A quick catch-up

I met up with a friend from Sydney who is visiting HK for a few days. It’s always nice to catch up with friends from home. I haven’t been back to Sydney for what feels like ages now, so it’s nice to see friends and family whenever they’re travelling through the city. It’s nice that SG and HK are both stopover cities for a lot of flights 😊

Unfortunately, though, the protests still keep the transport situation a bit dicey on the weekends, and neither of us want to be stranded somewhere and not be able to get back home (or hotel, in his case), so today was really the only day we could catch up.

And even then, it was really just for a quick afternoon tea 😔 Hopefully next time he’s stopping over, we can have a proper catch-up. He likes trying new restaurants, and HK is not short of them, as I’ve mentioned before, so I’m sure he’s quite disappointed that he won’t get the chance to try one or two new places this trip. He gives me new restaurant ideas in this city! 😆

TST, Central and some tear gas

We headed over to a relatively new mall at TST called K11 Musea, but we didn’t really get past the foodcourt 😂 So we ended up just having lunch there and then checking out a few stores in the mall and around TST before just heading home. We’ll have to go back another time to check out the rest of the mall! 😆

As we left TST, we saw some police vans lining the street, and police obviously getting ready for more protests later in the day. Sighhh…

N then went meet up with one of his workmates to watch the rugby grand final somewhere in Central. I eventually decided to join them, and then we just hung out at the bar for a little bit before grabbing some dinner nearby.

The protesters came by while we were at the bar, and the police fired tear gas, which wafted over to the bar. The staff had to close us in for a little while, as we waited for the protesters and the tear gas to disperse. Such is life in HK now 😔 I don’t normally get caught up in any of it, but for some reason the protesters were a bit farther up today from where they usually are, and so we were unexpectedly caught up in some of it. Luckily it wasn’t too long before the bar opened up again 😅

But despite this, it was a good day 😊

My gift and WeChat

My friend received her photo book today, the one that I created for her in memory of her cat who passed away recently. I was sooo happy when she messaged me to tell me that she had received it, and that she thought it was so amazing. I’m really happy that I was able to do this for her. I know how devastating it must’ve been to lose him, so I’m glad she can smile so many more times now and in the future just by flicking through her new photo book 😊 🙏

This YouTube clip about WeChat came up in my recommendations. It’s basically one of China’s gigantic social media apps and then some. I’ve known a little bit of what you can do on it, and this clip showed it to me in action. Plus the beer place in the clip is pretty freaking awesome! The video is worth checking out just for that beer scene 😆 Totes jells!

So I went looking for another clip that gave a bit more information on other features that I wasn’t aware of, and found this one. It’s making me rather envious that WeChat is not as ubiquitous in HK as it is on the mainland! And here I thought HK was already pretty damn convenient. China takes it to a whole new level 😲

Product placement in Asian dramas

I created a photo book on Snapfish today with pictures of my friend’s cat who passed away recently. I thought it’d be nice to have around to remember him by. I’m getting the book sent directly to her address, so I won’t get the chance to see what it looks like. I hope the finished product looks decent – and that she likes it! 🤞

Snapfish makes it really easy to put together a photo book

I watched a few more episodes of Ode to Joy 2, my new Chinese drama. I thought advertising in western shows was bad. Asian dramas take it to a whole new level! Not only do they have the products strategically placed throughout the show, but they also bring the products into the dialogue. It’s insane! Here is a screenshot of one of the scenes in the episode that I watched today. The line she says before the one written on screen in the photo was, “You care the most about your looks, don’t you?” and then hands her this huge SKII box 😂

Product placement in Asian shows couldn’t be any more blatant 😂

And in season one, virtually every technological device in shot was an Apple. A laptop, a mobile phone, a tablet, whatever. It was almost always an Apple. Based on their advertising spend in the first season, they clearly wanted to make a bigger footprint in the Chinese market! 😂

The calm before the storm, perhaps…??

We got our aircon units cleaned today, the obligatory quarterly clean. It’s built into our rental contract to get it cleaned every quarter, which was also the case back in SG – except the cost of getting aircon units cleaned here is about 4x as much as it was there 😒 Almost everything is more expensive here, blahhh… And there I was thinking SG was expensive.

Anyway, when they finished, we decided to go and have yum cha. We decided to go to this one place that is always busy. But this place (and their chain of restaurants) is currently being targeted by the protesters, as its owner has made public comments that don’t agree with the protesters’ narrative. Funny how as soon as you express an opposing view, the protesters actually target you. And here I was thinking they were fighting for freedom, which, by the way, includes freedom of speech 🙄

Anywayyyy… we decided to go there, as we figured the queue wouldn’t be so bad, given the above situation. And we were right. Last time I went there about two months ago – and on a Friday, at that – we had to wait around 1.5 hours for a table. Today it wasn’t even five minutes. It was still busy, don’t get me wrong, but it was definitely much quieter than it normally is. Crazy stuff. Definitely a good time to come to HK! 😆

I finally finished watching Ode to Joy, my current Asian drama. I immediately went and looked for Ode to Joy II. I eventually found one with English subtitles – and they have Chinese subtitles as an added bonus too. This next season will be much easier to learn from, then! Woohoo! 👍 I’m very excited 😊

And then in the evening, we went out for birthday drinks with one of N’s workmates. It was at a bar/restaurant located on one of the main roads that the protesters like to traverse, so I was a bit concerned that we’d get up close and personal with them tonight 😒 Luckily they were nowhere near us, and if anything, it seems like the protests have died down. But now that I’ve said that, I’ve probably jinxed myself (and the city!) and they’ll be out in full force again tomorrow… 😑

Continued lockdown in HK

The entire rail network was down in HK today, the main mode of public transport in the city 😔 So that meant workers couldn’t get to their jobs, and so a ton of places were closed today, or closed much earlier than they usually would. Plus a lot of the places probably wanted to remain shut to avoid more / potential vandalism by the protesters 😒 Sighhh… I guess we’re staying close to home again this long weekend…

We did go to a birthday dinner tonight, though, out on Lamma Island. I actually didn’t really want to go, as I didn’t know what the public transport situation would be like later in the evening on our way home, and whether or not the protesters would be making life difficult for us to get home. But thankfully, it was all ok, and despite the protests, we had a fun evening out 😊

Two disappointments and a baby

We went to a bar in Kennedy Town to watch the AFL grand final with a few of N’s workmates. It was a bit boring, to be honest, as it was such a one-sided match. I would have preferred it if the scores were much closer, it makes for a much more interesting game to watch. Oh well. I’d like to watch next week’s NRL grand final too, if it’s being shown somewhere in HK…

Afterwards, we went and had lunch somewhere nearby. And then after a bit of shopping, I just headed home while N went for a massage. We then watched Tim Burton’s Dumbo when he got home. That too was a bit disappointing. I normally like his stuff, but that one just didn’t cut it 😔 So I still prefer the original.

But on a brighter note, one of N’s mates just had a baby 👶🏻 I’m not sure if they’re having any visitors at the hospital, but it’d be nice to see them sometime over the next few days.