Holiday !!

Truth be told, the holiday has been really rather relaxing, but there is some part of me that has itched to get back to work.

Monday, was probably the most tiring day, as first I visited SoBear at CityUniversity and then had lunch at Festival Walk shopping mall. After that I somehow took it upon myself to walk around Mongkok area to familiarise myself with that area. Not satisfied, I walked onwards to YauMaTei, Jordan and finally arrived at TST. By this time, my feet was killing me and I went for a two hour massage. As it was just about evening, met up with FredBear and had dinner at his place.

Day Two started off with breakfast at McDonalds and then Chinese class. After class walked around 360 degrees (supermarket at Landmark) and then went to the wet market. Bought herbs, vegetables, meat, tofu, and felt like Jamie Oliver. Haha. got back around 2 and had a nap till 4 before starting to prepare dinner for FredBear and GAHil who was gonna visit for dinner. Had the television on, and after three hours, had 2 dishes and a soup. Dish one was Turkey bacon wrapped winter asparagus on tofu-egg bed. Dish two was Tiger prawn steamed eggs with minced pork. The soup was herbal pork soup. Yum. Had fun cooking, but it was rather tiring. You can tell that it is not a job that I want for life !

Day 3 was spent lazing at home. Did not step out of the apartment at all, not even to throw away trash. By this time I had looked through how to play Taiwanese mahjong but had noone to play with. Then with the insistence of SharBear, picked up GoStop, this Korean card game and got absolutely hooked. Spent most of the day juggling between SATC, GoStop and online Mahjong. Was probably also on facebook a fair bit and also MSNed with Jeanbear too. Fried rice for dinner.
Then more of the same at night.

Day 4, started pretty much how Day 3 ended. GoStop, SATC and food. By this time I had almost cleaned out the whole fridge, and finished the loaf of bread and the bacon and eggs and sausages, well most of the food. Did more laundry, cleaned up again, and did some Chinese homework. GoStop. Ahahaha. Watched Ghost Rider, and some Halloween movie and also America's Sweethearts on HBO. By evening, I changed and went down to the Jockey Club to pick up some Mark6 lottery tickets. First prize was 48 million dollars !!! Too bad did not win though. I spent some hours planning what to do with my winnings. Met up with FredBear and SoBear at the Outback at CWB for dinner where we just hung out and talked.

Today is Day 5, and so far, I have watched Grease 2, played GoStop and watched more SATC. Hahaha. I have chinese class later though. Ah holiday. I like that there does not need to be too much plans. Very relaxed. And also because there are so few people around here, and most of them are working, I do not even need to think and choose who to call, cause they are not free.

Tomorrow will be a busy day. In fact, next week will be a busy week. Still on holidays !!

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Another story another week.

This week passed by relatively uneventfully, partly due to benign market conditions, and the face that I was willing each day to pass by faster so that I could start my holidays ! Lo and behold Friday arrived, and I stepped off from my desk at 8 pm. Woohoo !! Another work week completed, and only about a fifty years to go.

This is starting to resemble a weekend activites only blog, and I guess it will have to continue for another week.

This weekend was REALLY busy and tiring. Friday night work ended with an hour's walk around Soho area for self amusement, and ended up buying some paratha and briyani rice with aloo gobi back for dinner. Rather uneventful, and fell asleep after several episodes of SATC. My Fridays are pretty much spent thus. So far.

Saturday began with Chinese class. Urgh. Having slept at around 4 am, I was bleary eyed and MsCarmen (teacher - one year younger than myself) could see it clearly. That was probably why we ended up conversing over animal chess, five in a row, and reversi. Haha ! THAT is what I call a fun and engagin alternative learning method !!!! We had a lot of fun though, and we did improve on conversing and also did some canto conversation too !! I got homework though - ugh.

Then walked around Sheung Wan while waiting for FredBear to introduce this supposedly fantastic claypot rice shop. It was ok. Not fantastic. Haha. Hung around the area, walked into Wing On Department Store where I bought something I had my eye on for a long time - digital weighing scales. It is white !! And 30% off !! And requires 4 AA batteries !! It was a presale. I love presales. You feel like you are VVVVVIP for going into the sales first. Wahaha. Visited Starbucks where I sipped my Macchiato waiting for GABis + MrTo to arrive. They arrived with a cake in tow for FredBear's birthday. We shared a cab back to the apartment for MJ !!! and cake. We sang. And had one candle on the cake. Hahahaha. FredBear's birthday wish ? To win the Mark6 Lottery. WAHAHA.

