I made it to the gym tonight, my first visit in aaages. I don’t know why I fell off the wagon, probably because of the douchebags 🙄 I blame them for everything 😆 But it was good to be back 💪
I also weighed myself for the first time in ages. We don’t have a set of scales at home, so I just rely on the one at the gym. My weight has pretty much stayed constant, much to my surprise. That was totally unexpected 🤪
We watched the first episode of Silicon Valley tonight. It was actually pretty funny! I think we may be adding this to our list of tv shows 😊
But N will be in Japan for quite a fair bit these next few weeks, so we’ll have to put it on hold for a while, I think. He finished off the evening packing for his flight tomorrow morning 😔
We started talking about men’s mental health, and how there is minimal resources out in the world to help men with mental health issues 😔 I think mental health is not dealt with very well at all, and for men, even less so. And from what I hear, it’s virtually not even acknowledged here in Asia, which is terribly sad. It must be incredibly difficult for people to find good mental health resources here 😔
I continued to work through my TEFL course and my trading, and that’s about it to my day, really. Not a bad way to start the last week of September 😊
Omg it’s the last week of September, and then we’ll be in the last quarter of 2019. Where in the world did this year go 😲
I checked our credit card statements today and got the shock of my life when I realised just how much we spent last month 😔 I completely underestimated. So now we’re going to have to rein that in if we want to go on a holiday in December.
I’ve been trying to figure out what we can do. I was thinking of going to Japan for a few days with my parents, and then they can spend a few days in HK before and after. I haven’t figured out the details yet, I’m just floating the idea around at the moment, but I’d like to firm up the details sooner rather than later so I can book flights and accommodation.
I watched more of Ode to Joy, my current Chinese drama. I’m really enjoying it! It’s based in Shanghai, which is now making me want to visit the city even more 😊 Maybe we can incorporate a few days there as part of this holiday in December… 😉
I felt like going out for dinner tonight, so we went to Old Town Restaurant, a Singaporean restaurant in Central that I recently found. Although not quite at SG hawker centre prices (what is?!? 😆), the food is still good and so I keep going there whenever I have a hankering for Singaporean or Malaysian food. I’m sure I’ll start feeling nostalgic about yum cha too whenever we leave this city!
And then I started thinking about what we could do over Christmas and New Year this year. I’m thinking of doing a few short trips around Japan, Taiwan, Korea and/or China. Since we are now living in North Asia, I figured it’d be good to make the most of our location by exploring this part of Asia more. It’s actually my preferred part of Asia, so living here now is absolutely perfect 👌 Now I just have to plan! 🤓
I had a pretty shite trading session, which didn’t put me in a good mood for the rest of the day 😠 I was in no mood to go to the gym, so we just ended up watching the last few episodes of season one of Titans. The ending wasn’t too bad, but N didn’t seem all that impressed. They had a preview for next season: Superman was in it! How exciting, a new character! 😄
We also started talking about where we can go for Christmas / New Year this year. I was thinking of going somewhere in Asia, but I’m still not sure… I feel like I should go back to Sydney and spend the festive season with our parents… But at the same time, I don’t want to leave Kitty on her own in HK either…. Maybe they can fly over instead, that could be a compromise 😊 But right now, since I’m still in a shitty mood, I just don’t want to do anything 😔
We decided to head over to HK University today, hoping to see some interesting buildings around there. Walking around the campus made me miss our uni days, and part of me actually wanted to go back! What was up with that?!? 😆
Anyway, after wandering around for a little bit, we headed back home, and as we were almost home, N realised that he had left his sunnies somewhere at HKU 🕶 Argh! So we traipsed all the way back, hoping that they’d still be where he thought he left them. Luckily they were still there, even though there were people sitting right next to them! Phewww 😅 Good to see that the honesty in HK rivals that of SG 👍
But then as we went to catch a bus to make our way home, it was then my turn to lose something: my Octopus card! 😩 It’s basically like the Opal card in Sydney or the Oyster card in London (was the sea theme here an intentional collaboration?! 😂), but it is used much more extensively in HK: it is not only the main payment method for public transportation in the city, but it also allows you to pay for items at numerous stores and vending machines as well. Plus you can link it to your account so that it automatically tops up to a pre-selected value every time your balance falls to or below $0, so you don’t constantly have to manually top it up. I have this linked to my Octopus card, so of course I was even more concerned about having lost it 😔
