New experiences

N flew out to SG today, he’ll be there for work for the next few days. And for some reason, I like going up to The Peak whenever he’s not in town 😆 So I went back up there today. I had lunch up there, and my table had a pretty awesome view of Victoria Harbour.

I saw they had a pav on their menu, and so of course I had to order it 😆

There was a bit of a haze today, unfortunately, but it was still nice enough.

I was stuffed after lunch, so I figured walking down would be a good option today. I was going to do the easy trail up there again, but decided against it as it was getting quite late and I didn’t really want to walk back down if it’s already dark. And it’s getting darker earlier now, since we’re in autumn and all 😒

I watched a few more episodes of my new Chinese drama, Ode to Joy II, before checking to see if they have any live footage on the protests. If they do, it means it’s serious. And they did, sighhh…

N doesn’t understand why I watch this live coverage, and frankly, neither do I. It just ends up frustrating me and draining me of my limited mental energy. I’ve watched hours of this stuff. Ridiculous, I know! But it’s sorta like a car crash, I just can’t tear myself away…. 😂

But nothing ever happens in them, and what does happen is absolutely nothing like the mainstream western media reports it. I never realised just how biased they were until these HK protests happened. And I’d never even heard of Five Eyes until recently. I’ve lived in a Five Eyes nation for most of my life, so now I’m starting to question just how accurate the news really was that I had been watching my entire adult life right up until I moved to Asia, when I started to get news more from Singaporean and now Chinese perspectives. Moving to a different country really does open your eyes and can give you new experiences on a whole other level.

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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… 😑

Lots of processed food

It was a pretty quiet day, but at least it wasn’t a 💩 one like yesterday was 😆

I ate a lot of processed food today, I was not happy with that at all. I’m not the cleanest eater, but I’m also not at the other extreme end either. But today, I was right up there with the best (or rather, the worst) of them: I had instant noodles for lunch; chicken nuggets from maccas and frozen pizza for dinner; and a packet of chips in between. The only decent food I had was a banana. That’s it 🙄 No, that’s not true. I did have muesli for breakfast, and I had one of those yoghurt drinks too. Okay, so it wasn’t all bad. But still, it wasn’t that great either. The gym session tonight probably didn’t make up for it 😒 I might try and go again sometime tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, we’re supposed to be going to birthday drinks at a bar on one of the main roads that the protesters like to traverse. Greeeat. We might be up close and protesters with them 😒

💩

** I had a pretty shitty day today, and I basically used this post as my venting mechanism. So if you had a shitty day too and don’t want to add to your woes, then I suggest you just skip this post and read something happier 😂 But if you’re a masochist and want to add more 💩 to your day – and/or are a sadist and want to revel in another person’s crappy day, then please read on 😂

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Firstly, let me just say that my day actually started off really well. I got an uninterrupted night’s sleep, which has been quite rare for me lately. They were cleaning out our building’s water tanks this morning, so I decided to spend the morning in Tsim Sha Tsui, which we never get to go to these days because of all the protests on the weekends these days 😒

And that was the end of the happy period of my day. I decided to go into K11, one of the malls in TST, and when I went to go use the bathroom, I quickly found out that almost every floor in the 6-8 storey mall had their bathroom facilities closed. W-T-H. So I basically had to go all the way to the top of the building just to go.

K11 actually wasn’t the mall that I was planning on going to, but I like that mall and so decided to wander around anyway. Such a shame that their toilet situation was so bad, which left me with a rather negative experience today. Hopefully they’ll have fixed it by the weekend when customer numbers pick up.

I was so annoyed by this stage that my interest in wandering around just dissipated, so I decided to just head home.

And then my trading session was shite – again. Yesterday was pretty crap too. But what made it worse today compared to yesterday was my mum calling me in the middle of all the shiteness. Normally I’m ok with the interruption, but today, they had a guest over – and it felt like she wanted me to become BFFs with this random person 🙄 And since they’re in Sydney, fat chance that I’ll ever meet this person again anyway. But nonetheless, we made friendly chit chat, and at the end of the five minutes, she said, “Well it was nice to meet you”, and we waved goodbye to one another. You would think my mum would take that as a cue to bring the camera back to her, but nooo, she insisted that we continue talking. So we did. And then we waved a second time to each other. And still my mum didn’t get the hint. WTH. So I had to take it in my own hands and end the video call myself, saying I was in the middle of working and that I had to go (which was true, though, I wasn’t lying). Argh! Seriously 😤

And then I didn’t make it to the gym tonight either, blahhh… I could’ve done with a workout today! It probably would’ve done me some good 😔

A tough day

Kitty threw up quite a fair bit in the middle of the night, and so I had to get up and clean up her mess 😔 She recovered pretty quickly, though, and proceeded to scratch at whatever doors at least once per hour after that 😒 For what purpose, I have no idea, but it meant I got a very interrupted sleep 😔

But I have to give her credit: she somehow managed to guide me to the kitchen in the wee hours of this morning, to point out that she had no more food in her bowl, and so got me to give her breakfast 😆 She’s a smart little bugger, that one!

I had my Chinese lesson today, and man, it was tough. We talked about the HK protests for pretty much the entire time – in, surprise surprise, Chinese. Not quite a topic you would find in an ordinary textbook in any language. So you can imagine just how challenging this lesson was! 😂 And my Chinese language skills are already put to the test in every lesson, so it was multiplied that many times over today! I learnt some interesting words pertaining to the protests, though: attack, to shoot / open fire, media bias, fight in self-defence 😲 Again, things you wouldn’t normally learn from a textbook!

My trip to Causeway Bay

The city woke up again today, with the start of a new work week. Public transport was up and running, albeit a few train stations still remained closed, as they have been so severely damaged by protesters that they are still undergoing major repairs 😔

I decided to take the opportunity to go to Causeway Bay today, a major shopping district in HK – and the site of a number of violent clashes in recent weeks. So much so that a lot of large shopping malls and departments stores in the area have remained shut over the long weekend that we just had, to avoid any more damage from all the protests. And/or perhaps it is just more cost effective for them to remain shut, given how few people are out and about at the moment 😔 Either way, I was just happy that they were back open again today.

On my way to Causeway Bay, I sat next to this little boy and his mum on the bus. He was saying to her that he didn’t want to see the protesters because he was scared of them, and that he was scared of both the police and the protesters, because he didn’t want to get hurt. How sad. He was so young, maybe around 5 years old, and he already knows what protesters are 😔 His mum reassured him that he will be ok if he is a good boy, but still, his comments actually brought tears to my eyes. This city is this little boy’s city, and for many other millions like him, it’s their home, and their fellow citizens are driving it to the ground. Heck, it’s our home at the moment now too. It’s such a sad state of affairs.

A relatively quiet Chung Yeung Festival

Today was the Chung Yeung Festival, and the last day of the long weekend. With all these protests still going on – and the fact that the protesters have ramped up their violence this weekend 😒 – we’re still reluctant to venture too far from home, in case we get stuck somewhere with no way back home. So we decided to just go out for brunch somewhere nearby.

Protests were actually quieter today compared to the past few days, but the protesters were still out wreaking havoc in little pockets around the city. And the train network still shut pretty early, so they could continue doing their repairs. I’m sure they’re going to want to open as many train stations as they can tomorrow, with everyone being back at work again, and the MTR network being such a crucial mode of transport for residents in this city.

N decided to head to the gym while I took a nap 😂 I did manage to make my way down later, though, while he went for a massage 😅 And then we ended the evening off with a few episodes of Lucifer.

Another relatively quiet day to round out the long weekend. But at least the quiet day was on all fronts today.