Thursday Feb 5 Woke up to Diane blow drying her hair this morning. I rolled over into the middle of the bed and slept a little bit longer… even after that it was still 930 when I got out of bed. BTW the bed is TINY! When I lay flat on my back with arms at my sides, I already use up half the bed and my heels are starting to dangle off the bed! I better make the most the bed in Sanya! Mama was still in bed when we left the house. Breakfast today was Yoshinoya (I butchered the name but who the heck can remember it?) with chicken udon with naruto for Diane and chicken and omelet macaroni for me. Neither were great but it did its job. We headed back to Wan Chai… again… for the third day in a row for those keeping count… this time to collect Diane’s visa from the China tourism/passport office. Essentially the China visa is a sticker inside the Cdn passport. With this, we are READY FOR HAINAN! Question now is whether Hainan is ready for us… moreso me actually. On the way back to the tram, we gave in and ate at McDonalds. Two apple pies so TECHNICALLY we aren’t breaking the promise… well not yet. FYI HK apple pies are fried just like the ones in Canada from the 80s/90s. They are so much better this way. Arrived back at the house while mama went out shopping. We heard the doorbell and saw a little girl with a maid coming in. Thought it was our maid’s friend paying a visit. Later on, I realize its my ‘sugar sister’, Trinity Chan. Yea I don’t work well with kids! She’s the same age as Madison but taller. When I carried her she smiled shyly but didn’t cry! She didn’t say anything to Diane or I though. We didn’t stay long enough to see Trinity’s younger brother… whose name I don’t even know. Haha Mama, Diane and I were now off to visit big aunt in Mong Kok. She lives pretty far from the subway station! A good 15 minute walk I’d estimate… thankfully a egg waffle stand was along the way. Diane picked up octopus balls as well. Please note… we are going to big aunt’s house for lunch… these were mere appetizers for us! Big aunt’s house is a hike, but its quite nice! Fairly small but more than adequate for 3 hk ppl. If you put Alex, Elaine and I in there though it’d be a different story. Diane liked the view from their dining room actually. No pics, only vids of this place. After lunch, the two of us subbed it over to Central to see the wedding cruise/reception bailers: Norbert and Carmen (aka Carbert or Narmen). Norb just finished his Mandarin classes so he was free to stay out late with us. We walked over to the peak tram terminus where we saw Jackie Chan! Sadly it was a mere wax replica of JC. The ride up was fun… never remembered whether they stopped partway through before, though there were a couple this time around. Carmen was fearing the ride back already as it would be backwards a la the Bat at wonderland. Once we reached the top we were greeted with a smoggy view of the city. Doh… it had to be smoggy the DAY we went up. No matter, we took numerous pics and made the most of it. We walked around the shopping area to kill some time. In the end we ordered McDonalds to fill up. Diane and I have now officially broken the "NO McD’s in HK" promise we made. But in our defense, we ordered items u can’t get in Toronto: Malay spiced nuggets and grilled Malay spiced chicken burger with a side of curly fries. We had a good convo over the cold fries (the wind on the patio chilled them really fast). Always great times with the ever-engergized Norb. Oh Carm’s ring looks super sweet too btw! Nice round ctr stone with 3 rows of side stones around the ctr. When the sun started to set, we started seeing the bay and scenery of HK. We were able to take some nice night shots with lit up HK buildings now! Not a complete waste of a visit to Victoria Peak! It was getting chilly so we decided to head back down to Central in search of Lor Fu Kee! Knew it was around Central market, but it took us a while to hike over. It was worth the journey as the wontons, soup were both great. The beef brisket was mostly tendon and a bit too fatty. We all were full and satisfied by the end of this meal. No tea came with this meal so we walked over to the bottom of Lan Kwai Fong to pick up drinks. Cat (Elaine’s only friend) called us up for desserts in Causeway Bay, so we invited Norb/Carm along for some sweets! I went home to NP to pick up Cat’s ketchup chips while the other 3 went straight to Causeway Bay. Diane and Carm were cut off by a stomach-achey china woman claiming an upset stomach. They let her through and were satisfied/disturbed when this woman confirmed her proclamation in the stall next to them. I finally grabbed the chips and made it back to Causeway Bay to meet up with the group. Cat