We got out of the house earlier than we did yesterday, but that’s not saying much, since left the house at something like 7:30pm yesterday 😂 But N was feeling rather weak, after working out quite a fair bit this morning, and we suspect he hadn’t eaten nor drunk enough to replenish all the energy that he expended 😔 So I suggested that we just go for an early dinner instead of walking around up at The Peak. I didn’t really want him fainting at some point during the trip due to hunger or dehydration!
They had a chessboard at the restaurant, so we played a game of chess while we waited for our food to be served. The manager noticed that we were playing and said that they also had Connect Four, and she brought around the Connect 4 board. So we played that at the same time 😂
Connect Four and chess 😊
It took us forever to play our game of chess, and I was starting to feel like we were overstaying our welcome in the restaurant. Plus they had no more customers, and the staff were cleaning up, doing the paperwork, and just generally doing stuff to indicate that they wanted to close soon. So I set a 1-minute timer for each move just to hurry us up. But when we finally finished and paid our bill, we thanked them for the game, and the manager mentioned that we’re more than welcome to come back and play more games! Apparently they have even more games, and one of the things that they want to offer to their customers is to feel at home and for them to just hang out there. Awww, that’s really cool! I really like that. So to have good food and to have the restaurant offer this additional service of sorts to its customers is really great. I hope they can continue to remain in business.
We had a great time there tonight 👍 It wasn’t what I had originally planned for this afternoon / evening (we were meant to go up to The Peak! I was already saying this yesterday 😆), but it turned out to be much more fun than I had expected.
I had a bit of a lazy day today. I ended up just watching TV all afternoon, taking a nap in the middle of all the TV watching 😂
I finally started watching Breaking Bad today. It has a rating of 9.5 on IMDb! 😱 I didn’t know that when I first started watching it. I just knew that it was really popular when it first came out, so I wanted to watch it too. But I’m always very slow compared to the rest of the world, so I’m only just starting to watch this now 🤪 And it may still take me a while to get through, because I can’t really binge watch shows either. I can only really handle a maximum of maybe three episodes in one sitting, and then I have to get up and do something else (or take a nap hehehe). And I’m talking about 20-minute episodes! Maybe that’s why movies don’t interest me too much?? 🤔
I wanted to go for a bit of a walk today, and we finally left the house at around 7:30pm to do that. This is definitely one thing that I like about Asia: things don’t close until quite late, so there are always a lot of people still around, and you can easily find a restaurant that is still open. We stumbled across a Vietnamese restaurant that we hadn’t tried before, so we decided to give them a go. They were actually pretty good! I would definitely go back again if we were in the area. It’s always good to try new places, sometimes you find some pretty decent places 😊 And yes, sometimes you get a mediocre place too, but I think it’s worth the gamble 😊
I suggested that we go up to The Peak tonight, actually, but N pooh-pooh’d that idea 😂 So I’m thinking of maybe going up there tomorrow instead. I wonder how he’ll feel about that same idea tomorrow…
The dull ache from yesterday has subsided, and it’s now between 0 to 1 on the pain scale. It’s still there, albeit virtually gone, but I decided to finally go and see a doctor anyway, the first time I’ll have visited a doctor since moving to HK.
We asked friends here for recommendations, and so I made my way to Central to go and see one of their recommendations. When I got there, I find out that she is on leave! 😩 Whaaat?!? She returns on Tuesday, but her first (and only!) available appointment is on Friday next week! So I decided to book myself in. If she’s that booked out, then she must be good. Well, hopefully 😆 Even if this weird dull ache subsides before then, it’d still be good to get a general check-up anyway, given that we’re getting older now and things are just generally deteriorating 😔
Speaking of check-ups, one of our friends here had to go and have heart surgery! 😱 Did I tell you about this? That was very concerning. The surgery was a few weeks ago now and everything went well, but still, the fact that he even had to go and have this surgery was rather worrying. We’re entering that stage in our lives when we can’t just bounce back like we used to when we were kids 😔 So I really want to get into the habit of getting regular check-ups done: medical, dental, and also my eyes -optometric?! Why yes, that’s the adjective! I just looked it up 👍 Something to add to my list… ✅
I then met N for dinner afterwards. He had a 2-for-1 voucher at a pretty casual restaurant near his office, so we decided to redeem it today. Not bad! The restaurant was pretty quiet when we got there, which was nice. No issues with social distancing 👍 It was a nice way to end the evening 😊
I feel like there’s something not quite right in my lower right abdomen, which is starting to freak me out a bit. Is that where your appendix is? I’m wondering if something is up with my appendix. There’s this dull ache there, which comes and goes. It’s not painful, maybe a 1 or 2 out of 10 on the pain scale. And it hurts a little bit more if I press on the area, so it’ll bump up to 2-3. But still, it’s not zero, and that’s what bothers me. So I’m feeling a bit anxious about it, and I’d like to get it checked out asap. But I’m not good with doctors (or dentists or optometrists etc), especially overseas. I’m not familiar with the whole medical process here. And I’m also worried about the cost, again because I’m not familiar with how it all works. But I guess once I go, I can start to find out more about it!
