Day 1: On The Wrong Side of Hong Kong?

~ 14th March 2014, Friday~

 We've finally landed safely at the airport. It's my first time in Hong Kong as I had trouble with my visa for China two years back. This time round, I was smarter, I got myself double entry visas. Fancy taking a train to collect the luggage. I wonder how does the floor plan of the whole airport looks like. We were quite disappointed that our passports were not chopped. Everything was computerized. So, no chop and sign or whatsoever. My newly renewed passport is quite empty if not it will be filled up with chops of going in and out of Hong Kong like I actually stayed there. Will I get lost on my own in Hong Kong? Definitely YES. Do I speak Cantonese? No... unless I am forced to as I can understand Cantonese dialect. Don't even think of scolding me in Cantonese I can scold you back.

Finally we met up again after two years 

Pinky's second aunt... also my second aunt? I don't know... I just call her as how Pinky, my international travel buddy calls her. It's really extremely kind of her to travel all the way from Shunde to welcome us in Hong Kong. Mind you, my international travel buddy was still busy packing her stuff in Melbourne while we have already landed safely. 

Counter for purchasing Octopus Card

Second aunt purchased our Octopus Card for us so that we could travel by just swiping the debit card for all sort of public transportation. We're headed to the place where we would bunk in for a couple of days before leaving Hong Kong. Nah... I'm not on holiday for three days only. I don't do three days holiday. So, let's go home... wherever 'home' was.

In the belly of the public double-decker bus... 

I thought we're going to take the MTR to reach faster, but instead, we were waiting at the bus stop and yes... shucks... I've just arrived and I was running with my luggage to catch a bus that flew passed us. Darn! Everything in Hong Kong moved at the speed of lightning. Everyone needs to learn to slow down in life. I'm sure people who met us on the road thought that we were walking at the speed of a tortoise with double shells on our back. Yes, I know we're slow by Hongkie standard but it's really very fast already according to my Penang standard where we hardly walk. We only drive around, not walking from one street to another side of the city and walk up and down a quarter of the map. 

Replica of Penang Bridge... I felt that I'm back home...

From the airport to the last stop of the bus station, we had to go pass two bridges and I was thinking,"Hey, they looked so much like Penang Bridge." Okay, I'm from the jungle, entering into a big city. And I can't help it but think, why the bridges looked so much like Penang Bridge. Anything to do with British colonization there and British time here? Same kinda structure. So, nothing special... yet... I believe.

Bird shit on the road sign

So, we're gonna stay here for a couple of days. Before I left, my translators have translated for me the address that I would be at. I have a team of translators who helped me out with my holiday plans. God bless them all for their hard work. No wonder the smell of salt was so strong, more like the smell of salted fish. Now you know where to go hunt for suppliers of high quality ginseng and bird's nest? I'm saying it's of high quality because I have seen them with my own eyes. Really of good quality, thoroughly cleaned seafood of sorts. I can take you there as I have good geographical memory, if there's such a thing. I know how to get around the area after being taken around once. I have a little of photographic memory for historical facts and numbers. A little of language brain and other than that, no more I think. After throwing my luggage around like I'm back home, we left  for dinner. That's a really tiring part, hunting for dinner.

Rinse your drinking glass in hot tea...

Let me get you started with what you should do with your eating utensils. It's the same as in China and Taiwan. That tea in the teapot was not for you to drink yet. You're suppose to wash your pair of chopsticks, soup spoon, small bowl and plate with the tea and then that tea was to be gotten rid of. Only after that, you asked for more tea for drinking. It's the same kind of tea. Some restaurants just let you wash with boiling hot water. The first time I was in China and now, again going through this process before eating, fancy I didn't throw the hot cups into the air, but to keep on the safe side, Pinky would be washing my eating utensils for me. Thank you for your services, dear. 

Clean your plate for food waste...

By the way, you're suppose to take your food and put them into the small bowl. The small bowl is used for eating while the big plate is for you to put your bones and whatever nonsense that you feel like spitting out of your mouth or digging out in between your teeth. My family in China knows I'm the total opposite so, they don't bother to wash my bowl properly but instead my plate was washed thoroughly as I use the plate instead of the bowl. Don't follow me, okay. This is just my style.

Toilet paper on dining table provided by the restaurant...

