Goodbye 2011, Hello 2012!

Jan 07, 2012 01:11

Had a pretty nice and relaxing 2011 so I need to buck up and work hard for 2012! Probably should make a few resolutions and stick them up somewhere so I have something to work towards for the year.


31 Dec - Sat
Went to the airport. Visited all the SATS lounges. Haven't been to the transit area for half a year so it was quite a nostalgic experience. Flight was delayed. After the plane pushed out, there was a ramp turnback to fix a technical problem. Eventually got off the ground. Couldn't sleep as the seat was quite uncomfortable. Enjoyed the last sunrise of 2011 on the plane. Breathtakingly beautiful sight - the dark sky was littered with millions of stars and there was a thin reddish line across the horizon that emitted a pinkish glow that steadily grew. Tried to get a photo of it but it was too dark.

Finally arrived in Hong Kong where I spent the last few hours of 2011 and the first few days of 2012. Touched down and went for Dim Sum breakfast right away! Had a pleasant surprise when a friend popped up unexpectedly to join us for our holiday and was travelling on the same flight as us too! We were pretty stoned due to the lack of sleep so the moment we reached One Silversea at Olympic station where we were crashing at our friend's place for the next few days, we went to catch forty winks. My friend's apartment was on the 43rd storey! Great harbour view and all but a tad scary for me since I'm scared of heights. The toilet had a rain shower, jacuzzi shower, TV, piping hot water and strong strong powerful spray, unlike the pathetic trickle in my own flat. Some dobe turned off my heater the first night so the water was freezing cold and I was fiddling about with it for a good 30 minutes trying to get it to work and contemplating taking a cold shower in winter till I finally gave up and woke a poor soul up to check the heater and turn it on for me again.

Woke up from our nap, visited my favourite porridge store and went to have a look at the nearby market. They were selling, live fishes, live crabs, live prawns, live lobsters, live abalones. Everything was live and wriggling, squirming, etc. I was a little icked out. After that we went to Langham and did a tiny bit of shopping, then headed to Satay King for dinner. Food was yummy!!! Originally wanted to go to one of the fireworks viewing hotspots but decided against it since my friend's apartment had a nice view of it anyway! Went back after dinner to watch the fireworks. Not a very impressive display. Good thing we decided not to squeeze with the crowd for it. Wasn't worth it. Played mahjong through the night. Won the very first round of mahjong in 2012! After all the multiple rounds, I wasn't the biggest winner but at least my balance was still a healthy positive! Good start to the New Year.

1 Jan - Sun
Went to Shenzhen. NOBODY thought to bring any RenMinBi with them even though they knew they were going to Shenzhen. I didn't know we were going to Shenzhen and only happened to chance upon a Facebook comment about it hours before my flight and decided at the 11th hour to pack along whatever balance money I could find from my previous China trips with me. I ended up paying for everything since nobody had the necessary currency. -_- Met up with an ex-colleague for dinner. After that we all went to a spa place. I haven't been to many spas but that was definitely one of the nicer ones I've been to. It provided a complete total package. Shower with all the shampoo, conditioner, soap, facial wash, tooth paste, toothbrush, towels bathrobes, slippers, lockers, dressing table filled with all sorts of stuff for hair and facial needs I guess, I only used the mirror and hair dryer so I didn't really take note of what else was there. There was a sauna room, and jacuzzi pool too. They also had foot reflexology and provided buffet drinks and food and included a little slumberette room like the Japanese cubicles type rooms to sleep after the massage. There was a nice mattress, pillow and a really thick and warm comforter as a blanket. I did the hot stones massage and the body scrub. First time trying those out. The normal massage they gave me was painful but I liked when they started using the hot stones. The overall experience was SHIOK! I really really love the slumberette.

2 Jan - Mon
Woke up (still at the spa), had sinus due to all the lack of sleep the past few nights, went to enjoy the nice hot rain shower facilities again. Went for yummy Dim Sum brunch at Shangri-la Hotel. Walked a long long long long way to look for an old street and when we finally found the place, it was crazy! So packed and crowded that we gave up and decided to walk the long long long long way back to the train station and head back to good ole HK. We decided to have BBQ on the roof top of the apartment so we went to do marketing. I was extremely freaked out by the experience. Aside from the meat, the seafood was alive! Everything was still alive! Very very very very much alive! My friend holding the plastic bag of fish told me she could feel the fish jumping... the King Prawns' legs were wriggling... I am 200% convinced that I am not a hunting, fishing or prawning person. Saw someone buying 2 crabs. They were so alive! Climbing out of the weighing machine and all. And the stall owner just took them, ripped off their shells and chopped them into half and the gooey insides were still pulsating... I felt sick. When my friends bought potatoes and mushrooms, I hurriedly offered to carry those. At least they can't squirm.