ripped into a bag and promptly ate half… this is Cat… the person who ate alongside my sister: 2 cheeseburgers, 2 filet of fishes, 20 nuggets and 2 large fries. Elaine, your detox probably is still working on those nuggets from that pork-out fest! Anyhow, the first dessert shop was swamped with waiting guests, so we went up to World Trade Centre for Honeymoon desserts. The mall was closed so the store set up tables in the open area of the mall. Let me tell you all this though: skip it on your list of places to visit. My almond tea was from powder, diane’s tofu and black sesame dessert was cold (she wanted both hot) and some ingredients in the others dessert was too hard in texture. Ah well the company more than made up for it! Cat told us that she gets VIP discounts at G2000! Sweetness indeed so I’ll have to make good use of that privelige. From there we all went out separate ways off after a long day for each of us. Diane and I walked back from CWB to NP, tired but very happy we spent the day with old friends. Wednesday Feb 4 Today granny, Diane and I all ventured out to Snow Garden restaurant at nearby City Garden Plaza. Was HOPING to eat some shanghai style veggie rice… but there was none. Instead we ordered steam pork buns, pot stickers, chicken soup noodles, onion cakes and veggie wontons. Pot stickers, noodles and wonton were all great while the steamed buns were a bit thick on the skin and not as tasty, though their pot stickers were AMAZING! The place is a bit pricey so I won’t go back this trip. From there the three of us took the street car to Wan Chai Immigration tower to take care of HK ID business. Line up was fairly decent and the overall process took an hour. First they gave me a number, then made me wait a short while then take a pic and take prints of my thumb. Then a third person took their jolly time then took my prints again and finally gave me some temp papers. The card is scheduled ready for pick up on the 18th, though they suggested I try picking it up on the 17th as its usually early by a day or two. Not that I need it to return home, but we’ll see how time is on the 17th. From there, we looked into a visit to lor fu kee, but we weren’t all that hungry yet from our brunch. Instead we street car’ed back to North Point market to eat tofu dessert with pot stickers, as well as pan fried and steamed pork buns. There dad, we hit two of the suggested places (Sung Gay was the other). Oh Cynthia, I am having the stomach of a time… wait til you see my roll back in Toronto… then it’ll be GL visits every other day!!!! Ok … after that Diane and I went home to rest up. Made some calls to Norb/Carm to plan a rendez-vous finally! Then Diane and I were looking to shop around North Point shops for jewelry. Mama wanted to book our HK banquet so Diane went off on her own while I joined mama to book Yuet @ City Garden Hotel. OMG this place is NICE! I can see why she picked this place… but damn the menu is nuts. I feel sorry for Richard Lee… he’s going to need another mortgage to pay for his HK wedding! Anyhow… the Yuet manager was quite nice… or at least the Co. policy is decent: no charge for changing menu items! If it were at Diamond then the price tag would have sky rocketed! Surprising but then again they are already making a killer profit for sure. After booking the place for the 15th, we went home for dinner. Mama bought two red fishies from the market… and during dinner they were showing their nasty teeth directly to me… I hate fish. After dinner we stayed at home to play some good ol’ MJ. There was some serious butt kicking in the games! The butt belonged to me though as Diane and mama thoroughly beat the pulp out of my MJ butt. It was fun nonetheless and a good way to cap off a busy day. The next day though was EVEN busier…. Woke up at 5am, but thankfully fell back asleep shortly after until 9am. Diane really wanted to go out for some reason. We ventured down the street towards City Garden in North Pont and found another congee shop. This time though we found a pretty sweet deal! Turns out they have an ALL YOU CAN EAT option for $28!!!! Who would have thought I’d find an AYCE in HK! Richard was right… have a knack for finding good food and deals. Diane had her pork with preserved egg, while I had minced beef congee. We also had two ja leung, one bbq pork rice roll, fried noodles, hot and cold soy milk, steamed turnip cake and two tofu desserts! Num num! We thought about eating lunch at home but after this morning feast we decided to head straight to Shatin to shop for our side trip in Asia. We shopped around Shatin’s mall for a while and bought a little something something for Janice… she’ll have to wait and see what it is! Nothing to buy