Today was another fairly early start, with a light breakfast in the Club L lounge before I headed up to the spa for my Harmony Massage. It was a lovely way to start the morning, especially with the storm raging outside (I actually woke up from the thunder). Following that, I went for a facilities tour and got to see some other types of rooms, all of the restaurants, etc.
After a juice and muffin in the lounge (oh how i love the lounge) it was time to race across town to Aberdeen to the Jumbo Floating Restaurant, which is an amazing ode to glitter and kitsch and all things Chinese. I took the correct bus, but I think I got off on the wrong stop and was just lucky to see a little sign directing me along the harbour walk...I kept walking and walking, past little fishing skiffs, etc. until I came to a pier saying 'JUMBO' with a super-cute dark wood ferry tied up to it. I hopped on board, crossed my fingers, and a few minutes later got puttered over to the restaurant. Which is amazing on the outside. It's really quite the place!
I was actually there to meet Karen and the rest of the Canadian Paralympic Equestrian team, so there was no time to explore the complex (I think there are multiple restaurants and stuff) before heading in to join them for a tasty lunch. We had various pork buns/dumplings/rice/veggies/etc before finishing it all off with some ice cream. Very nice! Then everyone headed to Stanley, and I got to go with them, jumping in to one of the team's Olympic-provided cars (cool!) and heading out there. They only had about an hour before they needed to head back to the barns, so it was a bit of a power shop all around, with many silk tops, sunglasses, and jewelry all being procured. I bought myself a silk top as I hadn't yesterday and was kind of regretting it...It's a really pretty teal with a Chinese cut/neck line but doesn't have a brocade pattern, instead there are sort of creamy embroidered flowers...(in a fairly western style)
Following that, everyone headed off to the barns and I headed back to the hotel, arriving here at 5:45, just in time to meet up with 15 other hotel guests for a 45-minute tour of the markets around the hotel. There was a girl there who was a new staff member at the hotel and so she was on the tour. She's a 19 yo HK-born expat, so it was cool to talk to her about that...The tour was interesting and encompassed the Mong Kok food/fruit/wetmarket, Ladies Market, sneaker street, etc. the food market was most interesting, with a dried seafood stall, open air butcher, crazy fruits, and the scary scary toad killing stall, where there were poor innocent (ugly as all get out) toads in an aquarium, which were then plucked out, decapitated and skinned in a matter of moments. Madness. I gather the goal is to have them still twitching when you get them home. Tasty?
Markets to hit up on the next trip: flower, bird, and goldfish. Also: bartering. I must do that next time. I'm an idiot/confrontation-hater and there for paid list price for everything at Stanley. Haha! Still decent prices though...It would have been good to take this hotel tour earlier though, as the woman said if it was HK 10-30 not to barter, HK 100-200 to try and get 10-20% off and if it was HK 200 or over to cut it in half. I made a few HK 200 or more purchases at Stanley. Ah well, live an learn!
Following that, I went to work out...at the Science Museum haha. They are having a sports exhibit in honor of the Olys, so I went and threw pitches, sprinted, wheelchair raced, balance beamed, etc. It was fun! (Though chotto lame to do it on my own!) I had a quick tour through the fitness challenge part of the regular exhibit (free on Wednesdays seemingly) before having some dinner and then heading back to the hotel.
A quick stop by the lounge to book an airport shuttle and order a lavender pillow from the pillow menu and then blogging/tv/packing i suppose :( and then bed...glorious bed!
xoxo
D
(you know the deal...click the pic for pics)
No comments:
Post a Comment