That's a roll of toilet paper for you to wipe anything that you want to wipe, but it's definitely not for you to wipe your ass in public. Hong Kong still gives you free tissues, but in China, please bring lots and lots of tissues. Tissues are not free but as usual, I carry anything and everything except for tissue papers. The best part of being here in the restaurant was, we washed everything clean and chit chatted and ordered our food. I was about to faint from hunger but one of the waitresses told us that we had to wait for an hour. Even second aunt couldn't wait as she has to go back to Shunde. So, she marched us out of the crowded restaurant. We went to another place in one of the streets, it was quite a fancy restaurant which I don't mind having my dinner there. But since there was an invisible waiting list, we went marching in another direction until we finally landed in a quite empty shop. Empty shop means one thing, food is not good. Seriously, not good at all. Hungry people cannot be picky eater. So, I ate whatever I felt was edible. Done with dinner, go home! Nothing much to do so since we're staying at the top floor, one of the uncles took me up to the rooftop. Whoa!

Penang Bridge in Hong Kong?

Was that the bridge which we used just now? I have no idea but it was a good view from the top but most part of the sea was blocked by other taller buildings. Hong Kong is one place with so many tall buildings lined up like dominoes. If one falls, can you imagine the domino effect that will suffice? 

Our first outing in Hong Kong: Taking photos on the dark rooftop...

We were having a date night up at the rooftop without a pot of hot tea or coffee to accompany us on a cold night. The weather was really good at around 15-degree Celsius and we were in total darkness. Okay, I have good eyesight that helps at night. At least I didn't trip on anything and went flying 34 storeys down. 

Day 1: The Cotton Candy Clouds...

~ 14th March 2014, Friday ~

Enjoying the beautiful view.... 

We have our seats pre-booked. Time for mi mama to look into the blue sky and cotton candy clouds. I have had my fair share of staring into those beautiful sky during my previous flights. The best clouds were those on the way to Beijing but the air-stewardess from Shenzhen Airlines had her eyes like hawks on my hand because photography in flight was not allowed. So, what's actually outside that small little window other than getting the pinching hot sunlight shining through. You know we have been covered with haze in March so I have not seen clear blue sky for a few months. 

Aaaa.... wwwoowwwwooowww..... camera.... where's my camera?

I was telling myself that I should not take out both my cameras, one in my pocket and one snuggled in the bag under the seat. Don't take out the camera.... don't take out the camera... just enjoy the view as it is. I was leafing through AirAsia's in-flight magazine and then I just felt like taking a peep out of the pigeon hole. And it was.... wow~!!! I was frantically digging out my compact camera from my pocket but after that I was pulling out my big camera snuggled comfortably in its bag. I can assure you that the poor camera was overworked and underpaid.... not paid at all in fact. The flight was a little under 4 hours and I spent one hour doing nothing and two hours looking into the clear blue sky and I think I finished up two batteries from the camera but of course I showed only a few photos here. Don't fancy showing everything... you have to experience it yourself, see it with your own eyes. It's different from looking at photos. 

Fluff fluff...

Are we at the polar region?

Flying above and through the fluffy clouds...

IF only I know how to skydive.... but how high above do you start skydiving? I totally have no idea and I don't think I will ever have the chance to do so. I want to touch those clouds but there shouldn't be anything as they are just made of water vapours with charged particles? That's what I know from Science. God is so meticulous in creating everything under the sun.

Let us take a selfie first....

Let's take a photo of ourselves. I have less photos of myself in this trip. You will get bored passing your camera to others to take your own photo and then if the result came out not as you wish, then it's better not to take at all. I prefer holding the camera and fire away. I know what I want to appear on the screen and how I want the photos to turn out like. 

The busy Hong Kong sea... 

Hey, sign of humans down there. We're nearing the airport in Hong Kong on the island of Chek Lap Kok, so the airport runway is just by the sea. You will need very experienced pilot for a good landing. You know which airlines to travel with now? None other than our....

亞洲航空.... AirAsia

Eh, why am I advertising for AirAsia? AirAsia no give me water to drink also... I always almost choked to death coz' my saliva was totally dried up and I cannot afford to buy the expensive drink and I'm too stingy to buy food. Can give me a big bottle of water for free next time? Aiya, don't have also never mind coz' I don't want to go to the toilet.

Day 1: As We Prepare to Leave the Island... And Off We Went....

~ 14th March 2014 ~

It was on a Friday morning that we took off. Thank God I checked our flight tickets. I thought we were going to fly on the the 15th of March 2014. No doubt I'm a very last minute person, I did check all the details and remember to bring our passports along and did a very last minute online check-in. 

The important things when I travel...

I'm a rather easy-going traveler. I just need to make sure I have my t-shirts and jeans, undies, extra pair of socks or I can just go and buy socks, jackets - thank God it was spring and not winter, a towel and that's it. The most important stuff that I will always always always bring along with me are those adapters and extra connectors and all my memory cards for my cameras. I know I always intend to travel as light as possible but this time round, it was almost crazy. I wonder how can people wear those lovely dresses or go in beautiful blouse and flowery skirts with heels. I have never done that. I did bring along two dresses that  neither see the sunlight nor the moonlight for a month hiding in one of the corners of the luggage. 

