Waves

A couple of months ago, someone very special to me passed away. I wanted to represent this sentence in a more eloquent way, but there is nothing beautiful about losing someone via death. It has been almost 5 months since that day and this is the first time that I've allowed myself to write about it. To be honest, I am still in half disbelief. No one ever thinks that it will happen to them. We hear about people dying way before they're supposed to, we hear of friends and acquaintances who experience the same kind of loss - but we never quite imagine that it would happen to us, not now, not so soon anyway.

Dying is supposed to be an old person thing. And we are young women, young people. We grew up together. We wrote notes to each other in class, we belted out Jay Chou songs at Kbox, we studied together at Starbucks. And even when we went on to do things separately, different universities, different friends, we were always meant to go through life together. We were supposed to graduate, go to grad school, start our first job, get married (or not), have kids (or dogs), whine about finances, the whole nine yards.

So I cannot believe that this is it. I am angry. I never told anyone this, nor have I expressed this in any way before. But I am angry. I wanted to be able to read your poems when you published them online. I wanted to be able to have that occasional crazy KTV meet up to sing all the same songs we used to sing. I wanted to be able to follow your career, to coo at your hypothetical babies, to see you at my wedding, gush about my new dog to you. And I'm angry that all this cannot be. I'm angry that I see myself being at the 30-35% mark of my life, and that you had already finished the whole race. I'm angry that we are never going to be old ladies laughing about the good old days.

I'm angry that I always assumed that we had all the time in the world to hold each other. In the last five months, any time someone mentioned you, I had to feign strength and composure. I've had to close windows and bump people off my social media to sandbag the incoming waves of grief. I know that the waves will never stop coming to shore. I miss you so much.

Hong to the Kong Day I: Dim Dim Sum, Ladies Market, Argyle Centre

Our flight was at 0600 so the boy came over to chill and try to get some sleep. He of course had no problem napping but I couldn't doze off until around 3am which was of course when we had to wake up to go to the airport! 

We had so much time so we monkeyed around a little despite slight fatigue. 

I think this was breakfast? The egg was very unimpressive but not terrible for plane food I guess. The sausage and hash brown were below average, but the fruits were amazinggggg - tasted fresh and juicy. 

Touched down! Was excited to finally embark on our holiday no matter how short, seeing the mountains cemented the feeling because it made it clear that we were overseassssssss (Singapore ain't got no mountains sadly). 

Took the airport bus to the city, it costs about $35HKD and about 45-50 mins to Granville Street where our Airbnb was. 

Seeing the buildings from TVB come to life!

Cute Primary School. Buildings are even more compact than they are in Singapore, I always knew that Hong Kong is extremely densely packed but seeing it in person was quite mindblowing.

After getting lost for 5-15 mins, we finally found the entrance to our place! The entrance is hidden in the midst of random retail shops, with a ramen store next door. It's super nondescript and we actually walked past it without noticing it! The lift also looks kinda rickety and old but we still felt safe because it was in a shallow alley on a busy street, plus there was a security code. This was at Granville Circuit in Tsim Sha Tsui.

Cosy little bedroom, our place was small but definitely considered spacious by HK standards. The fact that we even had a bedroom (though it was literally just big enough for this bed, the table and a space for luggage) AND a living area already speaks volumes. I read online that some hotel rooms don't even have space for people to open their luggage! 

Good size table, multiple powerpoint provided, comfortable study chair, ample space for bags. 

Sofa wasn't the comfiest, with rock hard arm rests (accidentally banged my head on it), but it was sufficient and comfortable enough for lounging, watching tv, eating supper etc. 

Happy enough with the toilet because it had a separate shower space lolol. Such low expectations but so many places I viewed online had a pathetic shower wire above the toilet bowl??? Who cleans themselves in that way...? Lol. 

When we finally washed up and got ready to head out again, first order of business was to get some food into our bellies!

