Category: Travel

Goodbye Hong Kong– Till we meet again

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And here I am, my last night in Hong Kong again. How many times have I had last nights here? Too many to count. But like all the other times, there will be people I dearly miss.

I do have a few more posts on this trip to Asia, but I will most likely post them at a later date. But for now, I guess I’ll just blurt out a few thoughts.

For one, I know that although I’m not saying goodbye to Hong Kong forever, I did say a very permanent goodbye to my grandmother. She’s my dad’s mom, and the last grandparent I have. She has cancer, and although she’s still hanging in there, I know I won’t be able to see her in the flesh anymore. It’s weird seeing your headstrong and ever critical grandma get reduced to a hunched over little lady, relying on a cane to hold herself up. It pained me so much that the first time I saw her after coming back, I felt tears well up in my eyes. Time can be so harsh.

In happier news, I spent the last month doing an internship. My cousin also works in the company I interned for and he was the best! He was a cousin that I never saw much of as he was in Australia during the 5 years I was in Hong Kong, and then when I moved back to Canada, he came back. Anyway, it was one of the most fun months I’ve had in a very long time, as well as an enriching one. I will make a post on what I’ve learned, because I want to make sure I have it down in writing somewhere. I don’t want to forget the first time I worked in another country!

Asides from the great food, I also enjoyed seeing my family. Most of my mom and dad’s brothers and sisters live in Hong Kong, so every time I come back, I get to see all my aunts and uncles, as well as my cousins. This time, I came back taking the title of Auntie to one of my cousin’s daughter! Yup, I’m definitely growing up. It really sucks that I still cannot say goodbye to everyone without tearing up, but I guess that’s just something that’ll follow me for the rest of my life.

I really wonder when I’ll be back again. But one thing’s for sure: it will feel like a million years no matter how soon I return. And once again, I must say goodbye to my second home.

Japan was as hot as heck.

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Once upon a time, I said I’d document my Japan trip. But during the trip, it was just days and days of not getting enough sleep due to us having joined a tour. That required us to wake up early each morning (despite sleeping late each night), so that we would have enough time for the activities they had lined up for us.

So I guess here’s the whole trip blurted out in one blog post! I’ll try to keep it short!

Firstly, it was really really really hot during our visit to Japan. When we went to the hot springs, it was 40 degrees Celsius in our part of the country. If you’re going to Japan anytime soon, don’t worry—it’s not always like that. We just happened to visit while a typhoon was passing by, so the air was very stagnant. Anyway, the Japanese have air conditioning, but the national law limits the maximum at which they can set their air con to 27.5 degrees. Which sounds like a typical summer day in Vancouver. What annoyed me most was that it wasn’t as if they didn’t have the proper technology, it’s just that they couldn’t turn the air condition any lower. But I guess Japan is a very environmentally friendly country. As tourist, we also had a hard time sorting our garbage into the appropriate garbage bins as they sorted their trash quite precisely. Props to them for being so advanced in their thinking…kinda sucks for us because we weren’t used to it!

I obviously didn’t read the pamphlet outlining our tour very well, because I wasn’t aware that we were going to a traditional hot springs until the day before leaving for Japan. And by traditional, they basically mean everyone’s in their birthday suits when soaking in the springs. Of course, they separated the males and females, but it was very awkward. And it didn’t help that this one random lady decided to sit in the changing rooms as you stripped down. Anyway, my mom and I chose to go down to the springs at around 11pm since it is less likely to be crowded at that time. Smart move on our part because we only had to see three other naked ladies.

Mount Fuji was okay. I mean, it looked like any other mountain.

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But public transit on the other hand…

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Now that’s something to marvel at. It seemed as if there was no limit as to how many people they could squeeze into the subway. Reminded me of that Youtube video showing people in Japan getting squished into trains—they even had professional train squishers. The different railway lines were also very difficult to get a grasp on. If you don’t believe me, just try Googling Tokyo’s subway map.

One of the things I looked forward to most on this trip was Tokyo Disneyland! Despite the heat, we still spent the whole day running around the park, trying to get on as many rides as possible. Many of the queues were okay in length, ranging from around 25-45 minutes per ride. We would go on all the rides with short queues, and then decide if we really wanted to wait for the longer ones. The Monster Inc. Ride and Go Seek ride took an hour and a half to queue for, but that was the last ride we went on, and was the only ride that took us more than an hour to get into. We also go Fast Passes for several rides along the day.

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It was Tokyo Disneyland’s 30th anniversary while we were visiting, so Cinderella’s castle was decorated accordingly! I must say that the night parade—Dreamlights—was very beautiful! They turned off many of the lights in the park (or at least the lights in the streets where the parade would pass through), and the floats looked amazing!