for ourselves though as the styles are simply not our suitable! HK has also become much more expensive since my last visit! I blame China. Anyhow, we met up with aunt 2 for some afternoon tea snacks finally. I had a fried chicken udon, while Diane had soft pork bone ramen. They also had a small container of fried garlic which I went to town on! I’m sure Kevin would have LOVVVVVED it too! After the snack we went shopping for the Asia vacation. Oh man… after the cruise, reception and trip to HK, I was pretty much through with planning anything further! Diane took the reins and took care of this one essentially. We went from shop to shop, CSR to CSR looking for a hotel and airfare package only. We had stayed away from tour groups in fear of time wasting activities such as shopping spots or stupid scenic visits. In the end though we signed on for a tour package with minimal sight seeing and plenty of private time at a nice hotel in Hainan Island in China. http://www.kempinski-sanya.com/ By the time we finished putting down our deposit, it was already 640pm and I promised grandma I would be home for dinner at 7! GULP! We tried to get home ASAP on the subway… ended up home at 730pm. After dinner we just relaxed at home and ate oranges. There are about 30 of them in front of me right now actually. Tomorrow morning, Diane and I are off to register for her visa documentation to China! Tuesday Feb 3 Did the wakey, but rather than sit down for an AYCE congee meal or noodle soup, we grabbed some buns along the route to the subway and ate as we travelled to Wan Chai. Diane did pick up a soy milk and street side siu mai by Fortress hill though. The buns were yummy – pineapple with coconut filling and a ham and cheese bun, diane had shredded pork with seaweed. Subway was pretty packed with rush hour commuters. The foot bridge in Wan Chai was just as busy! Took us a while to find the office, joined the short line as the office wasn’t open for another 20 mins then filled out a form and finished off breakfast. Once inside, Diane needed to take a picture for the Visa. From there it didn’t take much longer for us to be walking back out the door! We then travelled by Star Ferry to Tsim Sa Tsui for some shopping! Cousin Simon has an old classmate who is a jeweler in this district, so diane dragged me into the store. There she picked out two settings for precious stones she received previously. I’m not going to bother butchering the description so I’ll just let you see it when the time comes. Next door was an Indian tailor trying to bait me into a custom made suit and shirt. Diane vetoed this as it was quite pricey. For lunch we ventured back to HK island to Sheung Wan for Chiu Chow lunch with aunt/uncle 6. Yummy food as always with these guys! My favourite was the fried noodle with sugar and vinegar. You may cringe at the sound of it, but once you chow down on it, you would definitely enjoy it. Their chicken and salty pork veggie soup was also amazing. After lunch D & I did some local shopping… for her stuff. We also walked through a street market between Sheung Wan and Central. Some neat things but we held off for the time being. D picked up some essentials then wanted to rest. I promised Nick and Norris I’d play ball with them so it was finally time to make good on this promise. Picked up 2L of vitasoy, a huge bottle of water and some soy milk to enjoy on the way there as well. We played about 4 games but I was exhausted after the first! Combination of no exercise since Dec, no ball since November and the HK air… oh the egg waffles every day too! Either way it was still fun playing with the cousins. Nick can actually DUNK the ball! That was definitely a sight to behold! Need to take a vid later on. Uncle and aunt 6 drove by to pick us up from the court. THANK GOODNESS as my legs felt like lead! Was going to make Norris piggyback me home too. Back at their place, we had a mix of fish, veggies, congee, and beef balls/briskets from a nearby shop. After a filling dinner I plopped down on the couch and really felt the soreness from ball. The rest did me good as I was able to walk normally afterwards. Good thing b/c we went to Mong Kok next for some egg waffles, bubble tea and a stroll through woman street at night. Diane saw some items she liked but after the store keeper started with a ridiculous price and dropped it like a rock as we walked away, she was turned off by the shopping here! I actually enjoy the bargaining and often times find more enjoyment from that than the item itself. So sad… At the end of the street we decided to head home and call it a day. Tomorrow, HK ID card renewal for me… aka Returning to the scene of the crime at Waaaaaaaaaaaa-n Chai. Get it? | 
