stimulus is a specific stimulus, and it was Taxi Cab. It must be the modern car vehicle, it cannot be a tuk-tuk or rickshaw.
So at the end of 24 hours at the competition, and after 36 continuous hours of staying awake, I churned out a play called Smell of Rain, which is essentially a sappy romance, something that is very unlike me. Nonetheless it the easiest sort of play to write, especially when I just had my characters sit around and … chit-chat about random things.
So. There. The two days in a year I am rightfully a playwright.
I’ll be leaving the house in about 4 hours’ time to report for this year’s Theatreworks’ 24 Hour Playwriting Competition held at the Eurasian Community House at Ceylon Road (near TKGS and TKSS), which is jointly organized by the Southeast CDC. Should be much fun. And for once, I will feel entirely safe writing about murderous Peranakan/Eurasian mothers-in-law over pots of curry. I don’t know if it’s just me, but does it seem to anyone else that there’s this inextricable link between the Eurasians and Peranakans in Singapore (apart from being the minority group)? I assume it’s got something to do with the colonial bootlicking and hence having Peranakan + British = Eurasian children. Long story, politically insensitive, so shall not elaborate here.
This year Angela won’t be joining me because … she must have bad memories of last year, and she missed the deadline for signing up. So it’s me alone again, just like the first time I took part in … 2005? It’s been a long time since then I suppose. Maybe this time round I should go chat up the children, just to freak them out or something.
So there, will be away for 24 hours to be PLAYWRIGHT till later afternoon tomorrow. My best guess is that hardly anyone will read this before I return with frontline news. If you do, comment below so that I know that there CAN be some time-sensitive posts around here.
I got myself a new laptop. Indulgent, yes, since my previous Travelmate that has been with me for 3 years is working fine, just a tad slow and hot. Before I get scolded for wasting money, let me justify myself.
This is my last chance to buy cheap laptops from the school. The laptop offers by the school is at least 20-30% cheaper than commercial listed prices, and not only that, it comes with expensive softwares like Office and the whole Adobe shebang.
My previous laptop IS problematic. It gets very very warm, and because of the metal alloy surface, I cannot type comfortably. And mind you, I already have a laptop cooler running beneath the laptop. And because of the heat, I try not to overload what I do on my computer, so I can’t do all the fun stuff like playing games lest the laptop overheats and fuses.
My previous laptop is too small. It has a 12.1 inch screen, though it has great portability, my eyes are strained most of the time. This time round I got a bigger 14.1 inch screen, which is much better for my failing eyesight.
This is a good investment of my vacation part-time job pay. Instead of spending it on frivolous things like shoes and clothes, and slowly seeing my money seep away from my bank surreptitiously, I know where my money is invested exactly. And in another sense, this laptop is a testimony of my vacation job.
I really wanted a new laptop so that I can play some games on. For example, Caesar IV, which takes a huge toll on my previous laptop with its awesome 3D graphics.
There, five excuses reasons to convince myself it’s money well-spent. You must be wondering which brand and model I acquired. Well, I bought an Acer laptop. Sure, I know of everyone’s opinions about Acer, about how you should never get it unless you have no choice, and how it’s really lousy, etc. Well, I’m not much of a crowd-follower as you know, and maybe there’s just that little tinge of Taurean stubbornness in me, so I just trusted my own intuition and rational thought. In my years of using laptops, and knowing people who use laptop, I’ve witnessed 2 Fujitsus and 1 HP crash and burn, and a couple more having fan screen failures, whereas my AcerS, the brand that is regarded to be shit by everyone else, exists. My sister’s very first laptop after she came out to work about 8-9 years ago is still around in good condition, and I’m sure it still runs, just that it has awful specs. And of course, how long a laptop lasts depends mostly on the user; I’m not the most careful kind of user (you know the sort who can keep the plastic protector on for 3 years), but I’m not abusive. So I reckon Acer is good for me, and I like this brand despite people’s perceptions of it. You’d think a company would play blind to these remarks from the market, wouldn’t you? Thinking they wouldn’t try to improve themselves after all that dissatisfaction. Besides, I’m not even sure people who told me Acer sucks have ever used an Acer for themselves. (Yes, I’m still trying to rationalise with myself over my choice.)