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During my stay, I ate lots of great food! We had sashimi (I fell in love with shrimp sashimi! The huge ones that is.), abalone, premium beef, and FRUITS! They were amazing. Japanese peaches are heaven itself. You actually have to use a bowl when eating their peaches because it’s super juicy. Our tour guide told us that Japanese people remove the skin of the peach first (it’s actually really easy because the peaches are quite soft) before eating them. I just ate them whole.

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Since we lived in downtown Tokyo, I couldn’t ignore the bright, dazzling arcades that lined the streets. I spent a lot of coins on those games where you try to clamp a plush doll or toys. I was trying to get this fat cat for ages, and then gave up after spending a few hundred yen. But then this one guy comes along and gets it on the first try. I was very disappointed, and decided to just throw in my last 100 yen and randomly clamp at the new cat they put in, and for some strange reason, I manage to get a hold of it! Trouble is, if I bring it back with me to Canada, it can make for quite an annoying luggage.

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I’m missing quite a few bits and pieces in this post, but sitting here, these are the highlights that I remembered most. I had a lot of fun, but was exhausted. The heat didn’t help. On the last day of the trip, I actually said “I can’t wait to go back to Hong Kong to cool off.” That was a line I never thought anyone would say.

I’m currently working between Hong Kong and China. It’s tiring travelling back and forth, and I’m learning lots! Hopefully, I’ll be able to make a post soon about my adventures in Hong Kong!

Until next time!

– Karen

First blog post from Asia!

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Hey everyone!

This is my first blog post from Asia! I mean, I used to live there and all, but I didn’t blog back then, so this is exciting!

I’m back in Hong Kong, and the heat is killing me. It’s already better in terms of humidity and heat due to the typhoon that’s passing by here, but believe me, in terms of Vancouver weather, it’s actually like roasting in hell.

I will be heading off to Japan next week for 5 days, before coming back to Hong Kong for my internship. My summer job will require me to travel between Hong Kong and Guangzhou in China, which should be interesting! Hopefully, I’ll have time to blog about all of this! I find that blogging really helps me to retain my experiences and memories, so if I’m not lazy and can get good wifi, I shall blog away!

In the meantime, have a picture of me eating noodles in a bag in Hong Kong. I won’t bore you with my 60000 other food pictures– at least not in this blog post!

Noodles in a bag is a thing over here.

Noodles in a bag is actually a thing here.

– Karen

My Journey to America’s Final Frontier

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Yes, you would be right if you thought I meant Alaska. Amazing how Russia sold 586,412 square miles of land for only 2 cents an acre! But then again, Russia probably thought they were getting a good deal for this vast wasteland. Little did they know oil and natural gas would be found there.

My family and I went on a cruise to Alaska. My dad loves cruises, so for our family vacation this year we decided to go to Alaska. Cruises to Alaska departs from Vancouver, which is perfect for us. It also is one of the longer cruises, as it lasts for 8 days, 7 nights. Most of the cruises we went on in Asia lasted a maximum of 5 days since all the Asian countries were so close together.

I must say, I enjoy cruises here a lot more than I did in Asia. Everyone is more polite (and I am mostly referring to the passengers on it), and the vibe is just better.

We chose to go on the Celebrity Century. And by we, I mean my dad, since he plans all the family vacations. I liked the ship enough, but nothing made it stand out particularly from other cruise ships.

A view of the Vancouver Skyline from our cruise ship

We left on Sunday, the 24th of June. When we boarded, they told us our rooms were not ready yet. So everyone headed to the Islands Cafe for brunch. I do not know how many times I visited the Islands Cafe during the whole cruise, since it was the food joint that was opened latest and was a buffet area. For dinners, there was a more formal venue– The Grand Restaurant. Every family had their own waiters and assistant waiters, and ours came from Singapore and Croatia respectively. I always find it really interesting how the crew on a cruise ship always came from all corners of the world. In my cruise to Vietnam several years ago, the staff/crew had little flags of their home country right next to their name on their name tags. It never failed to amaze me how many different flags I saw.

Aboard the ship, there were performances at night. I particularly liked the night when they did a show they called “A Touch of Broadway”. Everything was so colourful! I also enjoyed Jay Mattioli’s magic performances. He incorporated a lot of dancing and jokes, keeping the audience entertained throughout his whole performance!

A Touch of Broadway

Jay doing his thing

They also had a theatre, playing different movies everyday. I was so happy they showed War Horse (obsessed with Tom Hiddleston and Benedict Cumberbatch), the latest Mission Impossible (Jeremy Renner!) and then In Time (Cillian Murphy!) during my cruise. I really liked War Horse (though I have seen it before), and thought that Mission Impossible and In time was okay, but it was like a never-ending fangirling theatre. Well, for me anyway.

