Sunday, August 7, 2011

Parents visited again

Last week was a very long week. I don't know how many hours I worked but I will be booking all of it to my timesheet tomorrow (Monday). For the first part of the week, one of the guys was on site and our supervisor is on vacation. So we were missing a lot of help.

I feel like I'm getting fat just sitting around all day. I think I really need to join a gym and find time to go. I've been trying to eat less for dinner since I tend to get back late. On Monday I made a big pot of carrot soup with an entire bag of carrots. Used up an onion, some garlic, and pureed the carrots. It's very good. But I didn't get a chance to eat it on Tuesday because I had to stay really late. I made a little bit of pasta to go with it and it's actually very filling. I'm not very fond of the idea of eating dinner at work. Would really rather watch anime while eating dinner.

My parents came on Friday afternoon and the sim card I gave them ran out of money. So instead of refilling it, they just sat around waiting for me to call. But you can't call into a phone number that has no money. Anyway, a friend of my dad called me and I figured that they ran out of money on the phone. So I left work and they were indeed sitting around in my apartment.

I have to say, we didn't eat very good food the entire time they were here. I don't think I planned very well. We could have eaten at much better places. Oh wells, next time. For example, for brunch on Saturday, I totally forgot about the famous dim sum place nearby. Although the line would have been super long since we got up at 10am and didn't managed to get out the door until 11am.

Saturday was a long day. After brunch, we went to my office and I showed them where I work. My mom helped me ask about the DBS credit card that is doing a promotion at the mall where I work. But I didn't think their deal was very good so the search for another card continues. They didn't even have applications in English when there are so many foreigners working in the office next door. Seriously.

The next destination was the cable cars on Lantau Island. I found out online that you can buy tickets at MTR stations. So we bought our tickets at the customer service at Kowloon Tong. The guy didn't seem like he's ever ridden on the cable cars before. They only had the crystal cabins and round trip tickets. That's what we wanted so we got four tickets. I also got three more Octopus cards because they are much more convenient than buying single tickets. It's a very good thing we bought tickets in advance because the line was super, super long. I think if we didn't we would have given up when we saw the line. It was also super hot so that line would not have been fun.

I've already been on the cable cars and wanted to just head to the beach. But my dad seemed like he really wanted to go. I was worried that my mom would be really scared but it turned out that Victor was the scaredy cat. He was frozen the entire ride. Turns out my mom wasn't really afraid of heights. She was more concerned about the safety of the cable car. This one is a completely enclosed cabin so that wasn't a concern at all.

We got bubble tea, hiked up to the Buddha, and got dou fu hua. Took the cable car back to Tung Chung and then got on the bus to go to Mui Wo, which is on the other side of Lantau Island. My mom was very excited when she saw the beach. But she didn't bring a swimsuit so she ended up wearing mine while I had to get another one. They didn't have her size for one piece swimsuits and she didn't want to wear a two piece. Victor didn't want to go in the water so my dad wore his trunks. The water was very green, not clear at all. But it was very warm so we swam around for a bit.

We ate dinner at the Mui Wo pier. The place advertised homemade curry and seafood, neither of which was very good. Even the lemon tea was lacking. We took the ferry back to Central and walked around to find the HSBC building. My parents said that they had never been on HK Island so we checked that one off the list as well. We were all very tired by the time we got back.

We got up at 5am on Sunday morning and took a taxi to the airport. I went with them because it would cost the same on the taxi. We got there too early and were the first ones in line for check-in. We ate breakfast and I saw them off. I poked around the stores for a bit before going to the bus station. The bus that takes me back to my neighborhood mysteriously moved locations. So I was waiting for another bus that would take me back to Kowloon when I saw a coworker. He was with his whole family and they had just sent his sister back to college in the US. What a coincidence! They were also looking for the same bus. They ended up taking another bus. I probably should have taken the same bus as them just so that I wouldn't be by myself on the bus. I ended up finding the right bus and pretty much slept the entire way back. I woke up just in time to get off at my stop.

I napped after getting back and then went to the office to help out. The entire team was there working. Crazy. I was thinking that if there wasn't much going on, I would go watch a movie. Of course, this wasn't the case. The office was really hot due to the lack of air conditioning. We even had four fans on. My weeks have been rollercoasting in terms of working overtime. Last week was a long week. So maybe that means this week will be better? Hm...

1 comment:

yalu said...

Sounds like a fun time for the family! I bet bubble tea is a lot cheaper there than here.

You can eat dinner at work with your co-workers right? That was always a fun part of working late =)