Anyway, I got the Acer Aspire 4930G, which has a Dolby Home Theatre sound system, CrystalBrite widescreen LCD (I loooovve the CrystalBrite screens), integrated webcam, dual-layer DVD drive, a good-enough for me graphics card, and that awesome gemstone-like slick-black exterior. I can’t ask for more.
So I’ve decided to stop procrastinating and blog a bit, seeing that I wouldn’t be around on the 2nd and 3rd of July August because … I’M GOING FOR THEATREWORKS’ 24 HOUR PLAYWRITING COMPETITION (again!) Some people ask me if I participate year after year to win, the answer is obviously not. I’m just there so that I can call myself a playwright for that 24 hours each year (complete with an ID badge to match.)
That aside, this is about my 3rd day in Hong Kong, which is the day we went to Ocean Park! I’ve always wanted to go to Ocean Park, despite them not owning a killer whale anymore. I’ve heard a lot about how fun it is, the rides and the shows, so I just had to see it for myself. Besides, no trip to Hong Kong is complete without a visit to Ocean Park, right?
We went to Ocean Park on a Friday and already it was infested with tourists. The park is smaller than I expected; yes, the hill in the middle of the park is impressive, but entirely useless except for a scary cable car ride.
KL and me at the 2nd park entrance.
We went on the rollercoaster, which had two 360 loops. The loops weren’t very high, and there wasn’t any steep drop from inclines, which makes it less scary, and consequently less exciting than I’ve hoped. We did not go on the mine train, which is a mini rollercoaster (that does not require those hugeass seat restraints), and apparently it’s faster and more fun than the rollercoaster. After the sorely disappointing rollercoaster ride, I decided I should go for the freefall ride, which Iooked really scary.
This is the freefall. It’s the 2nd tallest structure in the park, after the observation deck. According to the Ocean Park website, it is called the Abyss and it is 20 floors (185 feet) high. We did rise to the top, but we were only dropped about half way or a little more, so about 10-12 floors. Scary initially, especially when the drop first start and you can feel your butts leave the seat. Like an thrill ride it got really fun after you overcome that initial hesitation and fear. I nearly wanted to chicken out when I was in the queue and upon hearing all the screams! I myself had a great time screaming, something I haven’t had the opportunity to do since secondary school. The TKGS-trained scream - something not everyone can do, I suppose. I screamed while on the abyss, and KL turned and asked, “are you that scared?” and I replied, “actually not.”
The dolphin show as quite fun, I spent most of my time filming and capturing pictures just so I could share it with everyone. How sweet is that, eh?
Leaping dolphins. Although a little quite messy, but I thought this is quite an iconic shot. Here’s a short video I took that I uploaded to Youtube:
(When I have extra time to kill, I will put up the rest.)
The underwater world at the Ocean Park was … disgusting. They crammed too many ugly creatures in one tank that it’s just gross. All your grey and white sharks with hugeass monster stingrays and manta rays, with your stone fish, gigantic tuna and other similarly monochromatic creatures. Really ugly, I have to say. I guess i just have high standards when it comes to underwater world, since my country has the first and I think best underwater world in Southeast Asia.
Possibly majestic but really ugly, especially behind that horrible tinted glass.
That aside, the smaller fish in the individual tanks were far more pleasing. Cute little seahorses and puffer fish, colourful fish I can’t name and inverterbrates like squids and sea snails. When I was walking around, I overheard a few Hong Kong housewives commenting how a particular sea snail was good to “boaw1 tong1″ (boil in soup). So what my friend Sarah (who took an marine biology class - kickass kewl!) said about how Asians see sea creatures and think of food, and how tasty they’d be. I guess that’s how the Ocean Park can manage to promote conservation of marine creatures and sell barbecued squid at the same time.
The pandas at the Ocean Park were… panda-like, I suppose. You know, complete with the justified superstar I’m-damn-endangered-so-I-get-to-throw-tantrums attitude. Never liked pandas, and never will. I honestly won’t feel a thing if they went extinct tomorrow. Don’t give me that “but your kids will grow up not seeing a panda for themselves!” thing; because I grew up not seeing a dodo or a dinosaur and that doesn’t make me a less complete person. So there.