My dad alone in the fangirl theatre 😛

For this cruise to Alaska, we stopped at three ports. At one port, Juneau, I was surprised they had a little tribute to their beloved governor. And by tribute, I mean they make fun of her. 😛

For souvenirs, I really did not know what to bring back to my friends. I thought their dream catchers were pretty cool, until I turned the tag around and saw that it was proudly made in British Columbia. Now why would I go all the way to Alaska to bring back something I could have gotten at home? Plus, are not most of the people who visit these souvenir shops from B.C. anyway? Hmm. Anyway, I ended up getting a couple of ulu knives. Nothing says I had a good trip than bringing back knives for my friends.

Along the way, our ship also steered close to some glaciers so that everyone could take pictures and whatnot. I thought it was really beautiful how the glaciers actually looked blue like they do in paintings. It was also a bit traumatizing when you hear the ships’ pick clawing its way through the ice drifts in order to get closer to the glacier. The whirring and scraping noise made me think of the Titanic again and again. However, all turned out well and we did not end up having to evacuate the ship.

Nearing the glaciers. Here I was wearing flip flops and trying not to let the cold get to me.

Yeah, I know it is summer and we chose to go to icy mountains. Not my idea of a summer event, but hey, it was fun! However, when going out on the deck to take pictures of the glaciers and snow capped mountains, I had to wipe my eyes quite several times. Not because I was being dramatic and emotions were overwhelming, but because the winds were so cold it actually hurt. I was also the fool who decided to wear sandals out on the deck (being too lazy to go back to my cabin to change). Ahh, summer.

So overall, it was a very relaxing trip. I finally felt I could unwind after my hectic first year at university. I also gained quite a bit of weight seeing as how I was eating five (or more) meals a day, all being all-you-can-eats. Here you can have some pictures of my food aboard the ship:


I will now stop with the food spam.

So here are my tips for cruises!
– learn the ships’ layout after you get on. Take your time discovering where the restaurants are, where their lounges are, etc. It will help when you read your ships’ daily itinerary, or else you will panic and run around looking for their “Fiesta Deck”. Well, maybe not. You would probably ask a staff, but it is so much easier knowing your surroundings.
– always book your dinner reservations (they usually ask you during registration for your cruise). If you think you will figure it out after you get on the ship, good luck. I saw this huge line of people trying to do their booking after the ship set sail and they did not look happy.
– when you get your ships’ activity schedule of the day, look through it and circle things you want to attend then plan out when you will eat and how your day will look. Otherwise, you end up missing a show that you really wanted to watch, or a class that you intended to try out!
– always get off when you arrive at a port. It feels good to stand on solid ground after days of being on swaying ground. It took me several days after I came back home to adjust. I still felt like the floor was moving below me.
– watch your food intake. Haha, just kidding. It is a cruise. The chocolate fountains and dessert buffets are irresistible.
– pack formal wear along with your casual wear. And if you want, throw in a little smart casual in there too. Some restaurants and times of the day call for different attire. They may even not let you in to a restaurant if you are not in the proper attire.
– if you know you will get sea sick, get pills or those motion sickness arm bands ahead of time. You do not want to feel horrible during your amazing trip. I was seasick for the first two days until I gave in and bought pills. It sucked missing their awesome breakfasts during those days.
-go out on the deck. Enjoy the view. When else can you catch a glimpse of nothing but sea, stretching out to as far as the eye can see! It is as if nothing else exists and it is just you and the body of water you are on. The sunsets are also amazing. It is undisturbed and unobstructed by buildings one usually finds in the city.

Seriously, go out and enjoy the deck!

So that is all from me today! This post definitely came late, but I wanted to document my trip all the same!
Until next time!

-Karen

Reading break at Portland! Friends, dining, shopping- the perfect trio!

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Reading break has officially started! But it felt like it had begun two days ago! My friends and I went on a road trip to Oregon basically right after school ended on Friday. It was a tough ride since the drive took at least 5 hours to get there, but it was worth it! Poor William (our friend who drove)! He had to pick up the car AND drive us there! But, we had a shotgun system where we rotated people who sat in shotgun so that they can keep Will company– even if everyone else was sleeping.

What kind of sucked was that I was a bit sick during the trip. Through my lack of sleep and unhealthy lifestyle choices during midterm exam weeks, I managed to get sick. Joy oh joy. My voice is currently gone from all the talking I tried to do with my sore throat during the trip!

Back to the road trip story… We all woke up at around 4am on Saturday and everyone was picked up at their house at around 5am. You can clearly observe that everyone in the car lacked sleep and all eyes were promptly closed around an hour into the drive. I had shotgun responsibilities first so I fiddled around with the music and talked to William while he drove. Honestly, I have not seen Will for a while and I wanted to catch up, but my lack of voice and my throat kind of hindered my efforts! 😦

We stopped by a McDonalds’ on the way, just like we did last time. Connie, Will and I headed over to Hagens to look for fruits or veggies to munch on…sadly we were sidetracked by the bulk section of the store. SO. MUCH. STUFF. Connie bought us all chocolate covered gummy bears, chocolate covered coffee beans and chocolate covered almonds!! Yum 🙂 Afterwards, we went back on the road and continued our drive.

