/golfclap

It's officially Christmas here in Hong Kong. Merry Christmas Everyone!

Spent Christmas Eve Day mostly in relax mode. Didn't do too much today. Was feeling a bit under the weather the past couple of days so V took me to see a Chinese doctor. Same deal as before, Chinese doctor diagnoses me and then gives me some strange brew to make and drink. Well, I guess this time, it was a bit different. This doctor brews the stuff for you...or so he says. So, yesterday when I saw this doctor the first time, he told us to come back in about an hour and he'd have the medicine brewed and ready. So, we did a bit of shopping and killed some time and came back for the medicine. I was trying to figure out exactly where he had brewed the stuff, when all of a sudden, he climbs a ladder (which I previously hadn't noticed) at the back of his tiny store and disappears into the ceiling. Minutes later he returned with what I was told was the medicine or what I think is simply roof water. Whatever it is it seems to have worked though. Yay!

The rest of the day we sat about trying to figure out what it was we wanted to do today. After much time wasting and watching the Canucks get destroyed, we decided to hit the outlet mall out in Tung Chung. We finally convinced Tim to get ready and a millenia later, we were out the door on our way...or at least we thought we were on our way. I should have figured things might go amiss from the start, when we darted across the street to catch the bus that was speeding around the corner. Suddenly V realized that we were at the wrong bus stop and we hurried back through traffic to catch the bus on the other side of the road. We climbed aboard and were off to Tung Chung. Now, the bus that we were on is the same bus that I took from the airport to get to V's house. The trip from the airport to Lam Tim (where V lives) is a good hour and fifteen minutes with decent traffic. I should also explain that buses in HK are not quite like the buses in Vancouver. The closest thing I can think of is maybe the B-Line. Imagine if you will, a B-Line bus speeding along Broadway, but instead of the bus being twice as long, it's twice as high. Now, imagine instead of Broadway, it's a highway full of other super speeding cars. Now, imagine that the drivers have little or no regard for human life. If you can imagine all of that, you might understand a fraction of what it's like to ride a bus in HK.

So we're on the death bus to Tung Chung, everything seems fine, Tim is chatting long distance with his gf and V and I are talking about whatever. Now, I have a tendency to fall asleep in vehicles on really long rides. It's just something that happens. And somewhere between Lok Fu and Tung Chung I fell asleep. Probably a good 15 minute nap. Not really knowing where we were heading, I only knew that this bus' terminus was at the airport. I figured we were getting off somewhere before. Sure enough, V woke me up just before the stop she thought we needed to get off at. Oh, by the way, before I fell asleep, I remember Tim saying that he was starving. Try to keep that in mind as you read the rest of this. Anyway, V woke me up and we were preparing to disembark, or as they like to say in HK alight the bus, when everything went fubar. Seems V had previously taken this bus and was under the impression that there was another stop at which we could get off and head to the outlet mall. EPIC FAIL. The next stop was somewhere down the highway on the outskirts of the airport. But, she held fast to her belief that this bus would get us to the mall. As the bus snaked through the roads closer and closer to the airport, it seemed more and more unlikely that we would arrive at the mall via this bus. I think it was only when we were forced to get off the bus outside of Super Terminal One that she abandoned the idea that that bus would get us to the outlet mall in Tung Chung.

Luckily, it wasn't soon before long we were on another bus bound for Tung Chung and the outlet mall. This new bus we were on was suppose to speed us to the Tung Chung MTR station and leave us somewhere in the vicinity of the outlet mall. The bus took us past the Asia-World Expo, which none of us had actually ever seen before. The bus teased us by heading in the direction that we wanted us to. But, Tim and I were still wary of V's navigating skills. Finally, our goal was in sight, we could see the outlet mall in the distance. Soon enough, the bus returned us to the place where V woke me and said that we'd be getting off at the next stop. As the bus rounded the corner towards the MTR station, V rallied Tim and I and prepared us to get off the bus at the next stop and the end of our journey, the outlet mall. Once again, EPIC FAIL. As soon as we got off the bus, the starving Tim asked fairly puzzled, 'Why are we here?" He repeated this several times as we walked towards the outlet mall. Seems V had exited us from the bus a stop or two early, leaving us to walk to the outlet mall. Forgot to mention, while we were waiting for the bus outside Super Terminal One, I was telling V and Tim about an emote in the World of Warcraft. It's '/golfclap'. In game, the emote would read: 'Jeff claps for Veronica, clearly unimpressed.' We all had a good laugh at her expense.

We spent some time at the outlet mall, less time than we had originally figured cause of our detour to the airport. All in all, the outlet mall was kind of disappointing, save the Christmas display with the mall mascot dressed up in pirate gear. There was a pirate ship that had a Christmas tree for a mast and pirates instead of Santa. After about an hour or so at the mall, we headed for dinner at V's aunt and uncle's house. You know how you go to a family dinner and you show up on time, but you have to wait for more people to show up before you can eat and then finally more people show up, but you still have to wait for the last few jerks to show up so you can finally start...we were those jerks. Although, V's cousin Matthew and his family showed up after us, negating some of our jerkiness. And I suppose they had started eating without us anyways...so that kind of makes them jerks instead. Nah, I'm just kidding. Dinner was fun, but it was super hot in the small dining room we were all crammed into. So, that was my Christmas Eve. I gave V her Christmas present, I made a book for her, I think she likes it. She didn't /golfclap me. :P