Times Square Building, Causeway Bay
Dec. 11-- Early morning flight, so I didn't bother to sleep the night before and instead tried to finish watching some dloaded TV. Mom and I picked up my cousin, 3 aunts and 1 uncle before headed out, flying to and landing on Hong Kong airport. Despite having had breakfast at the NAIA and on the Cathay Pacific flight, my companions still wanted to eat before going to the Excelsior Hotel.
Lucked out finding a free WiFi spot just by the desk facing the window in my hotel room, but it blinks out so often that blogging in HK wasn't an option. Worse when you're on YM and crucial questions about to be answered go unanswered. And when we arrived there we barely settled in before heading for lunch. This is all sounding like a pretty condensed account of the last 5 hours, but seeing as how I haven't gotten any decent sleep it sure felt like it went by quickly.
Lucked out finding a free WiFi spot just by the desk facing the window in my hotel room, but it blinks out so often that blogging in HK wasn't an option. Worse when you're on YM and crucial questions about to be answered go unanswered. And when we arrived there we barely settled in before heading for lunch. This is all sounding like a pretty condensed account of the last 5 hours, but seeing as how I haven't gotten any decent sleep it sure felt like it went by quickly.
If only the next 5 hours went by as quickly.
After lunch we all headed out looking for Percival Street trying to find one particular jewelry store. The ladies stayed and starting looking and bargaining for shiny shiny rocks on pins. Although I was in the minority (read: male) I refused to just sit there gawking at baubles. I must've gone around a block or three several times, but my quest to find galoshes for Lola also didn't bear fruit, probably because it wasn't the rainy season anymore so all they had to offer were leather boots and moccasins.
What was a surprise to me was when we all visited the Times Square building was the books in PageOne were crazy-expensive, and every appliance store highlighted LED widescreen TVs (good show, Samsung). Unbelievable was 14 floors and still no sign of galoshes.
Now while we came to Hong Kong to attend a wedding tomorrow it just so happened my Ah-kim was celebrating her birthday tonight. So this will also be the first time I'm attending a birthday dinner party (of any kind) in Hong Kong. Surprisingly it didn't differ much from your typical Chinoy dinner in President's Tea House in Ongpin. You had your fill of peanuts and softdrinks before the 8-10 course meal started. Two glaring differences were the usual starter of coldcuts replaced by lean roasted suckling pig. (Imagine lechon shrunk to half its size, spread on a plate like a bearskin rug, and proportionally as thick, meaning you had the crispy skin w/ lean portions of meat and/or fat underneath it. Top it off with cherry tomatoes for eyes.)
The other was they simultaneously brought out the fried noodles and rice near the end. Gah, I knew I shouldn't have filled up on broccoli, lettuce and scallops.
What reminded me of the dinner parties back home was the one table filled w/ Chinese men (but in this party Chinese men and one woman) playing the "finger guessing"drinking game. From what I learned of its mechanics it's Rock, Paper, Scissors meets Basic Math and Amateur Poetry. I thought it was considerate of some participants to take the shot for the losing player who looked had he's had enough to drink, like Cousin Sonny, whose long stay in Hong Kong gave him my father's yellow teeth and chain-smoking habit. He's what Dad would be had he not left China.
No comments:
Post a Comment