we just got back from a very fun. very stressful. very yummy. very expensive. trip to hong kong. marney, abby, natalia, jake, and i went to hong kong last week and thanks to lisa and fernando, had an amazing HK experience. we got to see ALL of the night life (thanks nundies!), shop till we dropped, eat dim sum until it was coming out of our ears and ride the MTA like it was our job!
on thursday night, we arrived in HK at around 9pm and took a bus to meet fernando and lisa at Sha Tin shopping mall/metro station. we were hurried back to campus (which involved walking up A LOT of hills!!!) and before i knew it we were in cabs to a club called tribeca. apparently, i had an amazing time dancing the night away.....and we ended up going home around 3ish...which was too early for lisa...the party girl side that i haven't seen of her during the past two years of knowing each other came out this past week!!! i loves it! unfortunately, marney and abby lost their passports in the taxi that night. it was really crappy...........but, long story short, we are all back in thailand now. safe and sound ;) and, if anyone ever loses their passport in HK again, we know exactly what to do!!! (provided they are canadian citizens!!!) OH, it turns out that this bad luck happened on 4/4, which is a Chinese holiday to celebrate the ancestors because the way you say "4" in chinese is almost like the word "death" so everything was closed and all the students got school off and everything. it was a cool holiday, but bad because all of the consulates were closed so we would have to wait until monday to go figure things out.
anyway, after the passport fiasco, we hung out on friday and got to eat dim sum at the campus restaurant, and then rested and went to dinner, and then got ready to go out again. that night, we went to LKF, which is the clubbing/bar district of hong kong. it sort of reminded me of kao san road, or a smaller hollywood blvd, with tons of different kinds of clubs...loud music...small food stands...tons of people...buckets of alcohol.......and the rest is history. it was SO much fun, and i stayed out so late and didn't even get tired! after LKF, i stayed in a hostel in kowloon...and if you ever thought you stayed in a shady place, just look at this picture (it's the view as soon as you get out of the escalator)!!!! however, as i like to say, as long as there is hot water and a flushing toilet, i am fine. and i had both. so i survived.we shopped ALL saturday at a mall called harbour city mall and then met fernando and lisa for korean bbq. i loved it. OH, and now i eat pork. and beef....i guess i am not anything near to a vegetarian anymore. go me. hahha....dinner tasted great, except it made abby sick for almost the rest of the trip, until she threw it all up three days later at the theme park and "felt 20 pounds lighter, and SO much better" -abby t.
sunday we rested again and went to a few malls and markets with brandon (nundies and lisa's friend from CUHK). the malls in HK are truly asian super malls. they are HUGE and have everything you could possibly want. the outdoor markets are about the same as thailand's markets, but i still like thai markets better: 1. because they are cheaper, 2. because they are bigger (more stuff to buy/selection) and 3. because they always have food at them ;) ;) don't get me wrong, i still love the markets in HK!!! anytime i get to shop, i am a happy girl!
monday morning we woke up early and went to the canadian embassy to try to figure marney's passport situation out. the only funny thing about losing the passport was when we first went to the embassy we had to check in with a security guard who filtered people into different rooms depending on their situation. so, we walk in and marney looks at the guard and says "i lost my passport." period. and he looks at his computer screen which has a few different options (all in the form of animated pictures) and in the middle, there was a big picture of a triangle with an exclamation point in the middle of it....and after a few seconds of thought, he proceeded to press that button (with authority!!!) and marney got to go first before all the other people waiting!!!! hahhaha...it was so funny. but i think that was the ONLY funny thing about the lost passport. after getting things sort of settled, we decided to go to ocean park and ride some sweet roller coasters! i finally conquered my fear of the ones that drop straight down and rode on it TWO times!!! it is SO much fun!!! it was the scariest thing ever though because it starts to go up really slowly, and then it shoots up and seems to go up FOREVER and EVER and then once you get to the top you just sit there for what seems like eternity, and then you just fall. straight down. the first time i closed my eyes and the second time i forced myself to keep them open and it was 10 times scarier!!!
tuesday was another embassy morning, followed by a trip to victoria peak and a little more shopping. i remember the peak from my last trip to hong kong, but this time it was pretty foggy so we were not able to see too much from the top. it was still beautiful though and nice and cool up there. after the peak we went to ladies market and then ate traditional hong kong hot pot! we had live craw fish and fish balls of every shape and color imaginable, noodles galore, and veggies i have never seen before!
so, we had all moved to the hostels on monday night and these places were a dump. there were absolutely no windows and five of us were squished into a room that would have comfortably fit 2. but, we are hard core now, so we dealt with it! look at the pictures below or on my facebook to get the full picture. the elevators were so slow and often times they could not hold all of us so it took almost 10 minutes to go down 5 stories, and we couldn't figure out how to go down using the stairwells because they never took you all the way down. but, really, it wasn't that bad. anyway, the point of telling you about the hostels was that we slept in until 2 or 3 on wednesday because we thought it was 9am....due to the lack of windows and exhausting walking around HK. we were so much more active there than we are here, mostly because it is bearable to walk outside without sweating every ounce of water out of you. i liked being active th
ough. and now, we are hermits again staying inside all day because of the AC and doing everything possible to avoid the 100+ weather outside! it is nice, however, to be back home again!!! oh, i love my thailand! wednesday night, we went to the horse races!!! it is so much fun with lots of gambling and betting and weird chinese food! and after the races, they took us to a favorite college hangout called skitz. it is open bar for girls (free open bar!) and guys pay 180 HKD and according to fernando and lisa, there has not been a night where someone doesn't have to get taken home. but that night, none of us had to get taken home!! SUCCESS! it was a ton of fun, and we got to meet some of their local hong kong friends. it was a great way to finish a great trip!
on our last day, we decided to detox our bodies from the week of partying.....so we walked around the nathan road area for a while trying to find a place to get suctioned and ear waxed!!! our friends from bangkok came to HK also and they did this detox thing the first day they were there and they told us about it so we just blindly went in and told them we wanted to be suctioned....little did we know that we would come out looking like a GIGANTIC octopus slapped us on the back and left huge black circles all over us. it is disgusting. but kinda cool at the same time. supposedly it cleans out your body and makes your blood circulate better or something...it is supposed to realign you chi and if you have internal organ problems, it is supposed to help with that too. i had a lot of energy last night and i was warm in the AC when i am usually cold, so i think it actually might have done something...but there is a good possibility that i am imagining all of this too ;) ;)in a rush now because we are leaving for chiang mai and the songkran festival in a few hours and i still have to get my laundry, pack and upload pics!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAMA!!!!! miss you guys so much...xoxo, mer
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