Day 26 - The Other Side

Recap:

After spending yesterday with my dad's side of the family, today was all about my mom's side.  Sad to say, this was the first time I've seen since I've been back (and I'm already leaving in 2 days), but oh well, better late than never right?

Woke up bright and early once again and off we went to China to visit my grandpa.  Safe to say half my uncles/aunts did not recognize me nor did I recognize them.

Aunt: I'm trying to see if he looks the same.
Uncle: Yeah he does, you can still see the baby face!  But he's just a lot more grown now, and he's bigger too.
Other Aunt: Of course he's bigger now, he's a grown man! *Turns to me* Right?
Me: *sticks my chest out* Yes ma'am!
hahah

 Loaded up the car with my grandpa's  favourite things along the way.

Setting up at his tombstone.  This day was all about you grandpa.  Crazy how it's already been 3 years since his passing...R.I.P.

So the weather was absolutely killer sunny and hot.  We were sweating bullets the whole time.  So my aunt wisely took a bunch of leaves and branches and made herself a 'cooling' hat.  My uncle saw her and was like 'Wtf is that?! You look like Jesus!!' hahaha sorry, I thought it was funny at the time.

After we brought out some food and had "lunch" with my grandpa, it was time to pack up and say our goodbyes.  But not before some good ol' China firecrackers (according to tradition).  Since those things are not legal (after you watch the clips, you'll see why), my uncles told me to light them because I've never tried it before.  I believe his exact words were "You're not a man until you've lit firecrackers! DOO IT!".  And we all know how I respond when I'm being called it haha so here it is.  Enjoy the clips and don't judge me haha

Part 1. Notice the ZERO lag-time between lighting the cord and the explosions.  In Canada, fireworks usually have a long cord for you to light so you have time to run away before it goes off.  Nope, no such thing in China.  I swear the cord was like 1cm long MAX.  My uncle's advice was "once you light it, you run ben. You RUN." Nearly lost my damn finger on that thing man, holy haha


Part 2.  This one had a bit more of a lag-time.  But notice how quickly I dipped haha.

Guess I'm officially a man now after doing that....a Spart-Man! Unnnnnhhhh!

We the went to an actual restaurant to have a real lunch ourselves.

 Place was a jip.  We brought some food in for them to heat up and they stole some of our chicken....they STOLE our chicken!!!!! :@ you don't fuck with another man's chicken!!! (black-man rage)

 A toast.

 The food itself was ok.  Portions were dinky though.  This place is getting stinge according to my uncles.  Damn China for developing so fast! jks

 This eggplant dish was proper though.  Best plate of the meal hands down.

The hardships of life in China...

The rest of the night was spent chilling with Carson, Venus, Winnie, Wendy, Attracta, Jen, and Huang.

Tsuen Wan - my HK home.

Some more beer? Why not.

Some more more beer and sheesha? Ok.  View of LKF streets from the sheesha bar.

All in all, good day.

Day 25 - Double Ninth Festival / My First Massage

Recap:

Woke up bright and early to go pay my respects to my grandpa, uncle, and others.  The Double Ninth Festival is an annual event where everyone goes to visit their ancestors' graves to pay their respects and whatnot.  So that is what my whole family did.  Since the festival usually falls in October and I'm never actually in HK at that time because of school, this was essentially my first real experience.  It was definitely an experience to remember, seeing a massive hill of never-ending tombstones (didn't take a picture of it) was unreal.  Also, the things that my grandma said to the graves were definitely touching...even though the weather was blazing hot and I was sweating my balls off, it was all worth it...

We visited the cementary just off of this road.

Then came the family dim sum at Wong Dai Sing (I think).  Good food with good people = :)

 And then.......the HIGHLIGHT OF MY DAY...MY FIRST MASSAGE EXPERIENCE!!  Took a 45-min trip to China to get a much-needed, relaxing 3-hour FULL-body massage for the low low price of $108 Yuan = $130HKD = $17.25CAD!!! Oh, and did I mention that drinks and food are given out free of charge?  SICKKK.  I've heard amazing stories from this, but man, it definitely lived up to the hype.  Body was so relaxed after.  Round 2 anyone?

At customs with a million other HK/China-ers

Fold-able bike.  Handy.

First stop.  MASSAGE TIME!

Client #91

So we decided to spend the first hour getting our feet massaged before doing our full body.  I had no idea what to expect.  In fact, I looked so confused and new to this that the female workers tried to seduce me into getting different massage services (no, not those type of services...)

