hong kong adventure

hong kong photo booth madness

deery-lou.
like a blink of an eye my hong kong trip came and went. i arrived at the marco polo hong kong hotel mid-afternoon. while misty was at work i walked around the waterfront and surrounding area. in the late afternoon i met up with misty briefly. we were going to try to get a photo taken so we could go into china but were too late. oh well. she went back to work and i ventured around the giant mall. yes, hong kong is like one giant mall after another. its definitely a place for those who like to shop. after cruising around the mall for over an hour i made my way back to the hotel. i needed a rest. i felt completely overwhelmed. the night before i only got two hours of sleep, if that. my plane left for hong kong at 9am which meant i had to leave by 5am. it takes two hours by bus to get to the airport and then i had to go to imigration to get a visa stamp. the joys of traveling. misty met me back at the hotel where we had christmas. YEAH!! how fun is that! christmas in a hotel in hong kong. love it. misty brought some macau pies back to the hotel. they were the yummiest pies ever! we then rallied and went down to the hotel bar for some cocktails with her co-workers. misty wanted me to met kitty. she works at the bar there and has been serving them every night. what i thought was going to be one drink turned into two plus a shot. kitty just wouldn't let us leave. love her. misty and i headed out after the second drink. we took a train into hong kong. destination lan kwai fong. we were in search of this "cool indie bar" that was in her book. unfortunately we found out later after much walking around that the bar was no longer there. we grabbed some dinner in this tiny little restaurant that was really good. we continued our exploring and found the area where all the foreigners hung out. the street was literally filled with foreigners drinking. not wanting to hang out there we found a little bar off an alley to grab a drink. we stayed there until we were annoyed by the foreigner sitting next to us. he was trying so hard to pick up on these two asian girls that it was embarrassing. misty and i realized that we are snots and thats why we love each other so much. hee hee. we set out to look for another bar i found in the book. unfortunately like the other place this bar was gone too. sadness. we spent the rest of the evening just walking around. we found a lot of cool alleyways with stairs. misty befriended a cat. around 1am we headed back to the hotel.

on saturday morning we met her co-workers for breakfast and then headed out via the train to the new territories near the chinese border. we spent most of the day exploring various little neighbors from different stops. at one stop we found a temple to tour. most of the stops had little markets to walk around. we also managed to hit every chinese bakery in search of macau pies. we didn't find them but we did find some delicious egg custard pies. we parted ways with her co-workers late afternoon and decided to explore the university stop. we thought there might be some cool shops there. nope. it was just a university. oh well. we jumped back on the train and headed to mong kok where there were all these markets. that's where misty, bless her soul, looked up and found TOY MART. how happy was i! it was four floors filled with toy shop after toy shop. i thought i'd died and gone to heaven. with newly purchased toys in hand we made our way back to the hotel for a quick rest. we sat on the hotel beds with our pile of toys laughing. how are we? here we are in our thirties sitting in a hotel with toys all around us. i love us! misty then took me to this nearby local bar. we were the only foreigners in the place which made it great. i love experiencing things like that. they were all playing some drinking game with dice. that night the vt's were going down like water.

sundy morning we went to some market area near the hotel in search of touristy gifts. nope. most of the shops were closed. i was in search of the olympic mascot toys. seeing that the olympics are going to be in bejing i thought that hong kong would be flooded with merchandise. sadly i was mistaken. we jumped on the train and headed to sik sik yuen wong tai sin temple. misty and i had our fortune told. we actually did the shaking stick fortune. we're so down with the culture. from the temple it was back to toy mart. yeah i know, but its been ages since i bought toys and i needed more. we strolled through the market again. this time i actually bought stuff. went to temple street market which was just opening then headed back to the hotel. we had another toy session then took a walk along the waterfront. i wanted to see the city lights. we got back to the hotel around 8:30pm then i headed out for the airport. i arrived in korea at 5am to freshly fallen snow. it was 16 degrees F. my bus ride home took 3 hours because of traffic. it was a tough day.

it was so great to be able to see misty. it made me realize how important she is to my life. and to be able to experience a new place with such a great friend is wonderful. she's such an amazing person. so full of life, a great sense of humor, and appreciates the simple things out of life. in a sense she's alot like me. more than i realized before. thats probably why we get along so well. seeing her in hong kong was as if no time had past. thats what makes the friendship so amazing. it was definitely sad to say goodbye so soon. it was kind of like a tease but definitely worth it. i'm so happy i made the trip. and even happier to have been able to spend it with her.

here are some highlights from hong kong tour o5
1. MISTY!
2. macau pies
3. avenue of the stars
4. the crazy christmas is everywhere in hong kong
5. the childrens christmas pagent
6. the sweet potato lady
7. the kiss store front window
8. egg custard pies
9. little birds in cages hanging outside of stores
10. good chinese food
11. the chinese bakery
12. bbq pork buns
13. the chinese pub
14. hearing cheesy pick up lines like: "you shouldn't teach. instead you should dye your hair and join a rock band"
15. man in subway carrying olympic mascot toys telling misty that you can find them everywhere
16. being asked if i wanted to buy a suit every 5 minutes
17. snake and turtle restaurant
18. eating strange sausage
19. misty buying doll clothes for her newly purchased giant blythe doll
20. graduation pictures at the university
21. random shrines all over the city
22. from outer space toys
23. fortune telling sticks
24. random carnival minus the rides outside of temple
25. woman telling me i should stay in hong kong for 3 months
26. wearing fur coats in the vodka bar
27. christmas in hotel room
28. finding a super hero t-shirt and misty telling me i so needed it
29. toymart
30. finding a 7-11 that had fountain drinks
31. crunchy bread with a 2 inch slab of butter in it
32. bartering with the market people
33. chanderliers hanging above plants
34. hip asians
35. not hearing misty ringing the hotel room doorbell cuz i had cartoons cranked up
36. finding random temples
37. the giant meat market
38. view of the city from the 6th floor
39. shitfighters
40. secret doors
41. photo booth

be well…

click here for my hong kong photos!