Making the Switch

TO LIVEJOURNAL!

Hopefully there is internet at my aunt's investment property 8)

I should be on the plane to Shanghai right about now- I love scheduled posts :D

TTFN~

Photos: Mascot, Shatin, The Peak, Shopping and Karaoke @ Neway

HI. They changed the router out in the public-ish hallway, so I have internet in my room now. :D YAY.

DAY ONE-

We arrived at the airport just around 5.30am I think. Twas all dark and yeah. Chilly.

SKIP 9 HOURS- I didn't take my hand carry luggage out of the top rack cabinet until 10 mins before landing because I was wedged between an arm rest and a fat lady and couldn't move.

GENIE!

Skip a few more hours- didn't think the photos before were too important.

Dinner with family. K+B+Bel (yeah. T_T Belle and Bel. How confusing)

CHRISTMAS EDITION!

Cute. We noticed a christmas tree shaped barcode was on the back of the can.

That's it for day one. Sydney -> Campbelltown -> Mascot -> Hong Kong (Mong Kok for dinner)

DAY TWO

Grandma is old, Great Aunt in hospital- so we were going to visit them that day. Got a call in the morning from Borbitch informing me that our Ruse09 HK crew were going to Shatin for yumcha + New Town Plaza (♥)- I rejected politely.  Then M got a call from relos, and then she told us not to go (no idea why), so I called Bosco back to make them wait for us.

Met up with Ruse09 at Kowloon Tong Station so we could take the former KCR to City One for Yumcha.

Failed pose D:

K + B + S

How much we ate...

Afterwards, we took a bus to Shatin Station= New Town Plaza- a ginormous shopping centre with super brand-y shops (ie, Chanel, Dior, etc) but also affordable brand-y shops like Baleno, Bonjour, Esprit, etc.  Many levels high- but the only interesting ones were near ground level. Frolicked around with the group before parting ways, and meeting up again to buy socks. :)

Then we spent about an hour in Uniqlo and everyone bought something? Freaking Bosco is changing his style. ;D He bought a HAT and a STOLE. But not just any normal hat or stole. The stole is hilarious (hat is even more so). You have to see it to believe it. Pictorial evidence is located below.

With our Uniqlo receipts, we could take 3 other people on a Snoopy boat ride in Snoopy Town which was next door.

What is Snoopy Town? A very small patch of make-your-own-fun land + a pool of water and a couple of boats circling around in it. D:  Despite it being quite a barren place, it was quite fun with Sam, Drew, Mawson, Bosco and Quentin. Hilarious actually.

I am good at taking photos.

Whoever held the camera for this one is not.

Q, D, B, S, M, B

B, D, M, Q, B, S

S, B, Q, D, M, B

LOTSA SHOPPING

Then MTR-ed to East Tsim Sha Tsui, walked to Tsim Sha Tsui Station and headed out to the ferry to go to HK island. 

It took ages trying to find a bus that went to The Peak (mountainy place that lets you see the light show at seven every night).

Sat in the front seats of the top deck and got mini heartattacks everything the bus halted 20 cm or so behind the bus infront D: Bosco video logged- so hopefully it will be up on youtube soon. It was really frustrating on HK island during peak hour. The bus didn't move much at all and I remember my neck felt really sore after the trip because there was so much jolting T_T;  After finally arriving at The Peak, we all realised we wouldn't be seeing the light show anyway because the fog is atrocious (infact- it still hasn't exactly gone away ngggggh).  Instead we walk around in the fog on the deserted rooftop scaring ourselves by talking about ghosts and supernatural beings. How fun. Then we decided to be more productive, and headed INSIDE the centre and took this photo + hunted for food.

More than a couple of our crew members decided that the restaurants at The Peak were no where near "reasonably priced" range, so we dinnered at Maccas.  Like always, I discovered something new I really love.

Chocolate pastry- chocolate filling. MMmmm

Ooze.

What happened afterwards was a bit blurry now. But we sped down the mountain on one of HK's notoriously fast minibuses and got down in a fraction of the time it took to go up.  headed our separate ways? I forgot. :S

Should I type up what happened on day 3 too?

Perhaps.

On day 3 of my trip (day 5 of theirs I think?) we were supposed to go to Macau. Why didn't we go? Bosco and Mawson can answer that. :)  Quentin, Sharon, Sam and I waited at the ferry terminal for AGES and decided it would be more time efficient to go the next day and just go with the next day's activities.

Miffys at Harbour City

Flamingos at Kowloon Park.

SO. We walked from Tsim Sha Tsui back to Mong Kok.  Passed by many shops and entered many/ just had a really nice shopping day. Boys bought heaps.