Despite my bad review of the Ocean Park (you can’t fault my high standards), I enjoyed myself there. Nevertheless, don’t make me go back there within the next five years, thank you.
(Cross posted at Confessions of a Late-blooming Makeup Addict)
I’m certainly making a mountain out of a molehill here, but I am so excited. For being a regular poster on the Cozycot forum (click on the badge on the sidebar, please), I was invited to a special product launch by Dior cosmetics. It was an evening of food, demonstrations and product-testing. I’m really excited about being part of this event! (Ok, excited is not me, I get it.) Never been invited to events like this, this is a first (and I hope not the last), am being a noob at it, but who cares.
The make-up artist and the very pretty model.
Looking at the demonstration, I realised I have this thing for the artists’ hipbelt full of brushes. There must be like at least 25 brushes in there and somehow I am very stoked by that. She is very funny and friendly, great for our little intimate gathering of about 20 girls. (Yes, THAT exclusive!)
We each received a goody bag with product samples, including a sample-size Diorshow mascara, and fragrance vials. Very thoughtful, and great marketing.
The new range of products are beautiful, as with all Dior products. I especially fell in love with the following:
It’s a gradated eyeshadow compact that can double-up as a highlighter and emergency eyebrow powder. I especially love the croc skin hetchmarks. Beautiful, but would break my bank. The Fall collection is called Dandy Lady, according to the makeup artist, it’s about having a little spunk in being a lady - not entirely tomboy, nor entirely docile passive female. Althought I’m not sure I quite understand how the products are inspired by such a strong message.
We also saw the preview for the new mascara, Dior Iconic and it purports to be able to curl the lashes upon application. We got to try it out, and since I was already wearing mascara of my own, I applied one layer on top of my existing mascara and I can’t say I like what I saw. Perhaps the tube I tried from was slightly dried and clumpy, although my lashes were visibly lengthened, I don’t think I like it very much. Perhaps I should have removed my existing mascara before trying out, but that’s too much hassle.
We ended the product launch with a group photo, which I will try to get my hands on. Not sure if they are going to post it up anywhere. It was an interesting experience. I got to meet some nice girls from my forum, had fun eating samosas and petite sandwiches, and had fun getting my hands dirty with cosmetics.
I know I’m slow to blog, but I’m starting to wonder if there is any point at all in me spelling out in details what I have done in Hong Kong because fundamentally it is my own experience that has no need to be understood nor shared with other people. Furthermore, blogging in retrospect just isn’t my kind of thing. Even though I kept a daily travel journal that records stuff, I don’t know how to put everything down. Nonetheless I shall try to keep up with the narrative.
On my second day in Hong Kong, I went to the Wong Tai Sin Temple, despite being a non-believer. It was mainly for photo opportunities. On arrival at the Wong Tai Sin station, I was approached by this old lady was being “nice” and told me that I have to go up a staircase to get to the temple. Little did I know that this was a trap. The staircase was littered with other old women trying to peddle me incense, joss paper and talisman. The first one who approached, I thought I could be nice and bought some from her, despite not even knowing what to do with it. Then they became relentless and tried pushing for more money from me. I got quite fed up after a while I told them outright, in Cantonese, that I don’t believe and told them to take their stuff back and cheat other people for all I care. Seriously, if their religion teachings taught them to prey on hapless tourists for a living, then I don’t think I want to go to their form of Heaven.So when I got to the temple I told one of the staff about that and asked him kindly to see what they can do about it, and after a while I saw a couple of policemen patrolling the area, standing at the top of the staircase looking at these old women. Serve them right for taking advantage of my kindness.
Desperate cheating old women aside, the Temple is bigger than I thought it’d be. Part of the temple was closed for restoration, but I think the grand temple is already opened.
Entrance
All that glorified Chineseness.
I walked around breathing in all the incense and left after a while. The weather was unbearably warm, so I sought refuge at the nearby shopping complex, Festival Walk. That was where I updated my blog previously about Pacific Coffee being a marker of civilisation (or something along those lines). I went to the branch of H&M at Festival Walk and bought myself a pair of long pants. Just because it was on 50% discount, so I paid less than 20 Singapore dollars for it. I should have shopped more I suppose, like everyone expects me to. Yet somehow I didn’t have a lot of urge to buy things over there. Maybe I’m too used to online shopping so shopping in a physical shop doesn’t thrill me anymore.