After arriving at Portland, we parked and decided to hunt for their famous street vendors! It took us a bit before we found them…and it was amazing. There were so many to choose from, and I settled on a pulled pork sandwich meal! I have been craving pulled pork for a bit and Portland did not disappoint! I really wish Vancouver had something like this! I mean, it takes up so little room for these vendors and their trucks! Allowing a bunch of them to congregate around a parking lot would be a good use of space and a good source of employment. Anyway, after our tummies were full and our fingers were frozen from the cold, we headed over to our motel. We left again pretty soon after that to do some outlet shopping. We went to SO many different places to shop! So happy! But, my shopping expeditions did not go as well as I planned and I did not get as much as I thought I was going to. 😦

Us and our street food!

At night, we drove by a McDonalds’ to steal their free wi-fi so we could search up good eating joints around town. We finally settled on Le Bistro Montage, which had high ratings from everyone online. We arrived at the restaurant and we thought it looked very sketchy. It was kind of under a bridge, where it was really dark and creepy. It was around the industrial part of town and there was no other restaurants nearby…just the one. BUT, when we arrived, we put down our names for a table and was told that the wait would be one and a half hours! That made us curious as to what restaurant would require that long a wait! The actual wait took around two hours, and by then, we were ready to eat whatever was thrown at us.

Le Bistro Montage’s menu

The place had a nice vibe to it, though it was really dark. There were huge paintings decorating the walls, as well as little trinkets such as a skull of some sort of animal, and a dried puffer fish– things of the like. We all sat down and was ready to order within minutes. I got the buttermilk chicken with garlic mashed potatoes! It was served with veggies and corn bread! Delish! I also ordered a POG juice, which was as combination of passionfruit, orange and guava juice! I am so glad I tried it because I loved it! Wish they had it in Canada..or do they already have it?? Will do some juice hunting. Some of us also ordered oyster shooters, which were so delicious I went and ordered another one. Overall, the place was pretty awesome asides from the wait. I would definitely recommend it as it was not an expensive meal, and it provided a unique dining experience. Oh, and if you have food left, definitely ask them to help you wrap it up! They do the funkiest foil art for you! Connie took some of her Jambalaya to go and they came back with a scorpion-shaped package!

Buttermilk friend chicken and garlic mashed potatoes!

So delicious!

Scorpion shaped takeout!

Later at night we visited a Wal-Mart, where Connie and I freaked out about how big everything was! Big bags of candy? Hell yes! We all started grocery shopping and returned to our motel well after midnight. One thing I dislike about Portland? How far everything is from each other! I cannot imagine what it would be like to commute around that city…honestly, I am pretty sure everyone has to drive. Being from Vancouver, everything is pretty well connected, so it was hard to have to cross a million bridges to get to a certain part of town.

After spending a good chunk of time playing “The Game of Life” (we lost miserably. We as in Connie, Monica and I), we then returned to our respective rooms for a good nights sleep. Which was not that good because I woke up freezing since apparently we forgot to turn up the heat. We are so smart.

The next day consisted of a LOT of shopping. We tried to make use of Portland’s tax-free system, and then we headed over to Westfield Southcenter Mall for lunch at Jollibee. I was kind of excited because back in Hong Kong, so many of my friends ate at Jollibee! It was my first time eating a meal at Jollibee and I thought it was delicious! Sure it was kind of greasy and unhealthy, but delicious all the same! Us girls also split a halo halo, a popular Filipino dessert! It was also my first time trying that and it was DELICIOUS! If I was not getting so cold from the drink, I would of had more!

Halo halo!

Again, I am skipping the details of our shopping expeditions and moving on to dinner. We ate at Olive Garden! It was my first time in that American chain, but I am amazed by all the bottomless dishes! They refilled practically everything! Monica, Josh and I were still pretty full from lunch so we decided to each get an appetizer and share. I got a Smoked Mozzarella Fonduta, Monica got a Italian Sampler, and Josh got a flatbread, though I forgot which one. We ended up not even finishing our three appetizers because it was so filling and big!

At Olive Garden

Afterwards, we spent a good portion of time fooling around in the parking lot and rearranging our shopping bags and luggage. At some point, we accidentally set off a car alarm when we were messing around with breadsticks. Do not ask.

I am so happy that my reading break is off to such a great start! Friends, dining and shopping– the perfect trio! Hopefully I will also have more time to blog amongst other things! 🙂