One Girl, Two Coasts: Day Seven: Leaving & Getting Lost

Day Seven

Today was our last day in Hong Kong! I woke up before my aunts again that day and packed up everything, preparing to leave. Once I'd put on my backpack and drawstring bag, I quietly left the apartment and headed out to go to the Panda Hotel. Our plan was that we'd all meet at 11 for an early lunch before our bus at noon. We weren't planning on eating much until then and the aunts weren't planning on leaving the apartment until then; since I was antsy and couldn't spend that much time inside, I headed over first to hang out with Jason and my dad.

Before I got there, I stopped at a little stand and used a bunch of the HK coins my dad had given us to spend to buy three soy milk drinks. Then,
l actually ran into my dad on the walkway right outside the hotel! He was going to pick up some food for is because Jason was complaining that he was hungry (typical), so the two of us set out to find food. We bought some sweet and savory pastries from a bakery, and then ate it together in their room.

After chilling for a whole longer in their room and packing everything ip, we checked out, met our aunts at one of the busier points of the walkway, and went to lunch at the restaurant we'd gone to on the first day. This time, I ordered a bowl of noodles with soup, and was positively stuffed by the time we finished. We all got on a bus (my HK aunt was staying in Guangzhou with us for a few days), went through customs much more painlessly, and were back in Guangzhou around the late afternoon.

Going to Hong Kong was awesome and I'm really glad we did, since it was incredibly eye opening...however, I know for a fact that I'd never be able to live in such a cramped, skyscraper-dominated place. It was simply too overwhelming all the time and as much as I love how efficient and smart the systems are there, I need at least a little tiny taste of nature, suburbia, and the country. I'm definitely not a full-blown city mouse! That's for sure.

Once back in Guangzhou, we went out to dinner with our relatives. Like always, we walked to the restaurant since it was close and parking was difficult.

This actually ended up being a truly terrible experience for me, because I got lost. In a foreign country. That had many sketchy people. Where I barely understood the main language (Cantonese). FUN!!

It's a very long story so I'll summarize and basically just say that there was a huge miscommunication that resulted in an accident: my aunt and Jason took off really quickly because they wanted to get there and order our meal, while I'd been walking between them and the much slower group that was my dad, grandma, and HK aunt. They'd thought that I'd just be able to hang back with those three, so they booked it and left me in the dust, while the other group decided to take a DIFFERENT route to the restaurant.

As a result, when I turned around to wait for them, they'd already crossed the street and disappeared somewhere else. I walked up and down that particular street for maybe 15 min trying to locate them, then went back to the house to wait, since they'd have to eventually go back! After getting so so many stares and weird looks, hanging outside the house door for 30 min like I was homeless, and trying to desperately contact them with a phone that couldn't call internationally, my aunt finally showed up in a rickshaw and brought me to the restaurant area. Everyone had been out on the streets looking for me and my dad yelled and screamed at me, while everyone else patronized me and said it was so lucky that I remembered the way back to the house. Yeah. Apparently my powers of observation are that bad.

Anyways, dinner was pretty miserable after that nightmare. I was feeling down and completely useless, but things got better bit by bit. We ate steamed veggies, fish, pork, these snail things, and most importantly, pumpkin pancakes （南瓜饼). They're delicious, thin slices of pumpkin and other ingredients, and not too sweet but very tasty. These were another one of the main dishes we had been craving since last time.

Once back at the house after a walk, I went up to my room and just read my book the rest of the night. I'd been reading a lot of the main book I'd brought: Kafka on the Shore (Haruki Murakami). I'll take about it later, once I blog about the point when I finished it! A really excellent read. After that, I hit the hay...back in my familiar bed here in Guangzhou.