And so it began.

... (sorta). I typed this up like before uni started (was going to post before the sem) but then never finished ....

Three weeks of uni have come and gone (and now it's near the end of the fourth). Three months of holidays have come and gone. I was going to do some semi-detailed HK entry with pictures and whatnot but I figure that'd take me too much unnecessary time =P

The 3 months of holidays that've passed have been by far, probably the most experience-filled holidays that I have gone through. I really only have God to thank for this and it has only been by His grace that it had gone by so well and they way they have. I learnt so so much from those 3 months. I know many of you had probably heard me complaining about how the 2 months in Hong Kong was so long (and that I'd never go back for so long ever again) and working as well which was partially interesting, partially boring, but honestly, after all that, I wouldn't have traded any of those 2 months of experiences for anything else (such as not going to HK, or decreasing the weeks I was there for, or just staying back here and work full time over the holidays at the partyshop (and probably not gain much from it) or find another job).

Primarily, I would say that I have learnt and understood more about myself, family and relatives during the time in HK ... maybe because it was in a different environment (and one that I haven't ever gotten used to) and it gave me time to just think about stuff during lonely transport to and from home time, lol. Secondly, maybe because I'm older or something, I've been shown around (by either relatives or family friends) to more different places for awesome food/more rememberable experiences and also chatting about more different/serious-ish things (and not like "How's the weather back in Aus? How's school?" to which the conversations shortly die off).

In "short":
Work - was definitely a very very beneficial opportunity and I'm so glad that mum still keeps in touch with her old work mates and was able to find me a job to occupy my time over in HK. I was able to gain experience that I probably would never be able to get again. Working overseas allowed me to observe how businesses ran (or rather, the law firm I was working in) and what the HK working environment was like. Got to do reception work (post letters, recording post, greet clients, take phone calls in chinese =S which was ultimate FAIL... (thank goodness for the invention of line redirecting and the HOLD button, lol...), translation work (various witness statements and police reports, chinese to english, thank goodness for the internet and yahoo to search up words I didn't know...), sit in court for two whole days to witness a hearing! =O, clean up half of an office (spent 4 days removing staples from 6 waist-heigh stacks of paper to use as draft paper ... hands so dead, cramped and rough after all that), deliver documents (didn't get lost!) and finally, the opportunity to make some new "friends" (the secretaries ... that were closer to my age, about 4 of them) in HK and spent most of my time in HK talking and eating with. Forever will I remember all these memories and experiences in this firm~ and hopefully it'll help me when work for me in the real world comes around.

Eating - is the best thing to do in HK!!! Wheeee. It's everywhere, it's cheap and ... it's cheap =D Everywhere you walk, there'll be some kind of food store, whether it be snacks or asian fast food restaurants. Food during the working week always revolved around 5 eating places which went on rotation. So with all those weeks working and eating in those places, there was many opportunities to try various dishes and wonderfully cheap food that filled you up heaps and heaps! (I think I ate twice as much as I usually would in HK and my metabolism was on a roll as well ... too bad it stopped when I came back XD) Food at night usually consisted of 4/5 dishes made by grandma (eaten between 6 people .... but when it was down to 3 people, she still made that many =S) and was always something like 1 dish of some kind of vegetables, 1 dish of chicken/duck/char siu, 1 dish of other meat stuffs, 1 dish of fish, and another dish of whatever things were used to make the daily soup ... and also rice (but that's a given of course). So yes, that was quite a bit of food in the morning. Breakfast was standard, some kind of bread/bun (from Maxim) and malted milk drink. It was like that every morning cuz I always wake up just in time to prepare and rush out of the house and grab the food along the way to the MTR in the station. Occassional weekday dinners with Monica consisted of going to Japanese/Korean restaurants which were fairly decent priced and left us eating happily and wanting more (but unable to eat more). Weekend food habits consisted of going to various yum cha places with various relatives and eating lots and lots and lots of food .... Some yum cha places were excellent and cheaply priced, however some were also the other way around, and some were excellent AND pricy, but eh~ fooood =D I think I'm just gonna stop there. Point taken is that I ate a lot and a lot of different food at a lot of various places. Awesome cheap HK food!

Shopping - was somewhat interesting. Before going to HK, I thought I would only have time to shop in the last 2 weeks of my stay since I was working 5 and a half/six days a week during the prior 2 months. Interestingly though, time was occassionally made at night and on the weekends to do some quick few hour shopping which resulted in goods being purchased rather quickly and early in the trip. Shopping this time back increased tenfold and although that happened, my opinion on shopping still hasn't changed, and probably more confirmed my thoughts on it ... I still really don't like shopping, at times I feel it's like a chore, there was way too much of it in HK, I don't think I'll ever repeat these shopping habits ever again. So after 2 months, lots of asian winter clothing is now in my wardrobe, I finally got some boots (only thing I was actually looking forward to get) and yeah, small amounts of food were purchased, massive amounts of origami paper was purchased (though sadly when purchased at one place, found someplace else cheaper the day later), legal asian music obtained, various other miscellaneous stuff purchased. Ya. Another note, all my expenses during my time in HK were paid for with my earnt money in HK! Spending your own money really does have a very different feeling, there's a great satisfaction of buying food and what you want with your own money, knowing that you don't need to pay anyone back/you're using someone else's money XD

Relatives - it was great to see everyone again after so long. Catch up with and get to talk to cousins and see how they're going with things in life and their studies/work etc. Was also great to see how my lil cousins have grown and how cute they've become XD and how much more they talk now than they used to when I first got to know them. Lots of interesting/indepth conversations with certain reles abt work and things in life .... conversation topic sure have changed with age o_o; But yeah, it was good getting to see everyone again and spend time with them =)

... I think that's all the easy areas that I can possibly talk about ... well that's all that's coming to mind right now anyway. I guess I'll post more when I remember other more post-worthy things ... whenever that'll be XD

Silly Things.

So I realise I've been a bit lazy with this whole blogging thing lately ...


[Last Sat at HJ's]
Me: Hi, can I get a sausage and egg bacon wrap meal?
Counter girl: Sure. (money retrieval and food collection ensues)
*later after eating hash brown*
Me: Time for some meat! *takes massive bite* So cheesy and eggy ... *stares inside wrap* ... *heads back up to counter*
Counter girl: Yes?
Me: Hi, I ordered a sausage and egg bacon wrap but I got the cheesy omelete wrap.
Counter girl: Oh, so you don't want it?
Me: No.
Counter girl: Alright *grabs my wrap, chucks in bin and hands me another/the right one I wanted* Here you go.
Me: Thanks.
*back at the table*
Me: *takes a bite* ... this sausage is rather hard ... *stares inside* ... omgsh she gave me the steak wrap ... oh well *continues to eat* At least I didn't pay more for getting something less (like the one before)

Note: Both wraps I got had identical wrapping markings ... the kitchen really needs to review their production line.


[The same Sat at work later]

*Mother is shopping around with daughter when the daughter starts fidgeting around.* Mother: Hi, do you guys know where the nearest restroom is?
Me: Yeah, across the road.
Mother: Alright, thanks. *drags daughter by the hand up the stairs and continues to scold her in some language*
Me: =S
Boss: Poor girl, all she wanted to do was go to the toilet and she gets scolded by her own mother ....