Worker to my dad: Is this your friend? 

Dad: No, he's my son.

Worker: Really? He looks like your friend, and he looks like he wants an oil massage.

Me: :| Wtf? Uhh I'm getting whatever my dad's getting.

Watching the game...

...while pigging out...Yeah I was feeling pretty boss right about now haha

...while enjoying the view...wait...I was actually trying to take a pic of my feet...didn't realize it was a full-moon that night though 

Dad passed out like 10 mins in.

My "king" seat.

So after the 1-hour foot massage, it was time for a full-body massage.  For those that wonder why I'm so homophobic, I kinda get it from my dad...:

Manager: Do you guys want a guy or a girl masseuse? 

Dad: Definitely girl.  Girl would be much better.

Me: *nods*

Guess the no-homo thing runs in the family huh haha

The next two hours felt like HEAVEN. My God, I have been missing out on SO much.  They seriously massaged every single part of the body (except the johnson of course, but man did they get DANGEROUSLY close to the jewels at times...hoooly).  They spent like 10 mins on my ass alone...I didn't even know there were that many different pressure points there haha.  Some parts were pretty painful, but it was manageable for the most part.  Highly recommend for anyone going to HK or China in the near future.

After that, it was some cheap shopping in China.  Random pics follow.

Ate at some fastfood Bruce Lee restaurant.

Food was aiiiight, definitely not up to the Bruce-Lee standard though.  Tsk tsk.

Day 24 - Back To The HK Life

Ok so here's the deal (I love how I'm saying this like anyone is gonna negotiate with me...), since I saved the majority of my Japan pics and vids onto Dog's laptop (because my memory card ran out of space so I had to delete stuff to make room), I will put the Japan blog entries on indefinite hold until I get them back from him.  Deal? Deal.  In the meantime, I will resume my HK entries.


Recap:

Back in HK = back to the lunch routine with my dad.  Took me to get some much-needed comforting dim sum.  Japan was great, but I can't say I'm a big fan of some of their food.......yes, I am going on a temporary sushi ban for a little bit.  I'm a freaking spartan, but something about eating a raw shrimp head (pause) will leave a man curled up like a baby...Anyways, that's another story.

 After lunch, ran some last minute errands.  Picked up my HK passport and picked up my custom suit, yes'rrrr!  Some more walking around and shopping was done...boring to read, I know...

 I thought this was pretty cool. A giant spoon in front of this store, and the giant white ball thing beside it is a dumpling I think.  There is also a pair of chopsticks sticking out from the dumpling (you can see it a bit in the 2 white lines).  Not sure how all this related to the clothes they were selling, but it definitely caught my eye.

So after that I met up with my uncle for a little discussion about starting my work-life, a little prep-talk if you will.  At first I thought it was going to be another typical talk, but damn was I wrong.  I had to take out a pen and notebook (figuratively) because he was dropping some SERIOUS knowledge on my ass man.  Everything from life to world economic issues, he definitely left me with something to think about.  I'm not gonna go into details about what he told me because I don't wanna bore you to death, but I'll leave it at this: definitely definitely listen to what your aunts/uncles/elders have to say.  We tend to drown out what our parents say because we hear it all the time, but what they're saying is 99.9% true.  They've seen so much more of the world than we have, and it only makes sense to believe what they are telling us because if you think about it...why would they lie to us?

No pics here, only a rant.  Read if you wish (don't judge my anger haha):

So after the prep-talk, my uncle took me around and forcefully made me choose something for him to buy for me.  After 20 minutes of saying no, I finally said "fine, buy me a dress shirt".  So off we went to G2000 (for those that don't know, G2000 is a somewhat high-end brand of dress clothes in HK), where we met the biggest prick of a sales person I have seen in a long time.  How was he a prick you ask?  Let me explain.  My uncle is one of the most generous people I know, he will buy me anything I want (sometimes even without me asking).  So when I found a dress shirt that I like and that fit me, he asked the sales dude (whom I will refer to as "Penis Head with Glasses") to find all the other dress shirts that had the same fitting as mine because he was gonna buy them for me.  Obviously I said "no thank you, just one is enough", but NOPE, Penis Head with Glasses decides to try to load up on commission by saying "these are necessary for interviews" and "if you buy two more, it's 10% off".  Here's where it gets worse.  While I'm telling my uncle I don't want any of the other dress shirts (they also look terrible too btw), Penis Head with Glasses decides to bring in ties for me to try, while also making smart comments like "this tie is good for interviews".  Long story short, Penis Head with Glasses was essentially egging my uncle on to buy as many things as possible and taking advantage of my uncle's kindness to wanna buy stuff for me.  By the end there were THREE dress shirts and TWO ties on the cashier counter, when I only liked/wanted ONE dress shirt....wtf!!  It got so bad that I had to physically take everything else off the cashier and toss it aside (yeah I was pretty pissed at this point).  If it was anyone else with me other than my uncle, I would've gone off on that skinny nerd of a douche.  Hate aggressive sales people like that... Ok rant done.

