One Girl, Two Coasts: Day Six: A Full Day in the Crazy City

Day Six

Possibly because I was sleeping in a new environment, I woke up really early and just laid in bed on my iPhone, making sure I was all caught up with social media, talking to friends, etc. I then took a shower, using the sad excuse for a towel that my aunt had given me last night. When I was packing, my mom told me that I wouldn't need to bring a towel, soap, shampoo, or conditioner. After all, we'd be staying with family, and they'd obviously provide those essentials!

This turned out to be false. Soap is very hard to find here; I had a conversation with my aunt about it the other day because only one of her bathrooms had soap, and the shower didn't have any body wash or soap. She laughed and said that she usually just rinsed her hands with water to clean them and never really used soap! She found it STRANGE that I needed to wash my hands with it before eating and after using the bathroom!! TELL ME THATS RIDICULOUS. I'm not a huge germaphobe, but soap is essential. It just is. Ugh...I'm shuddering just picturing a life of simply using water to wash your hands.

Similarly, the towel I got from my aunt in HK made me want to laugh. It was only a foot by like, half a foot. It didn't cover ANYTHING, and was a sixth the size of a normal-sized towel. Regardless, I had to get used to it, and the whole thing was soaking wet after I toweled off last night.

This morning, the shower heating system failed to turn on, so I manned up and took an ice cold shower. It truly brought me back to the days in rural China where we showered without hot water for a month. It was hard, but with friends, the hardships turned into great memories and laughs. Those were the days...

Around 9ish, we walked over to the Panda Hotel to grab Jason and my dad for breakfast. Again, my aunt took us to a very local place that was smaller than a two-car garage. There wasn't enough room for the 5 of us, so we went up a set of rickety stairs to another floor with a few tables, chairs, and fans.

My aunt immediately ordered us each a bowl of plain rice congee (known as zhouk in Cantonese), some fried dough sticks (you tiao), noodle things stuffed with pork (chang fun), and rice vermicelli cooked with scallions and soy sauce (mian tiao). I wasn't excited that this was our breakfast, to be honest...I was all too used to my western-style breakfasts to be having NOODLES first thing in the morning. It was a weird experience...but I shouldn't complain. It's definitely a first world problem.

Once we had finished, we shopped around in the nearby mall. Correction: my aunts and I perused the sales on clothes there while my dad and brother stood there using the free wifi inside. I got two shirts there for 90 HK dollars (around 11 or 12 American bucks) and my aunts also claimed a bunch of clothing articles. We then took a subway ride to this place known as the Ladies' Market. It was basically a huge outdoor shopping place where you could bargain at most of the booths. My aunt knew that I liked to bargain, and that I was looking for legit-looking knockoffs, so we came here. Not that I'm a great haggler by any stretch, but I think it's a really interesting shopping experience, and it gives you the chance to set your own prices. Who doesn't want that?

We decided to go there, because apparently there wasn't much else to really see or do in Hong Kong besides eat and shop (unless you count the new Disneyland there, but we didn't have time to go there 😢. Plus, my dad would've never allowed that kind of foolishness).

In terms of things to do here, my dad and brother didn't really have any wishes or desires. They said they were basically fine accompanying me around while I shopped and got gifts for friends back home. At least that's what they SAID.

After maybe an hour in the sweltering heat looking at different goods and trinkets, we were all drenched in sweat and the guys were very unhappy campers. To my credit, I'd spent the time well- I got some more jewelry, a whole bunch of adorable USB drives, and an awesome iPhone case for myself. I've been wanting another case for my new phone (that came the day before we left...ha!) and I had been waiting to get one until we came here because I knew they'd be super cheap and unique here. The one I ended up getting (after meticulously fingering through rows and rows of cases) was unlike any case I had seen. It's a clear case, which I like (it's classy and elegant), but on the back, there's a protruding hourglass with little blue grains inside that move every which way when you shake your phone. I love it; it's different, simple, and entertaining (for my easily entertained little brain).

We went back to the subway after countless complaints from the men. I also felt rushed because my aunts weren't really looking to shop either; they were merely keeping us company. The only one was genuinely interesting in finding cool things to get was me. So I decided to save the rest of my money for Shanghai, where hopefully, my aunts and cousins would be more interested in these endeavors.

My aunt brought us to Li Hao's noodle stand for lunch. It served an assortment of noodle flavors in these little blue cups and apparently, the founders of this stand had been really innovative with their noodle options. For example, the cup that my aunt handed me had cold noodles in a pink soup, topped with cold lychees, sliced carrots, cucumbers, and other vegetables. It was sweet and savory and very different, but pretty tasty. We clutched out cups and stood eating on the burning sidewalk. It was a very eye-opening experience being here in Hong Kong, as this is literally so common for the locals to do, but a weird concept for me to accept. I mean, I enjoy sitting down and slowly enjoying a meal, but people were rapidly sucking down their meals wherever I looked. Interesting!

Once we'd finished, we continued walking around in the city and observing the hectic, cramped pace that dominated the city. After trying these surprisingly satisfying bowls of chilled, sweet tofu dessert (mine also had red beans mixed into it), my aunt took us to this seafood stand where you could buy jars of tiny little, flavored fish that were apparently delicious. Since you could only buy them here in HK and my aunt swore that they were amazing and really versatile for cooking, my aunt from Guangzhou and dad both went HAM and bought around ten jars each of this stuff. Jason and I were pooped from all the walking around and the unforgiving heat, and we were glad to return to the apartment for a few hours before dinner.

Everybody napped while I blogged until around 6:30, when my aunt urged us all out of the apartment. We were going to this sushi place for dinner, and like every place here, you'd have to wait extra long if you got there during the peak hours. Even so, we waited for around a half hour before being seated at a sushi bar, in front of an extensive conveyer belt that looped in and out of the tables and booths.

Eating sushi at Sushi Express was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. We hadn't tried the conveyer belt-style sushi back home and since the sushi here was much much cheaper than the sushi in America, we were encouraged to go crazy! It was only $8 a plate, which meant that each plate was a little over one buck in the US! Jason and I shared lots of laughs while we tried different types of sushi and dessert. We found the dessert options to be especially good, since the Cantonese and HK meals we'd been eating so far featured very few sweet dishes (and we most definitely have a sweet tooth). There were cream puffs, mango jellies, and the most amazing thing we'd ever tried: this little flour cake with an inner, sweet filling that was all neatly wrapped in a bamboo leaf. Jason and I each tried one and were instantly in heaven. However, no matter how long we stared the conveyer belt, there weren't any more of them that came down the belt. Finally, after waiting and waiting, right when we got up to leave, we saw another plate of them and nearly caused a scene due to the cruel, cruel irony. It was truly one of the best things I've ever eaten.

We returned once again to the Panda Hotel, where my aunt and I both enjoyed the large, normal-sized shower they had there, and then went back. I was very reluctant to leave the comfy living situation they had there, but I had no choice. Once back in my cousin's bed, I promptly fell asleep, exhausted. What a day!