So we retraced our steps and went back to HKU for a third time. But unlike N’s sunnies, I didn’t have any luck finding my card 😔 So we cancelled the Octopus card then and there. I was reading up on what happens with an automatic top-up service on the card, and apparently an Octopus card will only top up once per day, so the maximum I am liable for is the value already on the lost card, as well as one top up. Good to know! I was a bit stressed that they could just go on a crazy spending spree until I cancelled the card 😩 Hopefully with the honesty that we encountered with N’s sunnies, I will also find the same level of honesty with my card, and it is either just lying somewhere untouched or it has been handed in somewhere, waiting to be claimed 🤞
So after we cancelled the card, I went and bought a new card so that I could get home! Now I have to go through the lovely administrative process of linking this new card to my account again… Sighhh… The price I have to pay for being careless with my card 😔
We decided to have fish’n’chips for dinner tonight – and then the store owner got our order wrong! He is normally so precise with our order. Of course today had to be the one day where he stuffs it up 😒
The universe was obviously not in our favour today… 😔
I finally started feeling close to normal today, so I got through a ton of stuff, trying to catch up on everything that I didn’t do over the past few days since I’ve been sick 👍
N flew to Japan today, so of course I tracked his flight ✈️
His fellow karate mate who is also on this trip with him lost her train ticket when they got to Osaka, and he was asking me how to say various things in Japanese that was relevant to their situation – eg: “she lost her ticket”. The problem is, I’m not there to help them! 😂 So I told them to use Google translate, which is actually quite good for a lot of things. I use it to help me with my Chinese all the time. I don’t use it word for word, but it sometimes guides me or gives me a better idea on how to structure a particular sentence that I can’t seem to get right on my own.
And of course they were fine – they’re in Japan, after all 😉
I had my online Chinese lesson again today. I’m really enjoying them! They’re freaking hard as, since we spend the entire time doing exactly what I need: speaking and listening practice! And since my listening is so bad, I swear I ask her to repeat every second sentence that she says 😳 I hope it eventually improves, because right now I’m feeling pretty dunce-y! I’ve already told her that my listening is the worst, so she already knows my biggest problem. She’s really patient, though, and rather than resorting to English, she just repeats herself a few times, mega slowly, until I get it. It is exactly what I need 👍 I just wish I had her with me day in day out, correcting everything I say – like a parent! 😆 But alas, as an adult, I don’t have this luxury. I just have to do some more studying on my own….
And so I finished the day watching a few episodes of Love O2O, my current Chinese drama, just continuing to persevere with the show for some listening practice, which is what I desperately need for my Chinese!
We didn’t end up doing much today, as our schedule was pretty much very dependent on Nephew’s schedule. We did go on the HK Observation Wheel, which was pretty cool. It was air conditioned inside the cabins, so that was a welcome relief from the heat. We shared the cabin with two other random people, and once we sat down, the two exclaimed in Chinese how cute Nephew was. That made me feel better that at least they weren’t going to mind having to share a cabin with a toddler for the next 10 odd minutes! 😊
We then caught the Star Ferry across to Tsim Sha Tsui. We didn’t even get through one statue in the Toy Story 4 display just outside Harbour City before Nephew just lost it. Being in a totally different time zone in very unfamiliar surrounds, in a very hot and humid city, it’s probably a fair enough reaction. So he eventually fell asleep in his dad’s arms as we were walking through Harbour City, and we just went and had a late yum cha lunch while he slept through most of it.
Everyone was tired after lunch, so we just went back home afterwards so they could get ready for their flight tomorrow morning. We were hoping to go to the ICC Observation Deck, but apparently it was closed for a private event today. Of all days to be closed, it had to be the one day we wanted to go 😒 And we also wanted to go to the Kowloon Walled City Park, but we just didn’t have the energy to do so. Maybe on their return leg 😊
But at least we got some relatively decent weather during the last two days, even if they have been very hot and everyone was melting! 🥵
They want to leave the house at 5:30am tomorrow to give themselves plenty of time at the airport, but none of us are morning people… hmmm… 🤔 Good luck with that! 😆
We did a day trip to Macau today. We started the day off early, leaving the house at around 8am. But 15 minutes into the journey to the ferry terminal, N realises that he forgot his phone 😔 In this day and age, we can’t survive without it, so we made the decision to head back home to collect it, thereby adding an extra 30 minutes onto the first leg.
