Sunday, October 2, 2011

Massage and shopping

This weekend has been interesting. I managed to spend a bit of money on myself. Saturday started off pretty slow. I went to the gym at around 10am and worked out for a little bit. I stayed away from the treadmill and was on the elliptical mostly. I think I need new running shoes, more on that later.

I ate lunch and then headed to the office. I got to the office at around noon and there was a sign that asked me to register before entering. Normally, you only have to register on Saturdays after 2pm. I was wondering if they had changed the rules and walked into a non-air conditioned office. It was when I was putting my bottles into the recycling that I remembered that it's supposed to be national holiday. October 1st is China's National Day. In China, they get the entire week off. In HK, for those of us who are only supposed to work 5 days, it's basically not a holiday.

I mostly took care of some personal stuff at the office and didn't do too much project stuff. I did start on a few things though. I got bored and headed out. I headed to TST for my 7pm massage appointment. I saw some massage deals on Groupon the other day and purchased two of them. The one I went to on Saturday is a foot + body massage, 50 min each. The deal seemed pretty good. The place is located on Knutsford Terrace, which has some really nice Western restaurants and bars. The street is on the side of a hill and is pedestrian only with lots of outdoor seating areas. The street has a very nice feel to it.

The massage place is nicely decorated and scented. They even had little TVs for people to watch while their feet are getting massaged. The masseuse said that the shin area on my legs are very bloated and stiff from running. I definitely felt that my left leg is stiffer than my right. When I joined the gym, they had this machine that measures the amount of muscle in your legs and arms. The machine said that my right arm is stronger than my left, no surprises there. It also said that my left leg is stronger than my right. I wonder if this is normal for a right-handed person or if it's all that military stuff I did way back. Anyway, my lower back and shoulders are also very tight and stiff. I did the pressure-point massage instead of the aromatic oil one. Which meant that the masseuse didn't use any oils and kneaded my muscles over a towel. Felt very good afterwards. But my lower back is a bit sore today.

Anyway, I also got a deal for 6 sessions of lymphatic massage. This is supposed to produce a lot of benefits like weight loss, endorphins, relief stress, etc. I just hope that they can loosen up my back. I booked a session for this upcoming Wednesday, which is a holiday. Should be interesting.

Right after I got out of the massage place, the fireworks started. I ended up watching part of it from Nathan Road, which was blocked off from cars. There were a lot of people out. I tried to get closer to the waterfront because you can only see a tiny part of the fireworks between the buildings on the road. But I couldn't even get within 3 blocks of the waterfront. There was literally too much people. People started getting there before it got dark. Should have known better. Anyway, 20 straight minutes of fireworks.

After the fireworks ended, I went to redeem another Groupon at a pizza place. It's the second time I've been to that place. The pizza is okay. The fries are very good though. I wanted to get a milkshake but they didn't have any more (wouldn't make it so late at night?). I figured the MTR would be very crowded getting back so I took the equally crowded bus back.

I'm beginning to be more brave in taking buses. I have a general idea of where things are now so it's easier for me to just hop on a bus that's going towards something I know. I found out about some interesting trails and wanted to do the one that started at Kennedy Town. There's a bus that goes from near where I live directly to Kennedy Town. I've heard that there's a lot of expats in that area and have been meaning to go check it out. The MTR doesn't go all the way there (yet) so you have to take a bus.

The hike was the main thing I had on my to-do list today, along with getting a fan. But as soon as I stepped outside today (Sunday), it started raining. Not too hard at first so I was hoping it would let up by the time I go to the other side of the harbor. But it just kept raining... I gave up on the hiking part since it was also very windy. I basically ate lunch there and then tried to take the bus to Olympic, where there are some big malls that I've been meaning to check out. But then I got too adventurous with the buses and took one that took a different tunnel than what I was expecting. So it ended up taking a long time for me to get to Olympic because I had to take the MTR after getting back to the Kowloon side.

The malls at Olympic were kind of lame. The malls were very big as in they have a lot of space. But there didn't seem to be very many stores. Maybe I wasn't walking in the right places. I think I prefer more compact malls. The stores themselves were kind of small. I felt like there was an uneven ratio of public space to stores space. I was looking for running shoes but the "sports" stores that I went into had more fashionable shoes than running shoes. The Marathon Sports had some cheap New Balance selections but the sales people clearly did not know much about running shoes and kept trying to stick these ridiculous looking Nikes at me. Maybe I just don't understand fashion...

I walked all the way to the Mongkok East station and took the train the Shatin Ikea. One of the things on my to-do list was to buy meatballs and a fan at Ikea. Turns out, Ikea doesn't have fans. I did get cinnamon buns and meatballs though. On my way out, I saw another store with fans and got a mini-tower fan. I dragged everything back and made fried rice.

I chopped up all the vegetables I bought yesterday to facilitate future cooking. I find that I am much more likely to cook if the veggies are already chopped up. And it's more efficient to chop everything in one go. Veggies at the wet markets are very cheap so I can get a nice variety. I think this is the second time I've used my rice cooker. I usually make noodles or pasta.

That's it for the weekend. There's another typhoon in the area. It's at signal number 1 right  now. Kind of hoping it would get up to 8 again so that I can chill at home again. Of course, it would mean a very crunched schedule at work since Wednesday is also a holiday.

1 comment:

yalu said...

Hmm, the analyzing of the muscles is interesting. I think I'm stronger on my left leg too, although I'm just speculating. But I have better balance on my left leg. I don't notice this a lot, but it's especially evident when I'm ice skating. No idea why though.