Day 2: Fun, Fun, Fun ^_^

=.=Zzz... Woke up at 11am and still dead tired! Haven't felt this jet lag since 2007... My eyes were blood shot in the morning and I could just keep sleeping if I can. Unfortunately, I have to apply for my visa to China today because my cousin thought it'd take a month to get. Also, I'm on vacation! I wouldn't want to sleep through it!
After I washed up, my auntie offered to have cereal and milk for brunch haha. The milk tasted different from the ones in America and her Special K cereal was all soft and chewy... I guess she had those for a while...
After I finished, I changed, she hung up the laundry and we headed out for lunch with cousin Wendy. She had work and her lunch break was between 12:30 to 1:30. We went to this restaurant called Nana B Nana. They had lunch special HK$86 (US$11.08) that comes with any drink you want on the menu, any entree, soup and dessert! Such a good deal comparing to America. Wendy's co-worker forcefully recommended me to get the Ice Lemon Tea haha. Turns out it was really good and really different from the ice tea in America. I got this chicken curry rice dish. Came with 冬瓜汤 and sweet potato in 糖水。It was sooo filling and Wendy gave me some of her pad thai too~~ The first thing auntie and Wendy said to me when they first saw me yesterday was that I got really skinny! Now their goal is to make me fat! Haha. I think if I keep up with the way I'm eating today, I'll be so fat when I get back to America.
After lunch, Wendy went back to work, auntie brought me to the immigration building so I can get my visa to China, and she went to her doctor's appointment. The office was having their lunch, so I couldn't get in until 2pm. What turns out to supposedly take hours to get visa turned out to take me 15 minutes. I just filled out two forms, have a picture of myself and my passport. It all cleared and I can pick up my visa on May 30. Wendy had work until 5, so she wanted me to wait for her at the entrance of the building where she worked at. I told her that I'll go wander for a bit and try not to get lost. I hung out at the Starbucks outside of her building for a bit trying to get on the internet. The Starbucks in HK doesn't have free WiFi! T^T I ordered a Green Tea Latte and after I tried for like an hour, I got bored and went outside to walk around. The street behind her work was filled with clubs. O_O;;; There were slutty girls hanging out outside of the club trying to get people to go in. I got scared and went back to Starbucks. I felt weird just sitting around because the workers there were staring at me (I already dumped out my drink). I sat for a good 20 minutes trying to find out what's my phone number before I left again (and I still don't know my phone number because Wendy got me a China Unicom SIM card and my phone couldn't find signal for China Unicom... Weird). I wandered farther off to the other side of where all the clubs were and found 湾仔电脑城. I was so excited I knew all of the words on the sign! Haha... I hung out there for a while before Wendy called me telling me that she had to stay a bit longer to finish some things before she can get off work. Ahhhh~! A lot of the employees were playing Diablo III on display!! Can't play mine. :(
After Wendy got off work, we walked to Wan Chai harbor and watch the pretty skyline while the sun was setting ^^ Hong Kong is so pretty during sunset and when all the lights turn on. We took a ferry to Kowloon and had sushi for dinner with Wendy's friend Cherry. $8 per dish of sushi (1~2 pieces)! Soo cheap and there were so much more variety of sashimi than in America! ^o^ They actually have BIG pieces of caviar where you can actually taste the juice inside! Tasted like fresh sea water. It was yummy. Four of us ended up eating 37 dishes (HK$328, US$42). Really cheap for the amount that we've eaten~
After dinner, we walked all around Kowloon. It's soo pretty there; mainly because it's a tourist area. There was an area that was built in 1881 and it's so European style architecture. A lot of people dress up to take pictures there; some people were taking marriage photos there too~ So nice. I hope when I get married, I can take pictures there too. :) Big buildings, high end stores, five star hotels, etc. Such a pretty place... There were even the Street of Stars where famous people have their hand print printed on cement on the floor. Also a really awesome place to view the skyline of Hong Kong Island.
We walked so much today and Wendy even bought me fresh fried squid! :D So yummy and so fat! I'm gonna be so fat after this vacation... Wendy kept saying she wants to go on a diet, but how do you go on a diet with so much yummy food where ever you go?! Haha.
Tonight was so pretty. I hope Victoria was here. I try to enjoy 2x more so I can enjoy it for her too. One day, we'll come to Hong Kong together. :) Sleepie time! Night night!