After leaving Festival Walk, I went to meet my friend KL at her university, the Chinese University of Hong Kong. This university is built on a hill, so it’s climbing, climbing everywhere we go.
See that brown sculpture in the centre of the picture? It resembles an archway, and is supposedly the Chinese character for “door”. Rumour has it that if you walk through that archway, you would not be able to graduate from CUHK. So I just had to walk through it. Since I am not a student there, and I do not intend to pursue my graduate course there, the rumour doesn’t apply, right?
After having lunch in one of the campus canteens and sitting for a while in her dorm room, we went to Mong Kok for some shopping.
Ladies’ Street, I think.
There are many cheap things available, and being cheap, there just isn’t much quality to them. Perfect location for picking out cheap tourist t-shirts, but I didn’t get any because … I just didn’t feel like getting any. The area around Ladies’ Market is mayhem; shops that look the same, streets that look the same … we were walking blindly the entire afternoon, or at least it felt that way. I guess when poor students like me claim that they are going on shopping sprees in Hong Kong, it’s the Mongkok area, since all the shopping centres in Hong Kong carry only mid-range and high-end brands like Agnes B. (nearly broke and bought a wallet there, then realised after buying the wallet I wouldn’t have money to put in it anyway), Vivienne Westwood (fell in love with a bag that cost 5980HKD), Coach, Chanel … and since I’m not really for cheap low quality crap, didn’t exactly had a helluva time in Mong Kok like my peers. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking down on cheap stuff (I love bargains, most of the time), but considering if I have limited wardrobe space, I’d rather fill it with something of good quality than something of bad quality. Hm. Not sure if I’m getting my point across, never mind that.
And so that’s about what I did on my second day there. Next up is my Ocean Park visit. Stay tuned.
I admit, I am lazy to upload pictures. Too many to sift through, and I can’t be arsed to provide copious pictorial supplement to the amazing travel stories I am about to impart.
I flew to Hong Kong alone at 640h in the morning. There’s this bit about travelling alone that I like; when I walked through the airport purposefully, I felt like I was going on a coming-of-age trip, a trip everyone should take once in their life. I took Jetstar Asia, a budget airline to Hong Kong. I think that like any other budget airlines, Jetstar took the name “Airbus” to the extreme. The Airbus 320 plane I was on felt exactly like a bus, just that it sat 6 per row unlike your usual 4 per row. I had an approximate legroom of 5 cm or something around there. It would have been rude to whip out a ruler and start measuring. Fortunately for me, the seat next to me was unoccupied, so I don’t have brush elbows with strangers.
I arrived at the Hong Kong International Airport at about 1025h. I have previously transitted through the airport, so I knew what to expect when it came to amenities. However, I was entirely caught unprepared with the queue at the immigrations. I took 1 hour to clear the customs, partly due to uncivilized Chinese tourists who cut the queue like it didn’t exist. (And yes, before high-and-mighty people chide me for being biased against Chinese, I did glance at their passports.) Also, the customs officers were just plain slow. Apart from that, not all the queues were opened. They had approximately the same number of queues for Hong Kong citizens and international visitors. Quite sensible? Not that I’m being ethnocentric, but I do see the reason why my airport is the best in the world.
Unpleasant airport encounters aside, I quite enjoyed my first day in Hong Kong. I arrived at my hotel via a designated airport transfer bus pre-arranged by the hotel staff. I stayed at the YWCA Anne Black Guest House and I really liked my room. It was small but well equipped with a mini-fridge, a television mounted on the wall brackets, a good-size bathroom (compared to what my friend told me about Japanese hotel bathrooms) with clean towels and travel size toiletries, a clean bed, a writing desk, and a huge wardrobe. I liked the fact that the floor was tiled and not carpeted; I have a pet peeve against hotel carpets; you never know what gets spilled/sprayed/thrown on them. My hotel resides on a slope, and is a ten minute walk to Mong Kok East KCR (one of their subway systems) station. The surrounding is residential, so it’s quiet and tranquil in the night. The area is hence much more secure to staying somewhere along Nathan Street, I suppose.
