Thus begins our shopping experience in Hong Kong! But we’ll get to that later.
Dad needed to go to the immigration office so we woke up early to head over to Ma Ma and Ye Ye’s. Dad left us there and we Skyped with the family. Auntie Carrie and Uncle Lawrence loved seeing and talking to everyone at home. We showed everyone around Ma Ma and Ye Ye’s place. By the time we were done talking with everyone, Ma Ma had made some winter melon soup.
Yum!
Uncle Lawrence told us that even though it’s called winter melon, it only grows in the summer. Winter melon, Iceland, Greenland, what else can we add to the list?
Dad came back from the immigration office and told us that he would have to go back. The papers he mailed in from the U.S. had to be hand received so he needed to fill them out and go back. Luckily, Ma Ma and Auntie Carrie were going to get their hair done right next to a huge mall!!
Score.
We took the MTR and headed over to Tsim Sha Tsui, dropped Ma Ma and Auntie Carrie off, and then Uncle Lawrence, Katy, and I went to shopping heaven!! Tsim Sha Tsui was like an American Mall but they had awesome Asian styles all over the place. The prices were ridiculous but luckily they were all mostly having sales! My goal coming to Asia was to find ridiculously amazing Asian shoes. Seriously . . . have you seen their heels?! They are drool worthy. So we found a shoe store where I saw my soul shoes. Unfortunately they were the equivalent of $167 USD. Le sigh. We walked away, but my mind never left them. We went to H&M where, surprisingly there were bigger sizes of clothes! I came to Hong Kong knowing that accessories and shoes were going to be the only thing I could purchase for myself. Little did I know that they just might have clothes that fit me!! So I bought a really cute dress for church (my skirt that I brought broke =\ so it was perfect!). I couldn’t get those freaking shoes off of my mind. My Uncle was so sweet. He bought Katy shoes and then helped me pay for the shoes. I was so happy!!! I seriously can’t get over these shooes.
After shopping we headed back over to the hair salon. Grandma looked so freaking cute that I couldn’t resist taking a photo!!
Dad called and said that we needed to leave ASAP because we had made an appointment with his friend Jeff to go to Victoria Peak to see the sun set at 5:30. He called at 5:15 and Uncle Lawrence had just sat down to get his hair cut. Dad didn’t want to risk us getting lost on the MTR so he told us to take a cab. I had learned how to say in Cantonese “Take me here . . . “ but Auntie Carrie and Uncle Lawrence wanted to be sure that we’d get there so they wrote out, in Chinese characters, where we needed to go. I just showed the taxi driver the paper and he took us to the hotel outside of the area where Ma Ma and Ye Ye live. It was fun to be just Katy and me! We felt like we knew the city a little better and, if we had all the money in the world, we could totally take a taxi anywhere! Okay so we’d be lost after that but it was still fun to be without a native.
We headed to a tram station with dad, got on the tram, and met up with Jeff at his office. We talked with Jeff, Jeff’s boss, and Jeff’s boss’ wife for a while. After that we headed down to grab a taxi to go to the Victoria Peak Tram. The line for it was HUGE!!! Luckily Jeff is smart and bought tickets for extra stuff that allowed us to get in a far shorter line. The line was still quite lengthy and the heat from the weather/humidity/sheer amount of people started to get to me a little. I was really happy I ate something before we left Ma Ma’s place, otherwise I would have passed out.
When we the tram finally came for us, it was ridiculous. People were pushing and shoving to get on and get a seat. I didn’t realize the value of the seat until we were coming down the tram (I’ll tell you later). Luckily I had gotten on the tram earlier and nabbed some seats that some other woman was trying to get by putting her purse on the seat. Too bad body presence > purse presence. HA! Take that!! Victory is mine! We headed up the mountainside and I felt a little sick looking at the buildings. We were going up a steep incline and the buildings looked really slanted. Katy mentioned something about imagining the tram suddenly losing control and rolling backwards. I may or may not have had a mini panic attack thinking about it. Once we were at the top we headed to the wax museum. Katy had a ton of hilarious poses with famous people. It was hilarious! I found it hilarious going through the museum because Katy and I were only looking for Lady Gaga while everyone else was stopping to see all the Asian celebrities. Oh! I got a picture with Hitler and Castro!! We skipped over Gandhi, which made me feel a bit . . . ebil.