I've always wanted to do this. :D

Nice Christmas display that changes every year

We stopped by at the Shamrock Hotel in Jordan for a buffet lunch.

REALLY FUNNY DAY. The bickering between Q + B during math class continued at the dining table. Pepper wars were very interesting and quite self explanatory. Here I discovered Q's big love for mango icecream and learned of his disappointment when it was never available for consumption because the Taro icecream wasn't finished.

I would add a quote- but no one would get it T_T; Quentin is hilarious. Really. We discovered how funny he was in Macau- but I'll talk about that another day.

After lunch, we kept walking towards Mong Kok, and decided to go Karaoke at New Town Mall (lol) which is a handy block away from where I'm staying. NEWAY was the place we went to- and we K-ed for ages. For a very cheap price too (incl food and drinks).  [days later, I ended up going with our larger family to celebrate M's birthday and had a buffet dinner!!]

DOESN'T SHARON LOOK LIKE QUENTIN! DOESN'T SHE?!

TIME FOR ME TO SHUT UP AND SLEEP. It's 5.25am Aus time. And I need to be up early tomorrow to get my eyes checked AGAIN FREAKING HELL- but to get new glasses.

Dootdidoot. This took ages to type up D:  Hope you're all having fun !

PS. WHY IS HOTCHA RANKING 1 RIGHT NOW D: EEUUUGGHH

Brief Summary :D

This will be really brief- it's almost 1.30 in the morning- HK TIME = Aus 4.30am

D:

Today I fell asleep on my grandmother's floor and slept for like 2 hours- missed out on 120 minutes worth of really valuable/hilarious conversation.

Luckily I've had a large share of hilarity hanging around BBQSAMS (formerly known as BBQSCAM- before Chris bailed). Key initial Q. QQQ. :D HILARIOUS. Model photoshoot will one day reach the world via youtube. :)

Where I left off-

Day 1.

M and I didn't sleep- stayed up; everyone was up at 3.30am and we left the house pronto. Got to Campbelltown after ages in the car which was travelling at a three digit number.  Mohammed got in, and we headed to the airport. Arrived at the airport and tried to settle in and eavesdropped on a conversation between two uni guys. Conversation went like this.

X: Oh- are you an ABC?
Y: Yeah, are you?
X: Nah, I was born o/s, can't you tell by my accent?
Y: Mmm, sorta.
X: OH, I gotta call my girlfriend. I miss her already.
Y: Um. Okay sure.
< insert disgusting soppy phonecall conversation >
< insert crappily said saranghae (or however you spell that) >
< insert disgusting wet kiss into the phone >
X: Did you hear me say saranghae?
Y: Er. Yeah.
X: My girlfriend's korean
Y: Oh. Okay.
X: She's really hot, etc

Yeah, I can't continue typing this all out. We were standing infront of them while boarding the plane and I was just dying with silent laughter.

On the plane, my mother nabbed my much beloved seat I haven't been in since 1999. The Window Seat.

Our plane had 2 seats by the window and 4 seats between the aisles. Our family managed to nab 2 window seats and 2 seats between the aisles. I had to sit with a stranger and it was freaking terrible.  Why?

She was :

• Odourous
• More than a bit overweight
• Staring at me for most of the trip
• MORE THAN ODOUROUS I WANTED TO BREATHE FRESHER AIR
• making me so depressed and cranky

So once the plane landed, I was more than happy to get off asap and hop onto the A21 bus to our hostel.

What. A. Freaky. Place.

The lift is old and smelly and creaky.

The hall way is dark and creepy and has drippy noises.

The people hanging around look so.. weird. :|

Luckily we have alot of English speaking backpackers :)

Also, the inside of our room isnt too bad/ I have access to free mineral water !

Photos will come later.

At night we had dinner with our aunt + cousin and went to sleeeeeeep.

Alot happened on day two- including meeting up with BBQSAM(s) and travelling heaps - City One for Yumcha, Shatin for Shopping and Central for The Peak.

THIS WILL ALL COME LATER. I feel tired after remembering my horrid plane trip. ;D

HAVEFUNTAKECAREYALL

Still Alive

I finally got enough of a signal to access a real site.  Back at the hostel, I could only log onto google and do nothing else. NOTHING ELSE!

Slept over at my cousin's place last night, and I think my parents are on their way to pick me up/we're on our way to meet them, so I don't have enough time to write about my entire week here in HK/Macau.

People I have seen in the past seven days. Samantha, Bosco (going away today to Singapore/Malaysia, etc), Quentin, Drew, Mawson (in Shanghai right now), Sharon (QUENTIN'S LOOKALIKE SISTER :O!) and my family.

:)

This is it for now, I don't think I should put my photos on my cousin's computer D:  HOPEFULLY THERE WILL BE WIRELESS IN THE HOSTEL LOBBY!!!