We split up for dinner then, as I accompanied FredBear's birthday dinner with the family. The dinner was REALLY interesting, and it seems that the family has enough drama for several generations and more. The material that we gathered was enough for a few years' worth of TVB !! At around 10 pm, we arrived at Victoria Gardens for tennis. Joined by some of the other IGs, it was pretty fun to be playing some sport for a while. I think we all got pretty excited and hyped up by the adrenaline, because we have all started to look forward to next weekend and even talked about making sports our weekly group event !

Sunday became a sleepy day, and GACle came to visit. Ended up teaching him some tricks about Mahjong that I use, and then we left the apartment at about 4ish to trawl Soho and Sheung Wan for some food. Ended up at this place for brisket and wonton noodles. Yum. I have fallen in love with brisket. Walked towards Admiralty and finally MTRed to Taikoo where he stayed as I wanted to check out KornHill. The place was very much like a hotel room, with an added cooking area, the size of mine. So it is sort of like a studio, but smaller. A small studio. I love that there is carpeting, central air conditioning, many tv channels, and free internet though. But the best part is the clubhouse !!

First we played some squash, about 7 games - non stop !! After the previous day's tennis, I started to feel really sore, but was also very satisfied with the exercise and sweat. Gymmed for about half an hour, where I was delighted to find my favourite machine - the baby birther (my nickname for it). Did that, and also tried the latest air walked-climber. A quick shower and then into the sauna we went. Oh, that was good ! Went several rounds, and had plenty of water sweated out of me ! I love it. The only thing missing was a deep tissue massage after !

With so many facilities available, I look forward to coming back for more sports. Perhaps I should bring my sports equipment over ! Lingered a while as the tv was showing The Mummy Returns and Bridget Jones 2. Oh, my favourite sequels. But had to get my ass moving as it was getting really near midnight. And so now I am back at home, typing this before beddy time, and will promise myself to enjoy the next two weeks off from work.

I need it.

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OK this should really have been written about earlier !!!

A much awaited trip to Cheung Chau happened on the weekend and it was really really fun. I had to cancel my Chinese class to go but I felt it was really worth it. FredBear, JanBear, GAHil, GABish and MrTW came along as well. We met up at pier 5 and after a little discussion, went on the luxury class level of the ferry. Basically it had air conditioning, compared to the open air decks below. Haha. We even had luxury toilets and an outdoor deck which was barred to prevent other people from coming to it. When I say luxury though, it was more like just clean. Played some cards, made some plans of what to do in Cheung Chau and it seems like the journey just whizzed by. In reality it was probably around an hour.

It was a totally different world when we stepped off the ferry. It looks like a little fishing village with a lot of tourists ! We looked at some shops selling local produce and also at some bicycle shops. Had a seafood lunch, before starting off. We rented bicycles for HKD30 each and rode Southwards. It felt really good to be wheeling along, free, with the wind in our faces. The best part was that we were far far away from tall buildings and work, and busy people. It was very relaxing. When we reached the tip of the South we went back to the pier before moving North. This time, I tried the 3 wheel cycle, which pulled a long a covered seat for a passenger to sit behind. Quite fun. We went all the way South this time and took pictures at a beach.

Then it was back towards the Pier before heading East this time for dessert. We ended up at a place for watersports. It was a very nice beachy cafe and we stopped to rest and had cool drinks. We also watched some people sail. fly kites and just hung around the beach until it was time to go home. It was quite sad to return the bicycles and get on the ferry home, but I guess every holiday had to have an ending. At night, we started to ache from all the cycling and I decided that I would just stay at home on Sunday to rest.

Until someone asked me to go karaoke.

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What a weekend.

Friday was like any other, work till about 8 pm. Uneventful night, leading to a relatively early bedtime. Which was just as well, because it turns out that Saturday would be a very tiring day. I cancelled my Chinese class because I had a wedding to attend which was scheduled to start at 12. I left the house at about 10 as I needed to get the cash coupon for the wedding from the bank. Did you know that instead of real money in the red packet at weddings, here they buy cash coupons from the banks ? It was something new to me. I immediately felt poorer, as the going rate here is about 4 times as high as back home for a wedding red packet !! In fact, it was about 20% of what I would usually spend in a month ! Having planned my route with the help of Centamap, I then took a slow walk to the church. It was still early, as it was easier and nearer than expected (note that maps in Hong Kong are pretty deceiving as the distances are actually much nearer compared to maps in other countries -things that look far away, are actually near and very walkable).

