Monday, June 9, 2008

Monday, June 9

I just woke up from sleeping through my second entire night of sleeping!! Hanna says to tell you that she slept all night too. Yesterday went like this.

We woke up at around 6:30 or seven. I took a shower, and then we had breakfast. Then the boys finally woke up and we went to the Dragon Boat Races. In the beginning, Dad and Hanna and I just stood there and watched for 15 minutes or so while the boys played on the beach where the races were taking place. Then, while they continued to play, Hanna and I took Dad "exploring" in Stanley because the races were not too exciting. They were just there, along with a whole bunch of foreign people in matching Lycra t-shirts. First we walked up through this little street to a cafe because it was burning hot and so incredibly humid. We got iced lemon tea and pizza breads. Then we continued up to a Haagen-Dazs, where Hanna got one scoop of cookies n cream and Dad and I shared two scoops of green tea ice cream, which I wanted because I thought it was exotic. It certainly did taste like green tea. I didn't have that much of it because I'm making an effort to detox, but it's not working out exactly. Maybe I'll detox at home, or if that doesn't happen, further into camp.

We rambled into Stanley Market and out to some random little piazza by the water surrounded by places like "PizzaExpress" that screamed 'tourist trap'. Dad took pictures of the water because it was so incredibly polluted, sickeningly so. When we were done taking pictures and looking around at the various beaches on the shoreline, we went back through Stanley Market to the open street we'd come in through, with the Haagen-Dazs and the cafe. Lots of little shops were housed on this big stone setup. We bought my mom some gifts.

When we returned to the beach, we stood there for a few minutes while Colin (Annie's son who's my age), Tim (Colin's visiting friend), and Nate got their shirts and shoes on. Then we walked up to find some taxis to get us home. Once home, we ate some lunch, and at about 1:30, Hanna and I went to the pool. We hung out there for a really long time before Colin and Tim got there, and then we hung around with them for an hour or so. Finally Annie showed up with Nate and Brian, Annie's younger son. Hanna, Colin, Tim and I went upstairs to play badminton. Then Barbara and Felice got there, local girls. One of them lives in the complex and the other is her friend. They're Hanna's age, and very silly. It was fun playing badminton with them, but then they wanted to go swimming with me and Hanna. That's when they got annoying. Pushing us into the pool over and over again isn't that funny, and it's even less funny shooting freezing cold water guns at my back in the dressing room after I just took a hot shower, where there are people with dry clothes.

After that, we headed into Central in taxis and a bus to have dinner (Dad finally talked Annie into it). Once we got out of the bus in Central, we walked around for a while and then found an outdoor Chinese and Thai place. We ate family-style, with a variation of foods from calamari to fried rice to greens with garlic, being careful not to have any chicken. Then we went to an ice cream place called XTC--read 'ecstasy'--where I got a single scoop of mango sorbet with rainbow sprinkles.

Anyway, we were planning to go up to the Peak in a tram, but the line was insane, so instead we walked to the ferry to see the light show. The ferry ride was short and sweet. This guy behind me tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around, and he said something I couldn't make out, so I said "I don't know." Witty, right? He looked at me like I was insane and said, "My name is Ajid. What is name?" I, ever the clever one, stared at him for a second before turning around. Dad later said to say "My name is I'm ** years old". Haha. So we got some amazing pictures of the buildings in their light dance. Have to go--breakfast. Bye!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your so lucky!

Anonymous said...

http://images.google.co.nz/images?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4HPAB_enNZ216NZ216&q=hong%20kong%20on%20the%20streets&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi

Copy and paste this into your URL!

Um.. I think its called percival street?