TAKE CARE ALL :) Slip slop slap

Going... gone!

HI GUYS.

BYE GUYS. SEE YOU IN 1.5 MONTHS!

The day before

Oh the chaos.

Oh my sleep deprived mornings. Poor neighbours.

D wakes up at 7am in the morning to use his chainsaw to cut down trees. Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a loverly dayyy.

I have been breathing nothing but fresh grass scent mixed with petrol fumes. Kill me now.  My morning begins at 3.30 tomorrow. We will head down to Mohammed's at Campbelldown and he'll drive us to airport/look after our car. Oh. My. Goodness. Campbelltown.

After that, we'll board a freaking morning plane- which will be delayed- no doubt. And I'll enjoy a blissful 9 hours watching movies/tvshows/standupcomedians. Boy, I can't wait.

In the meantime, chaos is breaking out inside the house. In one corner of our humble abode, one person is screaming "WHO TOOK MY GIORDANA POLO?!", in the other corner, one will be muttering to herself packing, and unpacking, packing and unpacking- another will be revving up the whippersnipper - for HOURS (this, my friends, is why you should always opt for the most expensive garden tools as they usually last/ don't take hours to fire up), and of course this one is all packed- all ready to go: camera, phone, keys, money and all. Righteo.

I believe in packing light when going to an asian country. However, I brought an excess number of long sleeved undershirts- because all the ones they sell in HK are designed for people with stumpy bodies and arms. T_T; I can easily fit into an XL there, but a size S in Sydney. Oh, how obese.

Once I get to HK airport I plan to buy a prepaid sim for my phone and put HK$500 into my octopus card. Woopdidoo. Then I will go pig out at Aji Ichiban, and find a way to withdraw HK monies to put some in my Chip n Dale wallet. Oh yes, speaking of that, I think it's time for it to enjoy retirement. I think having a disney wallet will cause many embarassing scenes in the future. Time to opt for something black, sleek and sophisicated. =.= sucks.


Time to go mope and play guitar. Just kidding. By playing I mean tuning. =.=.

KEEP SAFE TAKE CARE ET CETERA ET CETERA

Extinction!!

Is  it just me, or is this place becoming extinct?! I think I'll visit Chatswood or Broadway on the weekend to watch a movie with my sister (not wasting that voucher from the Myopia thing).

Why did we get charged $10 each when we watched 2012 the other day? I thought it cost alot more ~$15ish. :S How confusing

WHT: Was on the phone for ages waiting for a Fairfax dude to pick up (stupid "queue"), and our conversation lasted roughly 30 seconds. I hate phone queues. The music they play is hypnotic, and it puts me into a stupid trance, and when I actually get to talkto someone, I don't realise until their third or fourth "hello". D: So embarassing. So yeah. After about 20 minutes + 30 seconds, I suspended our paper delivery until Jan 17th.  This is so we don't find the house buried under papers, or have neighbours suspecting some sort of homicide when we come back.

Speaking of death, I have an interesting-ish story to tell. Before I moved here, we lived in a block of apartments.  One morning, as we were leaving to go to school, there was an ambulance in the driveway and we were like :O. We were used to seeing police cars and ambulances rushing towards Parra, but there was rarely one in our driveway!  Turns out a man had died in his house for a couple of days before his next door neighbour realised. *gag* He was the secretary of the block and all our complaints went to him- but I never talked to him directly.  The paramedics said he had died a couple of days back because he had already started decomposing (EW), and his diary entries stopped abruptly- they were thinking on the day of his death.

Kinda eugh. Another story I've told a billion times, was when one of my neighbours went missing. A seven year old curry guy who went missing after school one day while playing at the intersection.  We were first alerted to this when we heard it on the radio! I remember thinking that the description of the boy fit our neighbour ==; and I didn't find out it was  him until that afternoon when there were forensic police or something clogging up the driveway again. He was returned in one piece, but was molested or something. After that, my parents never let K and I out of the house without supervision again, and a couple of years later, we moved. D thought this neighbourhood was a lot safe/had less crime rates etc.

A few months or so after we moved into this new place, the unsuccessful kidnapper story spread throughout this place. He was trying to snatch a kid from Roslea, but she was smart and gave him a big bite and escaped, etc. Some of you might remember this.  Our car was stopped twice by men in dark blue jumpsuits (police) carrying FREAKING HUGE GUNS, because it looked similar to the one belonging to the kidnapper. ==; How embarassing ;D but yes, also terrifying at the time. 