I reached the church at about a quarter past 11 and walked into the midst of a wedding. All too soon I realised that this was not the wedding of my colleague but I stayed to watch anyway. It was over by 12, and my other colleagues starting flowing in. Then I learnt that, most weddings are run with a strict schedule and usually only take an hour to start and end. This is because there are many other people waiting for their turn to use the church as well ! A bit sad really, since this once in a lifetime experience is so rushed !

It was pretty nice though, and we travelled to the Aberdeen Marina Club later for the wedding reception. It was a poolside lunch buffet, and was very yummy. The place was all silver and white, and it was fun. I think it is very true what was said in the movie 27 Dresses, that one of the best things to watch at the movie is the groom's face. It reveals a lot about his feelings about the whole thing. It was great to see him so happy.

Got home at around 5 and changed. I had a few friends coming over for mahjong. Played a bit and ordered in pizzas as we were all reluctant to go down to eat. While we played we watched Kung Fu, and then Finding Nemo, and then Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. And somehow, we ended our game at 5 am ! By the time I showered, it was pretty exhausting and I woke up finally only when my phone rang.

Had a late lunch of some curry noodles at about 3, and then I did my laundry (ugh) and then watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Took an afternoon nap, only to wake up when the sun had started setting. We went down to the Macau ferry pier, to pick up FredBear's crystal coffee cups from a friend, and had dinner at a Macanese food restaurant. We had some pork chop buns and roasted pigeon. It was raining quite heavily though, and now that I am back I am drowsy all over again even though I had coffee to drink.

It is a pretty good thing though that Tuesday is a public holiday again, because it means that I get some additional rest. The flip side is that this means that I will probably end up at work on Monday for quite a long time. I predict a 9 pm finish.

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You see, it is not just once a week ! I can do more than a post a week !!

Anyway.

Sunday was one of those really tiring relaxing days. What was meant to be a quiet day at home, with ironing and washing turned out really different. Waking up around 9 meant it was too late to go to morning church so I settled for going at 11.30. Took my time getting ready, watching some SATC, and finally went in and sat down. Good thing I was early, because by the time it started for real, it was really full ! Perhaps it will be less crowded at the earlier sessions. Got out at about 1 to go for lunch with FredBear and RoxBear all the way at Repulse Bay, SouthSide of HK island. We went back to the St Kilda-esque place called The Repulse Bay, where we ate at Spices. It has received lots of good reviews and we were pleased with the food we ordered there too. Cold fruit drinks, fried rice, butter chicken curry, aloo gobi...yum.......

Then we took our time walking around the seaside, not actually on the beach, but on the road next to the beach, and dreamt about buying houses around the area, and just talking rubbish. It was quite amazing to see the number of people on the beach, but I guess it is still technically the end of summer, so still a lot more sun to go around. It seems that, tanning is back in fashion too, as you can see many going around with really dark tans. Drove around the area for a while, before dropping RoxBear off at Pacific Place. This was also near where GAHil lived, so we dropped by her place for a while.

Fielded around lots of ideas for plans for the evening, and finally decided to first pick up GATra and MrWai, which was an adventure, since FredBear rarely drives to Kowloon. Armed with an iPhone GPS and a trusty navigator (me) we, started out for Sam Sui Po. We got there in the end, about half an hour later. Then we decided to head off for Gold Coast, for dinner. Halfway there though, we got sidetracked by thoughts of roast goose at Sham Tseng. So off we went there for for the famous roast goose. Being so far away, it was kind of surprising and also an eye opening experience to see parts of Hong Kong that you will rarely see without travelling in a car. Very interesting indeed. Food was fantastic and we also looked at some great views along the road. Apartments with these views are very expensive but it seems to be really worth it. Not only do you see the famous Tsing Ma Bridge, longest suspension bridge for traffic and rail in the world, you also get great scenes of the sea, HK Island and views of the bay.

By the time we got back home, we were really exhausted and faced with going to work the next day was really depressing. Luckily, Wednesday is National Day for China and is a holiday.

Now that it is noon, and it is halfway through the holiday, let me do a little recap. Worked from 7 to 9.30 yesterday and was lucky that did not promise to go to Ocean Park with many of the rest of the bank staff (they booked the whole place for a Halloween bash). Got home late, hungry and tired, but ended up with dinner of Pringles, Ritz and Vitamilk. Got up at about 8 in the morning, after about 6 hours of sleep (it is really automatic now for me), and then cleaned house. First it was wiping all the countertops (really dusty arghh killing me) then the floor. Then did 2 weeks of backdated ironing. Blah.

Now just thinking of the rest of the day. Hopefully a quiet day.

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