Dim Dim Sum 

G/F, 112 Tung Choi Street, Mong Kok MTR Exit B2

旺角通菜街112號地下 

Mon.-Sun. 11:00-02:00

Came here based on some internet recommendations and arrived at 2pm to avoid the lunch crowd. It was still rather crowded though with a queue of 2-3 parties ahead of us. We were already being killed by the heat this early into the trip and it didn't help that there was hardly any wait room in the place. After a while we did manage to find a spot to awkwardly stand and wait inside so we didn't melt from the heat though! And thankfully we only waited a total of 15mins or so before we got seated.

Happy boy awaiting food! 

In HK, it's pretty customary to share tables with other patrons due to the lack of space. 

A kind Singaporean lady sitting beside us offered to take this shot of us. Ugh I can see the perspiration glistening in my fringe lol.

Menu for reference of what they sell and the prices. Cheap-ish by HK standards, not exorbitant. 

Food was good. To be honest, I'm not a huge Chinese food person so my words shouldn't be anything to go by lol.  

This dish has been one of my favourite dimsum dishes since I was a kid, pork ribs in black bean sauce. It was soft and tender though just a little too fatty for my liking. 

After this we set off to wander the streets in the area. We were supposed to visit the famous Chi Lin Nunnery and Nan Lian Garden, but it was waaaaaaay too hot so we vetoed that. 

Stumbled upon Ladies Market when we were looking for Prince Edward Street Market, otherwise known as Fa Yuen Market (we never found it). 

Typical knock offs and trinkets, similar to what you would find at Singapore's Chinatown but with slightly nicer looking bags and stuff. 

Nice to see but nothing I would buy to be honest. 

Haha wallets made from money.

Apparently these are all the rage now, super super soft and fluffy rabbit keychains. 

To be honest, the feet/paws? kind of freak me out. 

At some point we found ourselves at Argyle Centre which was on our list of nearby places to go anyway, so we went in quickly to avoid the heat. The entire food court was filled with people despite it being 3-4pm in the afternoon so we settled for a small Italian restaurant. Bought drinks just so we could rest there for a bit. 

How I really felt inside.

Lol the heat and crowds really wore us thin. 

Recharging! 

Sadly there wasn't much to buy at Argyle Centre. Honestly it was like Fareast Plaza, just with subpar quality clothes and horrible prices. Nothing was particularly exorbitant but for the quality, I definitely felt like the items weren't worth it. There were some nice clothes I suppose but most of the buyable stuff were more suited to the Korean style which isn't really my thing. This picture comes from a store which I liked though! They sold artsy knick knacks and stationery but at affordable prices. 

The famed cold noodles store at Argyle Centre, it can be found on level 1 near the escalators.

百味食品 Cold Noodles

You choose the kind of noodles you want, as well as toppings (there are loads ranging from meat to seafood to corn blah blah). Then you mix it up by yourself at a sauce station. 

It was pretty good but I wasn't too hungry so I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. 

Met up with this dude!

He brought us to a gigantic mall (I can't remember which one but it was one of the huge ones in Mongkok). I was so overwhelmed by how the place was bursting with people despite it being a sprawling huge complex. Just HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE IN HONKONG OH MY GOD. 

Some cat exhibition that I could not resist hehe. 

Left after one picture because I couldn't deal with the crowd. 

Honeymoon Dessert! 

Nathan then brought us to this place for supper. To be honest I have already forgotten where it was and what it's name is haha. 

Pretty authentic. The menu is in Mandarin and the words read from up to down so... If you can't read it, you must at least know some basic Canto I suppose haha. 

Think we had goose and BBQ pork, we weren't super hungry but it was still amazinggggg.

Selecting some snacks for our airbnb in case we got peckish at night. I didn't buy this but now I regret it because it looks so good. 

Hoards of people being excited by some pokemon sighting. 

Random bunch of super loud motorbikes.

Ended the night with a puff that the boy got for me  :3