Speaking of terrifying, my recent experience in the carpark at Parra Westfield was exactly that. When I was in primary school, some people would ask me, aren't you scared of living in Parra? So many bad things happen there. But quite frankly, I never really witnessed anything specifically horrific that happened many times during the year.  Growing up there sort of made it feel okay anyway. I didn't feel in danger when I was wandering around the shops alone XD  But things have changed. The demographics have changed. I feel in danger when I'm in the bloody car park. People no longer drive at 10km/h inside. I hate those guys with the flat shiny sports cars and the gayass rear spoilers who speed, and make screeching sounds with their tyres making very dangerous turns. *shudder* There used to be NONE of this, and I find it very gagworthy.

My disgust for rear spoilers is just... extreme.

Oh I can think of 2 nasty events I witnessed at Parra Westfield. I've told both a billion times too :D

#1. This was many years ago. Back in the days when I had to hold my dad's hand when we went shopping. It happened outside Franklins- now a Coles, and it was quite horrific.  We were just walking by when suddenly we hear a man yell and see him fall down. D's nosy by nature, and did what he always does- walk closer to see what's happening. Unfortunately, he forgot he was holding a 5 year old's hand, and what I was was quite gruesome.  A cashier at Franklins was lying on the floor with a screwdriver embedded deep in this thigh. There was SO much blood- I'm not sure whether he survived.  The crook was stealing cash off him, and he ran out to chase him, but consequently got stabbed in the leg with an unsanitised screwdriver ==;.

So that was story #1.

#2.  When I was alot older (junior in high school), a  couple of deaths happened at around the same time in the shopping centre and the carpark.  Four people had been killed? or maybe committed suicide?  One guy fell from level 4 or 5- you know where the ledge is? and there was alot of blood at the bottom. And I saw another body at the carpark- because our car was parked on that level ==; and there was a lot of blood there too.

#1 + #2 + rear spoilers are the only bad things I've witnessed at this Westfield. It's not too bad.

I have no idea how I started talking about this... into such great detail. The bottom line is, I know we've moved into a hole- but I like this place because I feel slightly safer here compared to the rear spoiler infested Parra. :) If only the buses here came on time T_T;

3 days until ZOOOOOOOMZOOOOOOMZOOOOOOOOMMM

Mamak

Hi folks :)  (I don't think I actually say that word IRL because it sounds a bit weird).

I felt the need to boast about what I did the other day before my memory fails me and I forget or something. Rex has a nice recount of this day, and you can read that HERE. Diti has one too- and you can read that HERE. All the photos posted up here are from Samantha's camera 8) Thunks.  I haven't touched my camera in ages- lately I've been thinking that it's not so bad afterall and maybe I should just hold onto it for a bit longer before a better camera comes along... :/

But before I go on about my visit to Mamak :D, Winnie has a JOB at DJ so you can all visit her on Boxing Day or something. I was on the phone with some people at Forrester's Beach  8) and they were having a pillow fight. T'was loud, and I couldn't hear her properly- I just heard David Jones. So, yay. :) Employee discounts. :D

SO, on Tuesday, I woke up nice and early and headed off to the optom- tried on a pair of contacts which were of the wrong prescription, chucked a mini tantrum in my head. It was such a waste of time. I could have been sweet talking randoms on the street into buying red ribbons for World Aids Day- but noo, I was stuck in a silly room jabbing a finger into my eye. Bah. Humbug.

After that, M + I returned a couple of DVDs to E library and I walked to the station and bumped into Harry.  He was on his way to a music interview- something to do with composing in the future. I misheard at first and thought he was going to an interview for a musical =_=;. (I need hearing aids) Got off at Town Hall and went our separate ways. Then I decided to give Lis a call to see where I could meet up with her and sim, and when I did... well, I didn't really recognise her. Ahaha. Lis spent last week in Japan, and I bet she spent everyday shopping.  On Tuesday I was standing outside St Andrew's Church/Cathedral looking for her. I couldn't see her. But I saw sim talking to a stranger by her side. But it turned out to be no stranger- it was lis and her fashionable self. Hahahaha. I still can't get over it :P Seriously, you had to be there ;D

We walked to Eating World and spent about 10-15 minutes contemplating whether we should eat but then luckily Sam arrived announcing that we should eat at MAMAK. WOOPDIDOO.

Photos are from Sam's fb. She's in Hk, I have no msn, so I've just copied them from there w/o her permission. But she won't mind :D

TADAAA Finally :D

Fried Rice. Too much spice D:

Chicken curry?

Hokkien fried noodle - this was pretty good. I think it was supposed to be migoreng..

ROTI :D

OMG- best roti in the world. Coconut + pandan + icecream = LOVELOVELOVE

 Bought a 500ml bottle of Vivar Nanowater  because it had nice packaging. *-* Yay materialism.

Getting hot again today. D:  See you all soon!