I'm Going Hong Kong!

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All Bright & Sunny
Finally! The fundraising carnival which I had been planning with my colleague for 2 months now is finally over and everything, thanks God, went well! It had been a stressful period for me and my colleague (he had been sick for a few weeks now and still sick), but now we can finally let our hair (whatever that's left from all the hair-pulling); we are just really glad that everything just went without much hiccup. Especially felt so blessed when, for 3 times, it threatened to rain but soon became sunny again after a brief "couple of minutes" drizzle... one colleague even joked and said "you forgot to sms 'upstairs' not to rain" :) Eventually, it just drizzled but it cooled the day a lot... (Picture "Hidden Sun" by colcerex)

Going Hong Kong
With the project now over, I immediately packed and flew off, literally in a haste, to Hong Kong with my friends just a few hours later. It was a holiday which I had looked forward to; I need rest and some time off work so can say that the trip came in timely. Second time round in Hong Kong, I got a little adventurous and decided to venture a little further from the MTR stations.

The trip was memorable. We got to:

• take the Airport Express from the airport to the city. It was indeed an experience pulling our luggage around the city to the hotel
• experience the fast-paced life when eating at "Da Jia Le" on the first day; seeing that there were still 3-4 people in the queue in front of me, I turned to look at the menu beside me to decide what to eat, within seconds, I was first in line with the cashier beckoning me for my order. You should see the speed she tapped the order with her pen... tap tap tap... done!
  
• experience the "rollercoaster" bus ride up to Stanley Market; kinda exciting sitting in a double-decker bus whizzing through bends after bends at high speed up the hill...
• visit Stanley Market
• eat fresh seafood at Sai Kung but not without first experience taking the minibus to the Seafood Street at Sai Kung Hoi Pong Square. Did I mention we ate and ate and ate till we almost threw up? There was like crabs, chicken, pork ribs, prawns, "xu xu" prawns, fried vegetable, fried rice, calamari, steamed fish and bottled cokes. As if that was not enough, we later still adjourn to "Honeymoon Dessert" nearby to top the dinner up with nice cooling dessert... that dinner kept us full for literally a few hours till dinner the next day
• visit Ocean Park and play with the rides... had to coax myself to get unto some of the rides since I am not much of a "risk-taker"
• stand around and watch Pandas An An and Jia Jia moving about and eating bamboo shoots... for some reason, it is kinda therapeutic standing there just watching them chew away at the bamboo shoots
• shop a little at Cheung Sha Wan wholesale Fashion Street and Sham Shui Po (bought a fuzzyball that lights up when you hit it)
• visit an art exhbition at City Hall
• take the topless bus to the Peak Tram tower and took the Peak Tram up to Victoria Peak
• catch the sunset from Victoria Peak and watch the Hong Kong skyline below us light up
• see the Giant Buddha at Lantau Island but it was a long one hour ride to and from the bus terminal to and from the statue.
• visit the avenue of stars and catch the "Symphony of Light" (though we somehow caught it from the wrong place)
• eat dim sum at Maxim's Palace at City Hall
• eat giagantic wantons with prawns in their local eateries. After eating Hong Kong wanton mee, you will realize the wantons in Singapore are nowhere near theirs.
• shop at Ladies' Market and Fa Yuen Street (Sportswear Street)
• experience what it is like being locked out from our rooms; our door got jammed and we had to in the end get help from the hotel staff to open the door. The technician struggled with the door but eventually got it open. Phew, thought we had to stay in Hong Kong or they had to tear down the door since our passports and stuff are still in the room
• eat dessert (again) at the famous "Xu Liu Shan" chain of dessert stores
• eat roast goose at Yung Kee in Central
  

All in all, Hong Kong is definitely a vibrant place with night life going on till the wee hours in the morning. The whole place, though a little "messy", is teeming with life everywhere.

Vibrant Hong Kong Skyline

There also seems to be something with me and queues... while in Hong Kong, it just happens that whichever queue I chose, that queue was just the slowest queue... happened in Singapore Changi Airport, in Hong Kong Airport and several times more... aiyah... very "sway" ah :) When leaving Hong Kong, the immigrations officer kept checking my waist pouch, and keep putting my waist pouch through the scanner again and again... later, requested me to open up my waist pouch for inspection... think they thought my rechargeable batteries are bullets :)

When we returned to Singapore, I just wasn't so keen to go back to work.

A Little Upset
Although the trip was a memorable one, there were upsetting moments. I learnt a little about myself and realized how my low self-esteem really played out real loud during the trip. For now, I will just say that I somehow have this ego in me and I just refused to ask for direction when it was necessary. What happened was that one of my friends had some Hong Kong friends who brought us around the first day. Thereafter they went their separate ways and I was left to bring my other friends around, based on the itinerary we drew up back in Singapore. Somehow, felt the standard was set and at several points in the trip, I got paranoid and felt that my friends were unhappy with me; feeling bad that I wasn't able to bring them to as many "happening" and "fun" places as compared to the places that my friend's Hong Kong friends brought us to.

Remembering My Father
During cell this week, we discussed our father (since Father's Day was just over) and we were challenged to share our memories of our fathers. I really felt real bad that I did not celebrate Father's Day with my dad since I was away in Hong Kong...

As I thought about my father, I remembered how my father one night tried to tuck me into bed early on Christmas Eve. In the middle of the night, not realizing that I wasn't asleep yet, he crept into my room and placed a christmas present on the window grill. The next morning, pretending not to know about the gift, he reacted with excitement and exclaimed that Santa Claus has came and left a present for me... I remember the times when I was sick and had asthma attack, he would carry me on his back and rush me to A&E. I remember the time when I was young and we went on joy rides on his motorbike and the time I weeped really bad when my father had heart attack and I had to rush him to the hospital, fearing I will lose him. But yet, I am so impatient with him nowadays...

"Father & Son", taken when strolling on the beach of Adelaide

Recently, I had a disagreement with my dad and was hurt by some harsh words uttered by him. I have decided to let that pass and just cherish him. I felt more peace...