After the wax replicas we headed up a billion escalators to go to the lookout on top of the building at Victoria Peak. It took about 10 minutes to go up all of them! Once at the top we looked out at the gorgeous skyscape of Hong Kong at night!! It was absolutely GORGEOUS!! There was little noise and a light breeze too, which made the heat a little more bearable. Together with the lights it just made that place so peaceful. I think that was my favorite site thus far.
When we were done we headed to the Tram station. The line we had to stand in was GINORMIC. I was feeling a bit tired at that point so it was kind of torturous to go through. While in the line Jeff pulled out a bottle full of some square food. He told us to try it and said that it was “clean” and that we should trust him. He told us that it was from Taiwan, but my experience with Taiwanese “candy/snacks” has not been a positive one. There was a girl in front of us who turned around, saw what he was talking about, and looked at me with big eyes and nodded her head and put her thumb up. The way she did it made me skeptical of the recommendation. Then Jeff put one in his mouth, and just to prove that she approved of the candy, she took one from Jeff’s hand and popped it in her mouth. I felt a little better but I was still not looking forward to trying it. I skeptically took one in my hand and waited until Katy put hers in her mouth. Her reaction was unreadable, so I just sucked it up and put it in my mouth. Jeff said that if I didn’t like it I was allowed to spit it out, but something inside of me just couldn’t do that. That’s 2/2 Taiwan. You have not impressed me thus far with your snackagery. I ended up swallowing whatever it was that I ate, even though it led to my silent gagging episode. Sorry Jeff and Hen Lee, if you guys are reading this! I really tried to like it . . . I really did!
We finally got on the tram back down but, like I said, the competition for seats was fierce! People were seriously pushing and shoving and Katy and I weren’t up for dealing with that crap. Dad got onto the tram but froze up when we weren’t behind him. We ended up standing and holding onto some bars behind people’s seats. Yeah. Seats. They are valuable when you’re going down a mountainside. Luckily Dad, Katy, and I got some holding bars, but Jeff had to cling on to a corner. At one point they stopped the tram and a super steep incline. I thought I was going to tumble forward. There was another girl who was standing in the tramcar in front of us who didn’t have anything to hold onto and actually did tumble into her friend in front of her. It was hilarious to watch her try and stay up during the entire ride (don’t worry I thought it was hilarious but I felt bad for her too).
When we got off the tram, Jeff said that we should hurry so we could grab a cab. We walked outside to view an awesome cab driver fight. Apparently one cab driver stole another cab driver’s customers and they were holding up traffic with their epic argument. Katy and I had no clue what was happening until we got in our cab and asked Jeff and Dad what happened. We laughed at all of it. Cab driving is srs bzns. The best part was that there were two policemen who were just chilling in front of the whole hullabaloo. They just stood there. Watching it all unfold. I guess their night was a little boring so they needed the entertainment.
Jeff was nice and took us out to eat hot pot. I love when we do hot pot at home so I was looking forward to hot pot at a restaurant. I wasn’t let down. There were so many yummy things!! I kept eating and eating until I was stuffed!! Unfortunately, Jeff put a buttload of garlic in my soy sauce so now I still have the taste of garlic in my mouth. I love garlic but dang. I’m not going to be talking to anyone up close anytime soon. After the main course, Jeff ordered desserts!! Luckily they were small desserts otherwise it would have been a total waste on me. I had just enough room to eat the three different things; coconut cake with a red bean layer, a coconut mango custard concoction, and a custard bun. They all tasted sooo good!
We walked home and I flopped on my bed and almost passed out. Katy said, “Why don’t you get ready for bed?” so I forced myself to get up and get ready. When I came back out she had her shopping day’s loot over her face. I said, “Why don’t you get ready for bed?” she replied groggily that she was waiting for me. Needless to say, we both passed out for the night.
Again, I’m sorry to say that there won’t be much time for me to put pictures of our day up on here. I’m really sorry!! Dad wants us to get ready and I really do need to shower (being outside a lot yesterday made me stiiiiiiink. Yes, Lauren. I really DO have the capability of stinking. And it’s preeetty baaad).
Loves,
Becks.
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