Our luggage for two

As a last minute packer, I packed our three luggage the night before, almost sacrificing away the sleep. Anyway, I have not been sleeping well one month prior to the trip as Pinky (my international travel buddy) and I were so busy trying to put things into plan for our trip together. We did a great yet lousy job in planning for this trip, in the end I surrendered everything to God to carry out for us the plan. Only part of our plan took off, the rest was long-forgotten.

What's with those three luggage? Three-quarter of the large luggage was filled with nutmegs which I brought over to my family in China. Next time round, I will have to remember to bring 'bah kut teh' mix for them. They were actually asking for durians which I couldn't possibly bring over. So, how much clothing do you need for a month? I only have 10 days of clothing with me so you can see that I totally don't have enough to wear and I need to wash my clothes on a holiday. It's something that I don't do. I depend on my hubby to do the laundry. I have no idea how to operate a washing machine. I'm a pampered lot. Never touch laundry basket before but I did buy one at home. 

Good morning Mr. Sun....

Hey, Mr. Sun. Fancy seeing you at the airport. It's freaking early to be at the airport. We practically spent hours at the airport waiting for our flights. It has been two months since so I couldn't remember what time we flew off to Kuala Lumpur. But AirAsia, you are so punctual. I love you very much. 

The taste that we missed for a month...

We had our brunch in Kuala Lumpur's LCCT. Taste of Asia, no doubt it's expensive and not that delicious but let me tell you this, I was having such a bad craving for Malaysian food for the one long month. And it's a mistake to have brunch. Our next meal was dinner in Hong Kong and we were so hungry I was thinking of eating off anything that's edible. 

Cute loaf of cake bread...

How do you bake such cake or bread? It's from Baker's Cottage in LCCT... also our lunch? Geez... I'm not even sure. You know I love to read whenever I travel alone. This time round, I'm actually bringing mi mama for a warm up trip before she embarks on further journey with longer flying hours. It's mi mama's second flight. Her first flight was from Penang to Kuala Lumpur earlier. I wished I have had a warm up flight before my first flight out straight to Melbourne which I almost went berserk, I was contemplating on kicking the chair in front of me and to punch the person sitting next to me for talking to me for so many hours. I do not like to be confined in a small space and I feel that the seats between AirAsia's plane is really suffocating but I still love AirAsia. This time round, I brought a book along but I don't feel like reading. I just wanted to waste my many hours away. I have my smartphone with me so I was online and posting photos on Facebook every few minutes to kill boredom, or rather, to kill time. 

A marketplace at the airport...

Flying is no longer a luxury. Taking a flight is just another form of transportation. You spend more hours at the airport rather than on the plane if you're flying domestic. And for this one, we were waiting for our international flight. You know what's inside that black backpack of mine? Shucks. I have a tripod stand with me. My intention of placing my footsteps in other countries with as little things on my back as possible, it went awry. I have a sling bag with me where I stored all our passports and important stuff with me. Another sling bag for the camera and a backpack. Damn! I felt like I was carrying a baby elephant all throughout the journey. 

My poor BUM shoes...

That's a new pair of BUM shoes alright, at RM2 only after discount and after using up the consolation prize that I won from GAMA departmental store's lucky draw on something. Praise the Lord for that. That's the best shoes to walk around in. No regrets getting this pair. Follow me on my one month's journey... I'll keep on writing whenever I find the time to do so. It's one spectacular journey which didn't go so well here and there but I could safely say that it's a good one till the next trip. 

The Penis.... From Hengchun,Taiwan....

I have removed the post earlier because I think it inappropriate in some way or another. But come to think about it, this is my blog, where I write about everything. This is part of the account of my travel log, part of my ranting and I just enjoy writing and sharing my stories to myself. I find some of the posts that I wrote rather amusing.

Taiwan, as I said, offered much to tourists. We have heard so much of the country that all of a sudden we were planning one, on our own. We did a lot of research but not as much as others might do. We were the last-minute travellers and we know that our plans would never be followed by us to the dot. We changed our plans just like how sudden the wind shifted. 

We consider ourselves truly blessed when we met strangers who showed us pure Taiwanese hospitality. Pinky has said that Taiwanese are friendly people. I do agree about their friendliness but to what extent are their friendliness genuine? One would never know until something happened.

Tsai Chin-Yih and his wife, Ann... 

We met this couple, tour agents down south, who has shown us goodness and mercy. They took us for a dinner, which we split the bill. We were thankful for their extended goodness, on top of allowing us to use the credit card to pay for our transportation to another county. I was really touched by their gestures and whispered a prayer of blessing upon them.

