HK and TW 2008 - Day 2

1:50am (during flight)
After my nap of a couple of hours, I woke up to walk around a bit. OMG, my butt hurts! Had a snack of a warm "American" burger (it was pretty gross) and a Haagen Daaz vanilla ice cream. 文生 and I finished the last few episodes of 東山飄雨西關情 and now my eyes are tearing. I'm tired and guess what? My butt hurts!!! LOL! Just going to kick off my shoes now and sleep. Six more butt-hurting hours until HK. Hopefully sleeping will make it seem faster. (1:54am)

6:06am - 7:06pm local (during flight)
After a 3.5 hour nap, piggy here woke up for "breakfast". I had a choice of omelette or dumpling so I chose dumpling, since 文生 chose omelette (I'm not an egg fan anyway). Well...we wouldn't have missed much either way since they were both CRAP! My "dumpling" was just one 燒賣, on really nasty noodles with one 叉燒包. The roll was hard and the fruit plate of honeydew, cantaloupe and grapes weren't that great. Yuck. Maybe I'm spoiled from my AC flight in October =p.

Only 1 hour left until HK! That nap really did in some time for me. Keke! I'm glad the flight is almost over because I want "real" food in my system! I was telling Vikki that the best food we had on the flight were the chicken strips we brought onto the flight from the McD's in Newark. I think I'm going to try and sleep for the last bit of the ride. It's so dry in here and it's obviously in more ways than one. The shows are crap, but I managed to play a few games of Freecell. *rolls eyes* (6:19am, 7:19pm local)

Dec12/08 - 4:00am (at home)
I can finally calm down and stop fussing over stupid things. Our flight promptly landed at 8:05pm despite a delayed departure. Things were just psycho from there. First, my SIM card that I bought back in October (still had $121 credit on it apparently) didn't work; then people kept budding in during the massive lineup at customs (lucky for 文生, Peggy and Vikki they have HK ID's so they didn't have to wait); then I thought I lost my luggage but turns out 文生 is oblivious and the person who lost their luggage was another person with the same name on the same flight (yet another one, go figure). I felt so flustered! I went back to the store where I bought my SIM and apparently the cell provider was upgrading their network so I wasn't able to use it. Just when I was going to get really upset, the guy at the counter told me he could give me another SIM for the balance. So I ended up with a new number, and new SIM. Fine, no lost there except now I have to give out a new number. I called 妙珠姨 finally and found out that they waited for us for dinner! OMG, now I felt bad. Since Peggy suggested dinner at 板前 at the airport, I told 妙珠姨 to go eat first.

So 文生, Peggy and I went to 板前 and had scallop sushi, uni, anago and two bowls of 三鮮飯. It had more uni (yum!), salmon and toro negi (what a waste). By then it was after 10:00pm so after we got "lost" at the airport looking for the buses and rearranging our suitcases, we took the bus out to Yuen Long to meet up with the two 姨姨's. Wow, what a long bus ride. After we got off the bus, we switched to the light rail and arrived at our place of stay shortly after midnight. Now we're finally able to sleep, after unpacking, organizing, figuring out how much money to exchange and slapping on a mask. I'm so tired now so I better sleep. Alarm's going off at 6:45am for our Wan Chai 9:00am appointment. =( (4:21am)

HK and TW 2008 - Day 1

9:27am (YYZ, on plane)
Wow! What a morning! After an entire sleepless night, 文生 and I left home at 7:50am and made it to Terminal 3 in 20 minutes. Eastbound traffic was completely stopped on the 401 due to some multi-trailer accident. Since Peggy and Vikki made it to the airport before us, they found out that there was room on an earlier flight and decided to take it. When we got to Pearson, we managed to catch the same flight! Whew! We flew by the check-in process, customs, bag check, and rushed to the gate just as the final passengers were boarding. I don't know how, but I managed to cut myself. I didn't even realize it until it started hurting. By then the blood was drying already. LOL!! OMG, I'm so tired! I'm about to pass out soon. -_-" (9:39am)

2:40pm (EWR, on plane)
OMG! What a horrendous ride to Newark! Almost barfed on the nasty roller coaster plane ride. Good thing the ride was short. We arrived at Newark at 11:07am and sat around eating nasty McD's until boarding time at 2:20pm. JM 們, we're on board enroute to HK!! It's currently pouring outside but hopefully it won't affect our take off time. HK seafood here we come! I can't wait for the 許留山 drinks, 龜苓膏, 雞蛋仔, etc. I can't believe it's already been 2 months since my last visit to HK. I am so looking forward to Taiwan. Hopefully this plane ride will be better. (2:57pm)

6:14pm (during flight)
Our flight was supposed to depart at 3:00pm but at 3:40pm, we were still there at the gate. -_-" Something about communication problems. For some reason, we're travelling east across the Atlantic instead of heading west towards the International Date Line like I'm used to. So I slept until about 5:00pm when the flight attendants came by with hot towels. Shortly after, dinner was served which consisted of an iceberg lettuce "salad" with 3 puny shrimp, 2 slices of cucumber and a wedge of tomato and lemon. The lettuce was blah. Main course was a beef on steamed rice. Of course the rice was mushy and the beef was overcooked. Still better than cooked salmon I guess. Blech!! There was a grain roll that I barely touched since it was kinda hard and I didn't even open up the triple chocolate brownie. The sound of the name makes my teeth tingle. I watched 2 episodes of Off Pedder and now I'm tired so I think I'll just piggy and take a nap. =p (6:24pm)

Excited, but Exhausted

Only 4 more hours until my flight to Hong Kong!! I'm so excited! It's a nightmare out there with freezing rain, slick roads, multi-truck accidents on the 401 and then some. I sure hope we make it safe to the airport! Then I hope our flights won't be delayed...

Since my poor 文生 had to work straight through from yesterday til 5:45am this morning, I stayed up helping Sofia and Meishan with their video for Sandra. Just finished packing shortly before 6:00am, so I managed to squeeze in a shower before picking up 文生 from Finch Station.

I'm pretty much set to go!

Oyster Slurping, Slurped

Wow, can't believe it's already been 8 years since I've started having annual Christmas oyster parties. This year must be the record year with 12 dozen oysters - Fanny Bays, Kumamotos and Kushis. Mmm mmm yum! I've decided to go with the case of Fanny Bays instead of the traditional Malpeques this year because of the suggestion from Chris at Diana's Seafood.

"Oyster Shots" - by Sai V
top - Kumamoto, bottom - Kushi

Only problem I had with this year's party (and my first party-related kitchen mishap) was this:

"Tragic Story of an Unagi" - by Sai V

Scorched eel that lit up in flames and set off my fire alarm

Countdown begins (again) ...

快啦快啦! Only 3.5 more days till take-off! I'm so excited! Currently doing some last minute research for Taiwan and OMG, the more I find out, the more excited I get! I just hope the experience at Masalili won't be disappointing~

Note to myself for future trips...don't count on PC Financial to be able to give you a large sum of money when you need it, especially in a short period of time. Apparently, you need to transfer funds to another "real" bank (like CIBC), and they will cut you a bank draft -_-". Something to definitely keep in mind for next time.

So the countdown starts again... I hope this doesn't mean sleepness nights until I get on the plane again.