Ugh, I really should go tomorrow, get it over and done with. At least then I’ll know what the problem is, or if I need to go and see a specialist to find out more. And the longer I leave it, the more anxious I’ll get. So I may as well just get it sorted tomorrow, and find out what the next steps are, if there are any.
Our Easter / Qing Ming extra-long weekend is over 😔 We’re back to reality. I was still really tired this morning, I could barely concentrate on anything 😔 But the caffeine eventually kicked in, and I ended up having quite a productive afternoon – woohoo! I was actually resigned to having an unproductive day, but it worked out better than I expected 👍
I also had my Chinese lesson today, which also turned out to be better than I expected. We had a bit of a grammar lesson today: there is this one noun / adjective / adverb that I can’t seem to get my head around because there is no equivalent in English. Yes, it can be a noun, adjective OR adverb, which just adds to the WTF-ness of how to use this word 🤣 The use of it as a noun is OK – it’s ‘just’ a noun – but the feeling that it gives if you’re using it as an adjective or as an adverb actually differs 🤪 Which is why I never use it because I never know which feeling I’m conveying in any given sentence! 🤷♂️ After today’s lesson, I think I understand the theory now, so maybe I can start trying to use it in our lessons and see if I’m actually applying the theory correctly! But yeah, it’s tough learning a foreign language as an adult. But totally fun! 😊
I finished our extra-long weekend just chillaxing at home for most of the day. I was still really tired from all the walking that we did the last few days, so I just took it easy for most of today. I watched a lot of YouTube videos 😂 and then took a nap in the afternoon because I was still really tired.
And then in the evening, we went to a friend’s place for dinner. We hadn’t seen them since we first moved to HK over two years ago now 😱 So it was nice to see them again today.
It was a nice, relaxing way to end our extra- long Easter weekend ☺️ The Ching Ming festival, which is the tomb sweeping festival, was apparently yesterday. And because it coincided with Easter Monday, which is also a public holiday here, we got today off to make up for the ‘double’ public holiday yesterday 😆 Not bad. Not bad at all.
We finally did Dragon’s Back! 👏 It actually wasn’t too bad a trail, definitely one that I would do again. It’s not easy easy, but it’s definitely doable. It’s not like a typical mountain where there is an ‘up’ bit and then a ‘down’ bit. It’s called Dragon’s Back because you’re sorta walking along the ridges of the back of a dragon. And once you’re on his back, you just go up a bit and then down a bit, with lots of flat bits in between.
Unlike the route that the above link suggests, instead of catching the #9 bus to the To Tei Wan stop, we actually got off at Cape Collinson on Shek O Road and started the hike from there. So we didn’t start from the bottom and make our way up. We went in the complete opposite direction. Because we had already gone to Big Wave Bay Beach on our first walk on Friday, we had already done the walk between stops 3 and 4 described in the link. So we just did the remainder of the walk today.
Going from the Cape Collinson bus stop all the way down to the To Tei Wan bus stop
Going from north to south felt like it was easier. The biggest hurdle felt like the uphill bit from the Cape Collinson bus stop up to a certain point. So it felt like we were climbing the dragon’s head first, and then spent the rest of the hike walking down its back all the way down to its tail 😂 But if you go the more traditional route going south to north, then you’re starting at the dragon’s tail and making your way up to its head. I think I prefer the reverse route. Unless it’s harder for you to go downhill than uphill (or if you want more of a workout 😜), then I would definitely recommend going north to south. There are also a ton of people going the traditional route, so going north to south means that you’re also going in the opposite direction to most people, so there is less traffic 😊
It took us 2 hrs 15 mins to do almost 6km, so slightly different to Google Maps’ suggested time above 😂 AND I was going mega fast because I was trying to keep up with this guy who looked like he was almost twice my age. He must do this walk quite regularly because he wasn’t stopping to take photos or anything, he was just walking – and walking briskly at that! Plus he had awesome music playing – soft rock from the 1980s! – so I kept trying to stick as close to him as possible to listen to his music 🤣
He stopped around about the halfway mark and tied a ribbon to a tree. Not sure what the significance of the ribbon was, but that was where we overtook him and continued walking the trail without him. It was such a shame that we had to leave him behind because he set such a good pace! 😄
There is very little shade during this walk, so it’d be pretty tough to do during the warmer months of the year. It was a little cooler today, and mostly overcast, so it was a perfect day to do this hike 👍 It was actually a little cool at the top, and very windy, so we also didn’t have heat to contend with, which made the hike more bearable again 😆
There are not-so-clean toilets at the start and end of the hike, so if you can, try and go beforehand. There are public toilets near Shau Kei Wan bus stop next to Shau Kei Wan MTR (exit A3), which were pretty clean when I went there today. And there’s no food (or drinks) available anywhere on this trail, so bring both of these beforehand. There is a supermarket near the bus stop (Wellcome supermarket), so stop in there and grab a few things if you need to – water, at the very least! Especially if you’re walking during the warmer months. You will need it in the HK heat, TRUST ME 😒
And remember what I’ve said a few times now: I’m not a fan of hiking 😆 but this hike is actually not bad. And I would actually do this hike again, it is totally doable 👍 I totally understand why people say they bring visitors to do this hike. I would do the same 😊
I got up at 6:30am today 😱 It was so good! I really love being up that early. I get so much done in the morning 👍
I had decided that we were going to do Dragon’s Back today. But as we were heading to the train station to make our way there, N changed my mind: we decided to to the Southern Beaches Walk instead! 😆 It was a toss-up between these two anyway, but N’s comment to ‘change things up’ easily swayed me to do the latter. Plus, it was forecast to be another hot and humid day, and I didn’t really want to be hiking in such weather – heck, I’m not really keen on hiking in any weather! 😂 So walking along the southern part of HK Island right by the water, and walking past a number of beaches down there, was much more enticing 😊
Our walk today, around 8km all up 😊
We finished at Stanley Main Beach, which is actually quite a small, narrow beach. I was too tired to walk back to Repulse Bay Beach, the largest of the three beaches that we walked to today (we skipped two of the five beaches on the trail 😄), so we just had to squish in really close with the other beachgoers at Stanley 😒 Despite the numbers being pretty low these days (there were only two new cases today! Woohoo!), I am still acutely aware of all the things that I need to do now, thanks to this stupid 🦠, including social distancing. I also know that we can’t be complacent, because the damn thing multiplies if we’re not careful.