Spent the rest of the night with my dad shopping and eating.

 Almost there...

 Mos Burger!!! Tried it for the first time in Japan and it was pretty sick.  Found out they have them in HK too afterwards....

Dinner at some small joint.  Apparently this place is mad popular because they don't use any MSG in any of their food, so the food is "healthy".  I'll admit, food was pretty bomb.

Low-key night.  Gotta wake up early to visit my grandpa's grave.  Not gonna lie, it's gonna be pretty tough since the last time I visited HK 4 years ago, I was still talking to him....

Blog Temporarily On Hold...

OFF TO JAPAN!!!
Sorry to inform you that I will not be bringing my laptop... updates when I come back!

Day 18 - Family Comes First

Like the title says, today was all about family.


Recap:

Woke up for brunch with my pops, nothing unusual there.

Curry chicken with rice.  Finally a meal without some kind of bbq pork or duck.  Seriously starting to get sick of them... Didn't have my daily milk tea, which caused me to be sleepy as hell afterwards.

Walked around Mong Kok afterwards and bought a custom suit and a belt.  I'm all ready for work when I get back, someone hire me!

Suit tailor: Do you play a lot of sports?  You look like you have an athlete's body.

Me (no hesitation): Yes, yes I do. 

No hesitation and definitely no homo... Also, this shows how skinny HK guys are if I'm considered to have an athletes body haha.  For those that think I'm cocky, don't worry, I know I don't have an athlete's body.............. I only have a SPARTAN'S BODY!!! What UP!

Dad then took me to try my first custard milk dessert (just like everything else in HK, I have no clue what it is called and what's really in it).  It was surprisingly good.  Then ordered my milk tea.  I was good to go after that #MilkTeaSwag!

Some more shopping and some more pics of random things I saw:

Lego watches! Now I've seen it all.

 This is not a real iPhone.  It is simply a "mini iTouch" that looks like a mini iPhone 3G.  Just a glimpse of how iPhone-crazy Asia really is.  90% of the population has an iPhone (that's right BB bitches!).  Of the other 10%, 9% has some kind of iPhone wannabe (either fake, or it's another phone running the iPhone OS or a iPhone OS wannabe).  Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous actually.

Asked my cousin why HK people love iPhones so much, and his response was simply "Steve Jobs".  I asked him again afterwards and he said that iPhones provide people with more of an entertainment centre than a BB.  So there you have it, I guess....

A pig with speakers as its eyes.  Hot damn...

Weirdest thing.  My dad loves the iPad but keeps looking at iPad wannabes (fakes).  I keep telling him to just buy the damn iPad, but he won't listen... I don't get it.

Then had dinner with the other side of my family.  Saw them for the first time since I've been back.

 Grandma!!  Too bad she doesn't really recognize faces anymore :S  She eats like a beast though, definitely held her own tonight haha

 My cousin and my grandma.  Haven't seen him in 4 years and the first thing I say to him is "whoa, your hair". He's definitely pulling off that Ronald Mcdonald look haha staying fresh my man.

 Nommming lobster and other comforting Chinese food....and more bbq meats...

 Don't know what this is called in English, but it's "leen yong bao" in Canto...

 

 The rest of the fam that night.

This kid....oh this kid.  I think he's my nephew or something, but this kid HATED me the whole night.  He would cheers everyone at the table and then would eye me down when it came to my turn.  He wouldn't even say hi to me even when everyone else told him to.  I know I've never seen you before, but still, say hi damn it haha. Oh well, screw you little kid!! (I'm playing guys, I'm not actually angry.......mother fff)

Anyways, waking up in 3 hours to catch a 5am bus to the airport.  Whoopyy... Japan, MAKE WAY FOR YOUR BOY!!!11111111