I've been MIAing the past few days becos i was with 3 other wonderful people in not too far away hong kong where china pandas can be found :) uber cute greedy pandas. ATE AND ATE AND ATE. i wish i were a panda in an enclosure with all my good friends and have no worries and just eat all day long and dun care about dresses and skirts and being fat becos i look cuter fat if i'm a panda anyway.


this trip was an uber budget one. we lived a total budget travellor's life and the only thing we lacked to fit that image was those backpacker's backpacks. for one...we lived in an uber shabby building - the uber old hong kong HDB flat that is falling apart. check it out!!!

hahaha. but seriously. the usa hostel that we stayed in was pretty good with proper beds and toilet and aircon and all. the only thing unhotel-ish is the toilet door which is kinda like the one we had in portugal. frosted glass window at the door and no lock. except this is worse cos the toilet is so small the bathing space is the only standing space and the moment the door open u are exposed. so we had to use a chair to block off the thing to protect all our privacy. not that i think the other girls cared. haha. nonetheless, the hostel room was sufficient for the bare necessities of shitting, bathing, resting and chilling. it was the place we spent every night just playing games and having "heart to heart" talks. rather. it was more of digging out dirty secrets and hidden opinions even though to put it nicely, it was getting to know one another better.

we managed to do all that we needed to do - shopping, buying winter jacket for the cold winter in savannah, eating local food, our egg tarts, dim sum and steamed milk, ocean park, victoria peak etc etc. the typical stuff u do in hong kong anyway. i'm quite proud of myself at riding some of the rides in ocean park. i think going with friends give you more guts and for the first time i am seen smiling. not ducking in the photos of rides. perhaps taking plane rides have trained my system to the feeling of free falling as felt during turbulence. SPEAKING OF TURBULENCE, i fear for my life flying in a plane with cheryl and bobo who have their phones turned on despite reminders from the air crew to have all electronic devices, especially phones to be turned off throughout the entire duration of the flight. secret terrorists.

there was a whole load of walking during this trip. even with comfortable sport shoes my feet still hurted. hong kong is too bloody crowded for me to live there without stress. i will never forget that scary pushing and shoving into the train during peak hour. no doubt people were really orderly when it came to waiting for the train, but by the time we missed 4-5 trains no one could care less about being patient and courteous and just shoved and pushed to get on. and then there's the language barrier. my chinese has deproved so much so that i have problems even trying to order food from the chinese menu and i was stuck ordering wanton mee most of the time cos it was the only thing i recognised on the menu. saddd.

many thanks to chrystal for being our main translator for everything. i feel quite bad but ya. thanks for all the help. she's been such a mummy on this trip, dragging me around to make sure i won't get lost. helping me to settle my winter shopping otherwise i'll come back with nothing at all, and helping us to find the places we need to go. chrystal we love u!

and then there's also cheryl who was the one who planned everything. and my pacey who i love dearly. (but yet have hardly any pictures with cos cheryl kept u all to herself and i had many photos with chrystal even though she denies the fact that we have proper photos together)

and last but not least, to me, for being the epic failure and a great entertainment at the expanse of my deflating ego.

girls. what would i do without u all??? let's gather every year even though we're far apart in different corners of the world. let us never let this friendship die.