After I settled in and unpacked, I took my map and ventured out. I took the KCR to Hung Hom Station, which is the nearest station to the Museum of History that I want to visit. Since I was in the Hung Hom area, I paid a visit to the Hung Hom Indoor Stadium.
Well, it looks like an inverted pyramid stabbed 18 feet into the ground. I guess outside aesthetics isn’t nearly as important as the shows staged here.
I then made a visit to the Museum of History, and I really enjoyed myself there. The thing about visiting museums in other countries is that I can see how they build a statal narrative, how they present and construct their history as one state. The Museum of History is quite successful because they have uncovered evidence of prehistoric life on Hong Kong Island and Lantau Island and hence can make claims of a Hong Kong identity.
The museum is big, and hence contains many exhibits and BUILDINGS. Yes, you heard read right. They are able to pack life-size buildings of old Hong Kong into the exhibition area.
(Pictures of the “Story of Hong Kong” permanent exhibition.)
Instead of indulging in something entirely touristy like shopping or going to the Peak, I went to the museum to experience some form of culture that gives me and inside view to Hong Kong in an instant. Since it was a Wednesday when I went to the museum, entry was free of charge for the permanent exhibits. I see many locals wandering around looking at the exhibits and I wondered if the Singapore museums are ever that crowded on free entry days.
After my museum trip, I walked around in the Hung Hom area for a while before taking the KCR to Sha Tin to meet my friend KL for dinner. She’s doing a summer course at a university there, so I singularly decided I should take a vacation in Hong Kong to visit her. We met for dinner and walked around in the shopping complex for a bit before we parted ways, and arranged to meet the following day to take a tour of her university.
Detailed blogging tomorrow when I feel like it, just a quick one now before I unpack. Now let me whine a bit.
Contrary to what everyone assumes I would do in Hong Kong, I did NOT go on a crazy shopping spree. I sincerely have no idea where I spent my money for my loot is minimal. I only acquired a pair of long linen pants, a cotton sleeveless blouse, a scarf and a bangle from H&M, a straw bag and two pairs of earrings from Argyle Centre, a pair of slippers and a pair of Birkenstock wannabes from Baleno and a pair of New Balance running shoes. I did not buy any make-up items. So I have no idea where the rest of my money went. Probably down my stomach, and spent on random souvenir items. And transport.
I had an OK time in Hong Kong, having a lot of time to myself to walk about and see stuff. But I think some people feel that I could have stayed there for a shorter period of time if I cut out my museum visits and random days when I have nothing to do. Which is something I might agree with; if not for some prior (mis)conceptions of the amount of things I had wanted to do there, I could have better planned my trip and save on my hotel stay. Alas, all is over, so please just stop telling me so-and-so got a 5D4N trip to Hong Kong for $3 or something.
I had a brilliant itinerary planned out, but somehow it just didn’t materialize. I gave The Peak and Central a miss because I just didn’t feel like travelling to places after day 3. Maybe it’s because somehow it was decided, 18 hours before my flight, that I should go to Ocean Park on Friday instead of Monday like I planned, so the flow just wasn’t there anymore. Or maybe it’s because I assumed it was going to be rainy there so I brought my not-so-confortable yet waterproof shoes so I was stricken with numerous blisters and a strained ligament so I couldn’t walk around as much as I wanted. Or rather, I walked too much too fast the first few days of my trip I ran out of steam by day 3.
But then I can’t possibly say I had a bad time in Hong Kong. I visited museums and had a great time there. This is not something typical people would typically do in a typical Hong Kong trip. I did most of the things I set out to do, so I’m somewhat appeased. (I think I will be further appeased when I chuck those blister-giving shoes from the 13th storey.) I can’t say I have regrets for this trip, because having regrets simply means I didn’t try hard enough. I’m back home with certain good memories, and I think that’s all that matters.
Lastly, I don’t think I’d be returning to Hong Kong within the next five years. There simply isn’t anything that makes me want to go back badly. On the other hand, I think I will go back to Macau at least once more before this decade is over. That place is beautiful for most parts, and I’d really want to go to the different casinos.
1. Rayban aviators
2. A lip gloss that doesn't make my lips peel
3. Armani Diamond fragrance
4. A trip to Japan & Hongkong
5. A new laptop
6. Apple iPhone
7. Guitar Hero on DS
