Day 25: Season at OCT - Coconut Chicken...

~7th April 2014~

It's another day which we lazed away and we had dinner invitation with Pinky's mom's ex-colleagues. All teachers from the middle school. We had to walk to the end of the road. There's a building which housed retail shops, a supermarket and many restaurants. The three of us had no idea where we were going.

The restaurant was at the top most floor. The name of the restaurant is Season's and I think it's still surviving but I'm not quite sure. The restaurant was filled to its brim so we had to sit while waiting for people to dine and be done with their dinner. We went to the open area but that was also full so went back inside to wait.

While waiting, we can use the computers to go online. Sadly, Facebook and anything powered by Google were not working and everything's in Chinese so the two computers were useless to me. Actually those computers were for children to play games while waiting for their parents to finish eating and chit chatting.

Finally, we got our seats. The main dish was claypot coconut chicken. Instead of chicken stock as the soup base, they used pandan coconut but you shouldn't ask for a refill because they will only give you plain water as refill. The chicken meat wasn't marinated. Just push the whole thing in and wait for it to boil. I have tried it back at home here in Penang and it's really very good because we have such wonderful coconuts. You can try that during Chinese New Year for steamboat but let me remind you that you will need to buy lots of coconuts. I bought at least 8 but I was hosting dinner and I invited the coconut uncle to my house and coconut uncle was so wonderful, he brought many more extra coconuts. God knows I needed coconuts more than anything at that point of time.

That restaurant even used the sand timer so that the chicken would not be overcooked. We ordered a large claypot of chicken rice as well because that one small spring chicken, I could eat two of that on my own. The dessert was that best but I can't remember what was it actually. That was two year's ago, I don't even remember what I ate two days ago. That's all for the day. I spent the whole day eating and catching up with the Chinese series where communists and the Japanese were at each others' neck.

Day 24: That One Day in Hong Kong...

~ 6th April 2014~

Pinky's mom arrived from Shenzhen but we were still rolling around on our comfortable make-shift beds across the living hall. Then, we decided to get up as we needed to go for dim sum. We walked and walked and I have no idea where we were. My built-in GPS was not in service. I totally have no written plans for Hong Kong except for visiting the Disneyland which I did on the third day upon arrival. 

After we were done with breakfast, we went to a shop selling biscuits. Grandpa liked the Garden brand biscuits that came in the red tin. We got ourselves some chocolate sticks which Pinky's mom ended up having all to herself while watching the idiot box when we got back to Shenzhen. 

We walked and walked, I think we ended up at the harbour to take the First Ferry to Hong Kong Island. It was a long weekend due to All Souls' Day. It was a Friday because it's only on Friday that there will be Friday prayers in the afternoon. That's one huge mosque but I thought only the men will go for Friday prayers? That mosque was attended by women only. *I'm very confuse*

We continued walking. The more we walked, the more we dislike Hong Kong. We developed a phobia from crowd when we were in Taiwan. Now that we were walking and we only see humans and more humans, I literally gave up on walking. We found a place to have some toast and then we walked back to the harbour and we literally ran to chase after the ferry. We couldn't wait another minute to go home.

The peanut butter toasts were so expensive. I can buy a few loaves of bread back at home. We didn't do any shopping and I felt like these life-sized figures... completely knackered.

Then, we went to a pharmacy because grandpa needed his medication. That medicine was Made in Malaysia. What's that? Malaysia got sell?

You see my purple luggage? Fancy abandoning the luggage for more than 3 weeks and claiming it back on the 24th day. It made me think, why need such a huge luggage? Next time if  I have anything I want to give them in China, I will just courier it and I will want to travel as light as possible. We were suppose to stay in Hong Kong for another day but because I was so frustrated with the crowd, I told Pinky's mother that I wanted to go back to Shenzhen. 

When she said okay, I became energetic and walked faster to reach home. First aunt must have thought we were crazy people. A few days ago we were so delighted to go to Hong Kong and suddenly we didn't even wait for her to come back from work and we made ourselves disappear from her house. We cleaned up the place so that it would look like no one has ever visited the place.

We had our long-legged crab thawed and steamed before we started our journey home. It will just take minutes to be cleared at the immigration checkpoint in Luohu. To our dismay, the crowd was so large that we had no idea where the main entrance was. The few minutes check became a three-hour shoulder-to-shoulder crawl. We just moved a few centimetres every 5 minutes. It was insane, We wanted to faint but we cannot faint there, because it's at the Hong Kong side, if we were rescued, we would be pushed further into Hong Kong. I will choose to faint at the Shenzhen side.

Ended up, we reached home was past midnight. In conclusion, this year, none of us wanted to go to Hong Kong. Yeah, we don't like Hong Kong and I will never forget how one of the immigration officers treated Pinky when we entered the previous day. The male officer stood up from his cubicle and asked Pinky in a loud voice whether she's pregnant or not as she was wearing a simple dress. I would be embarrassed being questioned in such a rude and loud way. I know the Chinese from mainland would find ways to enter Hong Kong to give birth but hhhheeeellllllloooooooo... if Pinky wants to give birth, she doesn't need Hong Kong, she can just have her baby in Australia as she lives there~! Can't the officer ask nicely? Pinky was so skinny and I can vouch for her that if she was really pregnant, she was pregnant with lots of shit from all the dim sum that we've had every single morning.

Day 24: The MiRabbit Madness at Mira Mall...

~6th April 2014~

I'm not a shopper but sometimes I do like taking a stroll in the mall just for the air-conditioner. I do like looking at kitchen utensils. I like looking at the price and gasp over the high price, wondering whether is it because of the brand name, the cast iron, the green pan or it's just due to conversion rate.

We walked through The Mira building which housed the Mira Mall. There's this MiRabbits at the mall. The pink bunny is really ugly but the ugliness makes it cute. 

Day 24: Dim Sum - The Chinese Breakfast...

~6th April 2014~

Fat Chinese? Haven't seen any unless you're talking about me...

Dim sum - an edible time bomb? Those in Hong Kong and China have them daily...

The tea~! Can't you see it? It's the tea they drink... whether be it pu'er, guanyin or whatever sort of tea, there's a whole long list of tea in China. Tea really is a wonder drink.

Well, we have dim sum practically every day and I'm a fan of dim sum, as long as there's minced meat and prawns in them. The Chinese have so many things to talk about. There's always something to discuss, but it's not gossip where you slaughter someone in a conversation. 

I like it that there's always one person in the group who does all the talking. They talk and talk and talk but it's never boring. 

Then, if someone is talking, there's definitely listeners. It's a waste how some of these people do not end up being a preacher. 

There are those who speak, those who listen and hey, I'm the one eating. You better watch out~! If the food is good, I can finish them up while you talk.

Uncle, thank you for breakfast...

Day 23: Dinner at Home in Hong Kong...

~5th April 2014~

After getting down from the Peak, we had to take an MTR back to first aunt's house. As she worked at a restaurant, she took home leftovers for us. We never mind leftovers because it was not like the patrons from the restaurant couldn't finish what's on their platter and first aunt took them home. It was from the kitchen and the restaurant could not finish selling them. You wouldn't want to waste food right? Do you know it's very expensive to have roasted goose in Hong Kong? Everything in Hong Kong is expensive, for goodness' sake~! 

We had our chuka idako, the red octopus which both Pinky and I love. We really like Japanese food and we love seafood in particular.We microwaved one of the fat ass crab and we started enjoying our midnight meal. We finished and cleared up at 1:30a.m.

The living area has been transformed into our bedroom. We prefer first aunt's tiny apartment compared to the previous three-roomed apartment. If I have to live there for good, I will be a minimalist.