Headed back to the apartment and started the barbeque. Realised it wasn't such a good idea afterall because it was freezing cold!!! Whenever we got the fire started the frigid wind just blew it right out again. Eventually we got the charcoal burning using the stove in the kitchen and brought the burning charcoal back to BBQ pit. Found out that the Hong Kong way of BBQ differs from the Singapore way. In SIN, we set up the BBQ and the grill and lay out all the food and let everything cook on its own then come back once in a while to check on it or collect the cooked food, probably because it's too hot to stay near the BBQ in SIN weather. In HK, the food is stuck on pointy things and every individual sit around the BBQ and cooks their own food campfire style. I believe the prawns were still wriggling when my friend stuck them on the pointy sticks... it's either that or the wind... Anyway it was quite a fun experience and everybody wanted to stay around the fire for the warmth anyway so it works in HK. It was fun till the cleaning up anyway.

3 Jan - Tue
Wandered around Mongkok. Finally found a satisfactory ice milk tea. Decided to risk it and willed my tummy to accept it. The milk tea was placed in a bowl of ice so it remained cold but is not diluted by the melted ice. Delicious! Best milk tea of the trip! Visited 女人街 and Sino Centre, had to keep reminding myself that I am poor and broke to stop myself from going crazy in that place. One of my friend only realised at the end of the day that we had spent the day wandering around only in Mongkok area. She assumed that since we walked so much, we must been going around to numerous parts of HK. Played with some Neoprints thingie and had absolutely no idea how it worked but we had lots of laughs and eventually ended up with some really really tiny photos as keepsakes. Found out that my Cantonese is the best out of our group so that roughly gave us all an idea of how bad our Cantonese was. Haha!

4 Jan - Wed
Woke up early and made a trip to the nearby EuYanSang to get all my nutritional supplies that cannot be found in the local branch. When everyone else was up, we went to find a nice wanton store for breakfast, unfortunately the store was closed. We walked all the way back to the train station and went to Wan Chai for breakfast where the PoLuoBao was supposedly very good... I thought it was so so... The seats were so small it was like eating with our arms strapped to our sides. Since none of us had any plans with the exception of one friend who had to find a service centre somewhere in Kowloon Bay to repair some $100+++ Nakamichi earphone for her son, we decided to follow her. We literally took the MTR all over HK! Went to Kowloon Bay only to find that the service centre had shifted to Tsuen Wan. Took the MTR to Tsuen Wan and wandered around lost till we gave up and took a cab to the industrial building/ warehouse. Found out that there was another station call Tsuen Wan West we were supposed to go to which was no where near Tsuen Wan. The service centre guy took pity on us when we explained in broken Cantonese there we travelled all the way via plane, bus, taxi and feet to get to the place and decided to replace the earphone with a totally new one even though my friend did not have a receipt.

Went to Central to meet a friend. Went to Jordan to meet another friend, then made our way to some claypot rice store but the queue was super long, so the dinner venue was changed to a steamboat store instead. After dinner, the HK friends decided since it was our last night in HK, they wanted to bring us to a grand dessert tour. So we walked and walked and walked to savour all the various yummy desserts and street snacks. We had the steamed milk pudding, black sesame paste, almond paste, sweet potato soup, herbal soup, tangyuan etc. After that, we finally decided we put on enough kgs and had to go pack our bags for our flights in a few hours time!

5 Jan - Thu
Went back, packed, slept for an hour or so, woke up all zombified and took our flight back to SIN. My friend working at the HK airport lied to the taxi driver that we were CX stewardesses so that we could get a taxi discount. Hahaha. I bet the taxi driver was horrified when he saw us that the CX standard had fallen so far. Flight back was so so. I managed to sleep for a bit till the man beside me removed his jacket... the BO KOed me. Reached SIN, met some ex-colleagues for lunch, then finally home sweet home and slept the day away.


Slept most of my Friday away too. Went for dinner with my mum and we were all happy happy till we had the misfortune of walking in front of a 'crazy mad dog' that started barking at my mum for walking too slowly. It was super crowded and there were people in front of us so there was no way we could have moved faster anyway. Crazy guy was super fierce, stank, had dragon tattoos all over him and went really close to shout vulgarities but my mum was soooo cool, stayed her ground and yelled right back. At one stage it looked like he wanted to use his fist to do the talking but my mum pulled out her phone to start making a phone call to the police and he finally backed off still yelling vulgarities all the way. I think it's people like him who should be put down instead of the Punggol Walk dogs. Crazy idiot!!! Hate crowd. Hate bloody rude people like him. Really really really hate that SIN is so crowded now and we're getting in each other's faces all the time. Why can't we all act like civilised human beings?! Argh!!! Crazy crazy mad mad world!!

Anyway, tomorrow is a new day and 2012 only just started so let's hope things will keep getting better!
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