We became friends in the social network. The man has been sending photos of places to visit in Hengchun Township, a place which we have overlooked while doing our research. We thought there was nothing nice to look at over there as we prefer staring into the roaring Pacific Ocean, rather than to look at some old temples. We have enough of looking at old buildings by the time we traveled down south of the island.

Were you standing in your closet on tip-toe just to send this photo to me?

Well, the man proved to be over-friendly when he sent me the photo of his erected dick while thinking of me. One of my friends said 'hat's off to me' for giving a man a full erection by just thinking of me and looking at my profile photo. The man, in broken English, was even begging for me for sex, which makes me wonder, what is the use of his wife then? Did he have a bad marriage, an unhealthy marriage? He's working with his wife, looking at her every day, and yet he could be lusting over someone else. Oh, well..... don't mess with me. I'm not a person to be messed with. 

I made a phone call to the wife. A loud-mouth lady who sided with the husband. Instead of blaming him, she blamed herself that she's has been neglecting him due to heavy workload of bringing and arranging tours for customers. I don't know what kinda sex life Taiwanese couples have but to have your own husband begging for sex from a tourist whom he has only known for a couple of hours, that's rather a sad sad sex life back at home. Please, sign up for marriage counselling if you have one over there. I thought Taiwan is a first world country, maybe just in facilities, not in the human brain. Or I might have just met a no brainer but I do pity the wife.

I did some background check on the man. Found much stuff by just searching on a person's name on Google. Found one of his Google+ accounts which was shared publicly, with a few naked ladies as people in his circle. Well, he made it private once he realized I've found out about it and feeding his bimbo wife with the information. Found that he has another Facebook account with different birth dates with different sets of friends in both accounts. Fancy, living with a man with a double life. Found another website for Taiwanese to look for soul mates where he has fake his age by ten years younger. I really pity his wife by now and I wonder how could one live with such a man. That takes a lot of effort and love. I would have kick the man out into the streets and file for divorce before the clock strikes 12 midnight. Hey, man.... I found another of your Google+ accounts. 

I live half of my waking hours online so seriously, don't mess with me.... and my Taiwan friend found your house address. I do make lots of friends everywhere. You proof to be one of the most rotten person I've ever met and I'll remember you for life.

The Inevitable Activity: Sleep....

Tomorrow is Thursday. I'm not bounded by time. I have been taking my own sweet time in uploading my holiday photos which has amounted to 14 172 photos. I know, that's totally crazy. So, I'm not going to be bothered about that until the next holiday, maybe. I do have a lot of things in mind for example clearing the kitchen as I have so many things in the kitchen it is a surprise that I can even stand there and do anything. I have a really big kitchen compared to other kitchens in different houses and I'm very happy with this kitchen just that I feel that I don't have enough space. I. NEED. MORE. SPACE.

Then, I have been planning to get back my nice not-so-fat body but I have to move my butt and get my ass off the bed and go for the jog and then torture myself in the gym. Actually, I like going to the gym but currently I'm so lazy I couldn't even move an inch. I love the bed so much. Love staying under the comforter. Love the room that you will have no idea when the sun appears. Love the cool air-cond at 16-degree.

I have three songs to practice on the piano but I think I can survive on sight-reading. Need to prepare lots of answer sheets. Have to prepare early for all the major exams. Gosh... I have so many things to do but I'm happily typing here because I miss writing so much. I'm finally getting a new Internet connection for the house YES!! Yes!!! I'm getting YES! Thanks to stupid Wimax but I'll still keep to Wimax for the other house. Unifi why you don't want to come to my place? Why you don't like to come here? You scared no subscribers? 

Eh, I just saw my fishing rods but I guess the weather is too hot and I'm not a fisherman. But I did play a bit with my camera. I love it but still... don't ask me to edit photos... I'll kill people if I have to edit all my 14 172 photos. 

That's the moon I captured. It looks like I have grabbed the photo from Google but I DID NOT! It's from my telephoto lens and I take a shot of the moon outside the house. It looks perfect to me... *sigh* Photography is an art. I like everything natural and unedited. 

What am I to do with myself? I'm currently reading on the book of Numbers and it's a bit too stressful. Why God has so many laws if I were to live at that time, I couldn't make it to the Promise Land together with the rest of the Israeli, wandering in the desert for 40 years. 

Oh, I still have my gardening to do. Still need to change the interior designs of each corner of the house. But, I think I'll dream about all those. I've been deprived of sleep... *sigh* one month of holiday and after a month, I'm still suffering from it. 

Come back, ol' life.... come back to me... I don't really remember how I live my life before my holidays or how did I live my life last year... can't remember what I was busy with last year. Couldn't recall anything.