Sogo is a no go.

I've been having a good time the last few days. On Thursday Emily, Sarah and I went to Mong Kok. We hadn't been there in awhile and felt like trying to recapture the fun of the first week of Hong Kong. Well, mission partially accomplished.

Emily's been spending too much money, so she's trying to slow down, therefore she couldn't buy anything in Mong Kok. Sarah actually has willpower and didn't want anything, and I successfully bought the one thing on my shopping list at one of the first stalls I went to. My sunglasses broke, so I needed a new pair. The lady tried to charge me $230 for a pair. I made a big production out of being shocked by the price and replied, "I was thinking of paying maybe $50!" End result: I paid $70HKD. :)

Sarah ended up having to leave early, so Emily and called in recruits to continue our shopping expedition. Kim and Jenny answered our call, and we met at the Mong Kok mall. Hong Kong stores need some kind of consistency. Either you have too many service people, or not enough. Well, I found a place with the former. In one cosmetic store, a sales lady followed me around for about 45 minutes, all the while standing several feet from me. At first it was uncomfortable, but then I began having to fight off laughter. I'd shift and move a foot away, she'd walk a foot towards me. It was amusing.

We ended up going for dinner at some kind of Japanese restaurant (with one of those stereotypical sushi conveyor belts) that's rapidly becoming known among exchange students for it's cheap alcoholic drinks... $18 for a vodka and tonic... That's less than $3CAD folks. It was fun with lots of girl gossip going on.

The next day was the grand opening of a new Japanese department store known as Sogo. The girls really wanted to go there, so I decided to tag along, inviting Pei-chin and her friends along as well. We ended up travelling as a pack to Tsim Sha Tsui and having dinner at another Japanese restaurant. The food was delcious! I ordered dessert too. Apparently what's shown in the picture is known as "Strawberry Milky Slush." The thing was much more massive than anticipated, so I recruited help and everyone dug into the thing.

Sogo was not what I was expecting. I thought that department store meant something like Walmart or Zellers. Not so. Sogo was a large mall with a bunch of expensive boutiques in it instead. Meaning I didn't see a thing in there for under $400HKD.

Pei-chin, Wen Li, Jen and I ended up leaving the others there and going back to Tsim Sha Tsui to wander around the stores there. I love TST, it's so bright and colourful. It's touristy, but it's the way you picture Hong Kong to be in your head. We hit up a few smaller stores but had to head back to the University in order to catch the last shuttle back to residence.

We had a good time. People kept complimenting my eyes... I liked the conversation. :) I was also called "cute" for the first time in a weird sense that I can't quite explain. Sarah (from Beijing) was insistent that I was cute (she was implying it in a girly-cute kinda way) that was very different from how I think of myself. Then again, since I've been here, my sarcasm levels have dropped dramatically and my whole sense of humour has changed, mainly because most people wouldn't understand my jokes. So it's strange knowing people are liking me for different reasons than they would in Canada.

Today, Pei-chin, Wen Li, Lee-Min and I went to Lamma island. You can check out my photos from the island here.


Lamma Island is Hong Kong's third largest island. It has no cars or buses and is only accessible by ferry. It was very touristy but also very pretty. It's famous for it's seafood. So our plan was to go to the island, check it out, and maybe eat some seafood.

Well, we saw the island. However, the restaurant we went to was ridiculously expensive. (Shrimp for 3 people would have cost us $35CAD - a high price in Hong Kong.) We ordered some cheaper food, but it was taking forever to get there, so we ended up getting up and leaving instead. The girls bought some fish balls from a roadside stall, while I nabbed myself a sandwich from a bakery. (I love bakeries here.)

We made our way to the beach. It was so pretty. Unfortunately it also had a lot of broken seashells, making walking barefoot a real pain. Literally. We hung out for a bit then continued our trek.


We had read that you could walk from one end of the island to the other within about an hour and a half to two hours. No one mentioned that this hike was freakin' uphill. We got up the first curve and saw the long line of people ahead of us and began to freak out. I saw a white couple coming and asked how long it was to the other side of the island. We found out that we were about half way there, so I made the group decision to continue walking. Luckily it was only the first part of the trek that was uphill - the last 30 minutes was in the shade and going downhill. I feel very accomplished for sticking it out, especially since it was a freakin' hot hot day, reminiscent of the first week we were in Hong Kong.

After Lamma Island, we went to Central to eat. I'm really surprised by the lack of fast food in Hong Kong. McDonald's and KFC are two of the few (I can only think of maybe 2 other fastfood places) fast food chains around here. And sadly, it's cheaper to eat at McDonald's than it is for me to eat on campus. A McChicken Sandwich combo costs less than $3.50CAD here.

Today was a public holiday in Hong Kong. Apparently it's the celebration for the foundation of the People's Republic of China. So we headed out to the waterfront to see the fireworks. (Photos can be seen here.) The fireworks were good - not terribly exciting, although there were a few types I had never seen before. I think they just had a bigger budget for their fireworks. Some of the cool new explosions I got to see included a circle shape with the #8 inside (which either stands for long life, or for "8 years since the handover"), and red fireworks that exploded into star shapes... Which I'm positive represents the stars on China's flag.

We decided that it was time to go back home after the fireworks, especially since it had been 12 hours since we had left in the morning. On the train ride home, I tried to crush a woman by losing my balance on the subway (of course, this is after I joked about how I didn't need to hold on to a handrail). She literally had to grab my arm and push me away, otherwise I would have fallen into her.