hong kong

My mom’s pretty amazing at bargaining and finding travel deals. (She’s the resident travel agent among our family friends.) Before we left, she looked up several groupon deals and had local friends buy em’ for us so we could take advantage of said deals.

On our first day in HK, one of my mom’s friends took us all over Mongkok to get all the things we were looking for (e.g. a stand-up case for Optimist Prime), mini speakers, headphones, phone card…). One of my mom’s other friends works at the hospital next door to the hotel we’re staying at (our giant hotel discount is also due to her awesomeness).

Before work, she came by and took us all over to point out the best eateries near our hotel. We get along extremely well because we both love food so much. (I love my mom, but she often forgets that eating is a necessity to life.)

One of the most refreshing drinks ( in my opinion) in the summer is 蔗汁 (sugarcane juice). We also went fruit shopping and got some 王 帝 蕉 (wong dai jiu), lychee, and mangosteen. I just found out that farmers’ markets and pick-your-own fruit farms exist around the area I’ll be living in in WV, so I’m pretty happy. :D

I absolutely love 茶餐廳s, and am definitely going to miss those like no other when I’m in WV. We went to Fairwood (‘dai fai woot’) for dinner before browsing through 女人街 (Ladies’ Market–it’s a total tourist trap, but I haven’t been there in such a long time that it’s kinda nice just to browse around).

We also had a whole ton of mango desserts. :D (I forgot the name of the place though.)

 

I hadn’t been to 山頂 (Victoria Peak) since the age of 7, so we took the tram up and explored for a little while. (The rain stopped while we were up there, so that was pretty cool. Thank you, weather! :O ) We went up an extra floor to avoid all the people/get a window seat view of the city and decided to eat some more.

 

We took a photo tour on Sunday (groupon deal) to the New Territories with two of my mom’s friends. By photo tour, I mean that the trip was meant for people who were very serious about photography/there to learn how to take awesome pictures with fancy cameras. The four of us did not own such cameras, but we had fun anyway. We stopped at along the way to have 豆腐花 (tofu dessert) and 菊花茶 (chrysanthemum tea) and found some cute kittens. :D

We also took some pictures of somewhat of a sunset (the day was pretty overcast). The rest of the group got to do “light painting” after the sun set. I wanted to join in, but unfortunately, my camera couldn’t do it. :[ So here, have a sunset!

I haven’t done any serious shopping ( hah, I make it sound so intense) in HK yet since we were settling in and taking advantage of groupon deals (the photo tour, a 2 hour makeup course at Makeup Pro 2 for me/ my mom where I learned that I don’t completely suck at turning myself into a girlier version of myself–it was only around $18 USD each!–and two 3-course dinners at Amour Club & Cafe for ~$21 USD).

I’ve realized a couple things though:

1. The only occasions where I don’t feel insulted when someone thinks I’m a fob include the following: a. when I’m in Asia, b. when I’m at clinic ( because it means my Chinese doesn’t suck as much as I feel it does), c. when I pretend to have a fob accent. So far, I’ve been asked if I’m from Singapore or Malaysia. People can tell that I’m not from around there. My mom says it’s because we’re way more polite to everyone than the locals are. My mom’s friends say it’s because I don’t look completely Chinese. I think it’s because of the “T & A,” as my aerial hoop instructor put it.
2. I like visiting cities, but I kinda feel like I’d rather live in a more rural area, if given a choice between the two and suburbia couldn’t be an option. I still may want to do an international rotation here someday though. There’s really no better way to improve my Chinese. :o
3. I cannot walk into a skincare store without one of the sales reps or my own mom recommending me products to whiten my face and/or ” make my freckles go away.” Oh, Asian beauty standards…

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• Have you ever been to Hong Kong?
• Are you good at bargaining?
• Do you agree with your culture’s beauty standards?
• Want to check out where else I’ve been? More travels here!