Pak's Posse

Yeay! It's always nice to see friends again along the way, especially good friends! Pak travelled to Hong Kong for work this week and since she's not quite as bad a workaholic as I was she actually had some FREE TIME to spend with MOI! (Basically I camped out outside her hotel until she had no choice :P)

I went to meet her on saturday and took the lazy way out - I decided to get a cab from my hotel on Hong Kong Island to her hotel in Kowloon (East Tsim Sha Tsui). It shouldn't have taken more than 15 minutes and HK$60 as it's pretty much four blocks to the cross harbour tunnel and four blocks after. I figured - armed with a map, knowledge of where I need to go, and telling him the route I wanted to take when I got in... what could go wrong???? Right. The cabbie obviously saw me coming and decided to take me for a loooooooong ride. As soon as I realised he was going the long (3 times as long) way round, I started arguing with him. He pretended innocence, then ignorance, and finally that he didn't speak English. And so I ended up LATE (again, as usual when meeting Pak - it just wasn't meant to be) and HK$155 lighter. The worst thing? Since he - pretended - not to speak English, I couldn't even insult him properly. So I said the most hurtful thing I could think of that he might understand and that I happened to know the Mandarin for: You have no honour. Wow - that must have really given him 5 seconds of bad conscience! heheh. I think I need to go study Chinese!!!

Anyway - I met Pak's Posse (extended family) in Hong Kong. They do exist, Pak really does have Chinese roots and they're all extremely nice and kind...so I don't know what went wrong with Pak... Just Kidding. :) We had lunch with her aunt, who is about the nicest, politest, and certainly most graceful ladies ever. She showed us some markets in Kowloon that I hope I'll be able to find again sometime. It's like a giant bustling maze though, and (duh!) everything looks the same from every street corner!

In the evening I met her uncle, his wife and their two kids and the whole clan adopted me for dinner. Obviously both Pak and I seemed totally clueless about the new territories - so much so that her uncle offered to give us a tour the entire Sunday. So after meeting even more relatives for brunch the next day, we set off on our epic adventure... a mall, a computer accessories mall, another computer mall (yep, we can't escape what we love to do!) Aherm.

To be honest - HK is far too hot right now to enjoy anything other than sitting in airconditioning, walking in airconditioning, sleeping in airconditioning... you get my drift. So we first made a stop at a market to all buy umbrellas against the sun (I've taken on some local habits) and then drove to Golden Beach (I think) which is supposed to be one of or THE nicest beach in Hong Kong. When we arrived and got out for a walk it took me all of 5 minutes to rudely state: "Actually, sorry, but I'm not enjoying this. It's too hot, so I'll go park myself in a cafe with aircon and a cool drink. Just pick me up on your way back!" My mother would be so disappointed in me! As a result, I only have a photo of the walkway to the beach (see left), not the beach itself - sorry! I just couldn't hack it even with an umbrella and a fan. Luckily enough, all the others felt exactly the same way, they just weren't Dutch enough to blurt it out en-plein-publique. :) So we did a u-turn, got back into the airconditioned car and drove to an Italian restaurant for dinner. Hey, when in Hong Kong... eat Italian! yum yum.