Repulse Bay BeachStanley Main Beach
The weather started getting cooler, so we took that as our cue to go home. Similar to yesterday, I was already feeling really tired in the early evening. So we just watched some TV and we’ll probably have another early night tonight. Maybe we can be morning people during this Easter extra-long weekend?? 😆
We were going to go and do Dragon’s Back today, a popular hiking trail trail here that is supposedly one of the easier ones to do. I will be the judge of that and tell you what I think hahaha From someone who actually doesn’t like to hike and will whinge when there is even the slightest incline, you will get my honest opinion! 😜 I might have mentioned this before, but I only do hikes for the destination. If someone can winch me all the way up to the top, then I’ll take that option every time! 😂
We started doing the hike, and I was already ready to whinge. It was hot and humid, and there were a ton of people on the trail. Well, it is a public holiday, after all, so I already expected this. But still, it’s a different matter when you actually see it and experience it 😒
We then got to a fork in the road: we either do the trail or do the easier (and shorter!) walk to Big Wave Bay beach, and then just chillax on the beach for the rest of the afternoon. We did the latter 😂 It was really nice 😊 Although the beach didn’t quite live up to its name: it was flat and calm as. Not sure how surfers can surf here… Maybe the waves only come at certain times of the year?? 🤷♀️
Big Wave Bay Beach
We got home at around 5pm and decided to pick up some dinner on our way back. We walked past this shop that apparently sells yum cha items for takeaway! O.M.G. This just blew my mind. I can order my favourite items here whenever I want! And because it’s takeaway, it’s sooo cheap. My favourite yum cha dish is like less than A$4 for 3 pieces 😱 We’d normally pay at least double that if we go to an actual restaurant. I’m so happy we decided to stop by and check out this place!
And by around 8pm, we were both exhausted and ready to go to bed 🤪 We were thinking of doing the proper trail tomorrow, but given how tired we are right now, I’m not sure if this is a good idea…!
I had one goal today: write the script for my next YouTube video and film it. I did that – and then some! Woohoo! I totally did NOT expect to be that productive today 👏 So today, I did what I was hoping to have done yesterday 🙄 Oh well, whatevs. Either way, it’s done, and that’s all that matters. It doesn’t matter when I actually did the work, just as long as it was done 😁 Now it’s time to edit, and I’m hoping that I can finish that tomorrow. There are only two more workdays this week, and Thursday is my busiest day, so I’d rather get all my editing done tomorrow rather than having to add to the busy-ness on Thursday.
I bought dinner from this place that N recently discovered. It’s this cosy little restaurant that maybe only has around 5 tables all up. I went to go pay, and the waiter asked me if I could pay in cash. The owner manager had just left, and apparently the wait staff can’t operate the credit card machine without the owner manager 🤷♂️ What’s up with that?? The bill was something like HK$148, and I had something like HK$143 in my wallet. A HK$100 note and the rest in coins. I literally emptied out my wallet 😂 The waiter said that was fine and let me take my food, but I still felt bad. I didn’t want her to have to pay the extra HK$5 out of her own pocket. I don’t know if she’d actually have to, but I didn’t want that to happen if it did come to that. It’s only HK$5 (~A$1), but still, that matters for some people.
The restaurant is only 5-10 minutes away from home, so I walked back, dumped all my stuff, grabbed a HK$10 note and walked back to the restaurant and paid her extra. She told me to take my change – all my coins were still on the table 😂 – but I said not to worry about it. I thought it was nice of her to just let me take the food earlier, so this was a tip for her, in a way.
Maybe next time we can actually dine in, now that dine-in services has been extended to 10pm here 👍 Oh, and 7 cases today! We’re staying below ten cases! Yayyy! Suck it, 🦠! 😂
