Woke up this morning with my room mate complaining that it was too hot, so he switched on the air-con n went back to sleep. A moment later, he woke up n off the air-con, saying it was too cold. I had to agree, but was to sleepy to bother about the temperature. Watching him complaining about the temperature was quite amusing. He’s been doing this for the past few days. Then again, he’s right, the air-con’s quite powerful, and it can get very hot in the late morning when the sun shines into our window. That’s y I tend to leave the room by noon and go explore town. But for today, I almost had enough of sleeping on a makeshift pillow. The aches are getting to me and the heat is quite bad. Thus I went to the shop Angie recommended last night. It was designer furniture shop, the pillows aren’t that cheap. I almost wanted to buy it, but held back until I see the price in IKEA. Next I went down to Page One. The bookstore was very much like Kino, down to the interior design. Sadly, there isn’t any stationery. It was around 3pm by now, and I headed to the food court to try out the food. Food was alright, but I’ll stick to my canteen food. The KFC across the mall was much more tempting. Another time I guess. Then after exploring the other side of the mall, I found this cool shop called Log-on. It had like cool stuff, from stationery, to bags, to office stuff. Even gardening stuff for small plants. It also had beauty products n electronics. But the prices there are like designer prices. Cool n nice, but ex. Will get something nice before I leave HK from there (cos Singapore won’t have one).

As I walked a bit more, I bumped into Gaik Chin. She was also doing her own shopping in Festival Walk and would have called me later. Guess we met earlier than expected. We went down to Yau Ma Tei after that and explored the streets. There was this street which sold vegetables and raw meat, very much like a wet market. But it wasn’t highlighted in the map. We went on to see Jade Street, but it was closed already. Temple Street was just starting for the night ahead. Not many shops were open yet. Gaik Chin managed to find a convenient store with what she wanted. After walking a bit more, we finally gave up finding this roadside food store which she remembered had very nice food. Much of the streets around here were quite familiar, as I had stay at Evergreen Hotel nearby. Some of the road signs hadn’t changed, but many did.

We decided to drop by the Porridge restaurant (Ocean Empire) to have dinner. As we ordered, the lady forgot to mark my order on the bill. My porridge came late, and in the end, when I went to pay for the bill, the cashier just charged us for one bowl instead of two. I quietly paid the bill n left. Gaik Chin questioned my conscience. I was like I knew but didn’t say. She asked if it was I didn’t know how to say it or I was trying to get away with it. It was a bit of both actually. But hey, this doesn’t happen that often you know. So we ate 2 bowls for the price of 1.

Next we went to Kowloon Bay for IKEA. Telford Plaza was huge, much bigger than I had expected. In fact, it had 3 plazas. IKEA was in Plaza 2. We shopped for a while in there and I finally bought my pillow for HK100. Bought a foldable laundry basket, magnets n Tupperware as well. The prices are quite affordable, some much lesser than that in Singapore or in the streets of HK. There was a mug going for only HK3, when we got ours for HK10 at Mong Kok.

After that, we headed on home. I dropped by Pacific Coffee again to surf the net. I think the boss already knows me. I left without buying something, so I owe one to them.

Started watching CSI last night. I think I brought enough entertainment to last me thru the whole sem. But then again, I gotta make time to learn Cantonese as well. Gotta catch those TVB shows soon n pick up something.

Shenzhen, here I come.

Day 6 (Indoors)

Just my morning usual routine, waking up grabbing a bite, reading my book (The Sword Of Shannara), dozing back into dreamland till about 1pm. My room mate went for a run around 9am, caught another episode of CSI. The Shenzhen trip had been postponed to Sunday. So today was kinda like my free day. Thought for a while what to do.

By 1pm, I decided to hop down to my Uni canteen to grab lunch. There’s only one canteen, but a huge one. I realised that if you choose wisely, your meals can turn out to be quite cheap. So for today I went for beef n ham with rice, was only HK18. Tasted kinda nice too, but not the type you’d stick to eating day in day out. Still trying to find that elusive dish to stick to. Then I went out to Page One to see what magazines they had. They had the usual magazines, but not on Astro. Either they don’t offer or are sold out. Realise that Singapore has better variety. As for porn, they’re mainly exported from Europe. Local ones gotta get them off the street. Anyway, that wasn’t really my primary point. I managed to find a Cantonese handbook to work on my Canto. Hope it helps. Now just need to find the drive. I then went over to Pacific Coffee to check on updates. Only a few reply emails. The rest are like lost in space. Talked to a few ppl, but not for long. Looks like nothing much has happened. Kids were hogging the place and I kinda felt pressed for time over there. Took a few quick glances at a few websites n left. I wanted to try to find my bank today but realized that it was a Saturday and it was half day for banks. So I went down to Taste n bought more food and headed back to hall. Caught a few more episodes of CSI and then watched Silent Hill. Quite a gd movie I must say. In between, I experimented on the laundry n dryer. Laundry costs HK5 and it’s only 45min, as compared to our super long washers in Sheares. For the washer here, it works roughly the same. Funny thing was, as I started it, I realized the water was clearing the compartment next to the one I had put my washing powder in. In panic, I transferred the powder over and poured some water to flush it in. Cool thing was I could pause the washing machine. The whole compartment drawer thing got kind messy. I wanted to clean it up but decided to do it after my washing was done. When I went back, I realized that the whole compartment was clean, as in some where along the process there was another round of washing and it cleared the compartment of washing powder. Relieved, I went on to figure out the dryer. It costs HK5 for 20mins, that’s HK1 for 4min. I tried 20mins for starters and it was half dry. I added 20mins more and it was just fine. So all in all, I round of laundry can cost you HK15. I noticed that a lot of ppl dry their clothes out in the rooftop. Maybe I’ll do that one day. Forgot to mentioned that the view from the roof is amazing. It overlooks Kowloon and some of the Hong Kong Island’s skyline. It’s like you could just sit out there n watch the world go by. I try to mosaic the view one day.

Today’s been quite slow, but after today, the pace will pick up again.