Sunset from Wan Chai

I saw 3 of the ONLY 8 ice cream truck in Hong Kong! ^_^ They were removed by the government because they're not sanitary (due to the weather). But after protesting, they were able to bring back 8 of the trucks.

Really big caviar!

Sushi belt!

Haha, biggest night club in HK

Skyline of Hong Kong Island ^_^

Biggest Starbucks I've seen! 2 floors!

Watah!

Party boat! Kinda like party trolley in Boston~

Clock tower of the oldest train station. The train station is removed already though...

The writing of a hobo that claimed himself as once the Emperor of Kowloon... Now, his writings are preserved, haha

Funny banner, if you know how to read it. :)

The pretty place that a lot of people with fancy clothing were taking pictures. ^_^

Day 1: The Dreadful Plane Ride

Haha, 20 hours of plane ride... 6 hours from Boston to San Francisco and 14 hours from San Francisco to Hong Kong. It wasn't that bad at all actually. I slept most of the time. Good life indeed. Sleep --> Eat --> Pee --> Sleep --> Eat --> Pee --> Sleep.

The night before my departure, I was up until 1am talking with my mom. It was all random stuff, but it was a fun talk. I think she misses me a lot because she's not going to see me for 3 months unlike going to school where I return at least once a month. My mom woke me up at 3:15 and I got all ready and left the house at 3:45am. I was so afraid that I'll be late for the plane because my dad was driving sooooo slowwwww! =3= I got to Logan Airport at 4:35am and my flight was at 6!!! The international line for United Airline was really long and I was like, omg! I'm not gonna make it! I paid $7.95 to get WiFi (I thought there were free WiFi, but I guess my mobile phone doesn't qualify) so I can attempt to check in online, but I still have to line up to send over my luggage. Thankfully, my flight was delayed and I made it in on time. My plane lifted off at 7:10am.

I don't really know what to feel. It felt kind of normal but it was my first time traveling on my own. I have never left the country on my own before. Whenever I travel, my mom was always with me. I was so worried that I cannot take care of myself when I go on a trip on my own. But turns out that it's not so bad.

The whole flight from Boston to San Francisco to Hong Kong was really smooth and I just slept most of the time. Time flied by and I find that 4 hours had already past every time I wake up. No food during the flight from Boston to San Francisco :( Which I think is really dumb how they don't feed you anymore for domestic flights anymore. I got 3 meals from SFO to HK, but they're meh... Lol, they're like a bit better than DC food and they're not really filling.

When I reached Hong Kong International Airport, I find that the SIM card that my friend lend me wasn't working in Hong Kong! I was like, Q.Q How am I suppose to contact my cousin/auntie?! Thankfully, there was free WiFi at the airport. I sent a message to my cousin over Facebook and they told me that auntie is waiting at Exit B. I did my immigration documents, picked up my luggage and found my auntie waiting for me at the exit.

I was really excited to find auntie and she was pretty excited too. I was going to give her a hug because I haven't seen her for a long time, but I guess they don't do that in Hong Kong haha... I just patted her on the back and played it off. It was kind of awkward because we haven't seen each other for a long time and I'm really bad being a topic starter. I just said random things just to try to keep it less awkward like oh the weather here is so much hotter than Boston! We've been getting a lot of rain all week! Lets sit on the 2nd deck of the bus so I can do some sight seeing!

The bus ride from the airport to their "house" is an hour away, so I tried to talk to her as much as possible. When I say house, it's not really how it is in America. When we think of house, it's like a single family house. In Hong Kong, everyone lives in HUGE buildings. My mom calls them match boxes because in every direction you look, it's just all really tall building. There's too many people in Hong Kong to have individual houses. They buy a place in these buildings and call it a house. A house can cost from $1,000,000 to $800,000,000 HKD for the size of our living room or smaller! O_O That's like crazy to us, but so normal to them. My auntie said it used to be cheaper, but people in China kept coming down and investing into all these properties that made everything really expensive.

When I got back to my family's house, cousin Wendy was waiting for me to return and watching TV. She's shy as usual and barely talked to me, but I know she's really excited that I'm visiting. :3 We had dinner together, watched TV for a little bit, I washed up and about to go to sleep. I need to adjust to my sleeping schedule so I don't die when I start going to school and internship hehe. The house just had enough room for cousin Edward, cousin Wendy and auntie so I slept with cousin Edward~ Weird, but okay haha. That's all for tonight! Good night and good morning to people in the US! ^^;

On the flight to Hong Kong! ^-^

Cute stain glass at San Francisco International Airport!

Meow

Hi.