Turns out that it wasn’t too much of an issue, as there were plenty of seats available, even on the next ferry that was due to leave. I was a bit worried about this, as it’s a long weekend, and I thought everyone in HK might be wanting to head over to Macau today. Maybe those who did want to head over were already there, because it didn’t seem too busy to me this morning. Or maybe my definition of “busy” has since shifted since moving to HK… 🤔
For Sydneysiders, and those who have been to Sydney, heading over to Macau is pretty much like heading over to Manly from Circular Quay, just with immigration involved. It’s pretty straightforward. We went from the Macau Ferry Terminal in Sheung Wan, which has ferries running pretty often to Macau.
Once we got to Macau, we decided to catch the Grand Lisboa shuttle bus (I think it was green) to Grand Lisboa and then from there; just walk to the must-see tourist destinations for first-time visitors to Macau. All the massive casinos in Macau offer these free shuttle buses to ferry people to and from their casinos, even if you’re not staying there. So we basically got our transportation in Macau covered, since we were just going to tourist spots anyway 👍 We saw Senado Square; Ruins of St Paul’s; The Venetian, one of the massive casinos in Macau; and also accidentally stumbled across The Parisian, another hotel in the area. There are a number of hotels all inter-connected – they must all be owned by one conglomerate – so it was pretty easy to get lost in that giant maze.
Beautiful weather when we got to Senado SquareRuins of St Paul’sThe Venetian. Reminds me of Marina Bay Sands 😊 (awww… SG…)Totally wasn’t expecting to see the Eiffel Tower in Macau! 😆
Oh, all of these touristy areas that we went to today accept HK dollars, so we didn’t even have to change any of our currency. And bet amounts in the casinos were also all stated in HKD. I was reading that they might give back change in Pataca, the local currency, but we were always given change in HKD. We went to very touristy areas, though, so I guess they’re used to just dealing with HKD, which is obviously fine with us! 😆
We left The Venetian at around 8pm and caught one of their shuttles back to the ferry terminal. We managed to get on the the 8:45pm ferry back, and it was almost 11pm by the time we got home. So door to door, our commute was still pretty long, despite the actual ferry trip being only just over an hour. So maybe next time we’ll stay the night, so we can actually spend an evening gambling 🎰 or at least just chillaxing, and then just take our time heading back home the following day.
We’re thinking perhaps heading back for the Macau Grand Prix 😊 Although tickets and hotels might already have been sold/booked out for it… Probably worth checking now while its still a few months away…!
Macau was fun, and I’d definitely want to go again 😊
I got up at 8am this morning, to make sure I was awake for when our home delivery arrived today. Their window was 9am – 2pm, which is a pretty damn huge window! 😂 Luckily they arrived at around 11am, so we didn’t have to wait around for too long.
We had lunch in Wan Chai at Sabah Malaysian Cuisine, which apparently is in the Michelin Guide! It reminded me so much of SG, where all these types of dishes were just readily available. Awww SG, still missing you 😔 But they’re closing in October, due to their lease expiring, so we’ll have to find out where they end up setting up shop again, for those times when we have a hankering for Malaysian food 😋
We stopped by the computer centre once again, since we were in the area. It’s almost obligatory to stop by if we’re in Wan Chai 😂 This time N bought some charging cables. I think electronics are his gazingus pins, a term coined by the authors of Your Money or Your Life to describe items that you are just compelled to buy, even if you already have a bajillion other similar items at home. So he always wants to stop by electronics stores and check out whatever gadgets they have there. In SG it was Challenger; here, it’s pretty hard to beat the Wan Chai Computer Centre! 😂
My gazingus pin is stationery 😊 I love stationery, and I really have to stop myself from buying the stuff. This is one area where I am not an underbuyer! 😂 But I have reined in this buying habit a fair bit now, and I have told myself that I have to use up all the stationery at home first before I can buy any more. I’ve kept it under control so far, as my desire for a less cluttered home is also quite strong. But yeah, stationery is definitely my gazingus pin 😆
We’re planning on going to Macau tomorrow, I’m very excited! Another new country to visit 😊 Although technically part of China, like HK is, it also falls under the “one country, two systems” policy, so it’s also a “Special Administrative Region”. But I still see it as a country in its own right, despite the technicalities. I’m excited to be doing this day trip! 😊
Fairy Bread Life 