He's here!

He's here! And he brought me gifts!
A beautiful bracelet from Scott's mom. Thanks Mrs. Novak! :)

And a few nice things from Scott for my bday.

Scott's been here a little over a week now and we've done so much! First up: getting to know our kitchen. Since Scott has some free time during the day, he has spent many mornings getting to know the neighborhood and exploring. He's discovered 3 - 4 local grocery stores yet none of them have added up to a Stop & Shop - or Trader Joe's for you TJ fans. So we've been shopping at different grocery stores in our apt neighborhood and in my work neighborhood.

He's made so many meals for me already, but I only have a picture of a couple. First was this soup with noodles.

Kinda looks like ramen huh? hehe don't tell him, but that's exactly how it tasted too!

He also made me a really great breakfast with eggs, homemade hash browns, and toast. It was perfect.

And he made me his mom's famous mac n cheese. Most of you have probably already seen photos of this, but here he is in action.

And here were the results. Yum!

Me enjoying a cup with chopsticks no less!

We've also been to Lan Kwai Fong, Central, Causeway Bay, and Ikea (more times than I'd like to admit to). And I've taken him out to eat a bunch of Chinese food including dim sum, soup dumplings, thai, thai/vietnamese, and traditional chinese food take out - roast pork and wine chicken on rice. We also can't forget about Mexican though. We love it and so the first weekend he was here, we hit up i Caramba and got ourselves some tacos, enchiladas, sangria, and margaritas. It felt like home. We'll definitely be back.

Oh and we also recently tried out a Japanese place near my apt. Oops, sorry, I mean, OUR apartment. I keep doing that and everytime, Scott catches me and says, "who's apt?" or "who's bed" or "who's tupperware?" hahaha. I'll catch on soon I'm sure. So anyways, this Japanese restaurant was sooo good! It was about $25 USD per person for an all you can eat japanese buffet. But it wasn't like a buffet where all the food is out and you grab what's available type deal. No. This was a buffet where everything was made to order. So you literally order all the things you want to eat with the waittress and once you're done, you order more as desired. It also includes all the green tea and/or beer you can consume. For for food and drinks, it was a great deal! And we had so much sashimi and tempura and miso soup and edamame, we couldn't even have dessert. It was funny b/c we had a great waittress and at the end of the evening, we asked for our bill. She was like what? You don't want to order more? And we were like, oh god no, we are stuffed. And she was like what about dessert and again, we told her we couldn't - we had eaten so much already. Then she looked at us and was like, wow you guys at sooo little. We couldn't believe it. Then since our waittress was so great, we really wanted to tip her.  You don't tip in Hong Kong and I told Scott that but he just didn't believe me. There was already a service charge included in the bill (which mind you was 10%) so we thought we could give her just a little bit more, just b/c she was really helpful, attentive, and quick. When I tried to give her the money, she had this look of horror and quickly refused the money and ran away. Scott was baffled. He just couldn't believe her reaction. It was quite funny b/c you would NEVER see something like that in the States.

Octopus anyone?

Sashimi...in rare form!

I also took Scott on his first junking trip this weekend. My cousin Alycia and her friends had planned it and invited us along. Scott absolutely loved it and we had so much fun. All of her friends were super nice and it was a nice relaxing day. We also went banana boating and wake boarding although none of us were able to get up on the wake board. Oh well, there's always next time.

I'll leave you with a few photos of that day.

Enjoying some time out on the water...

Slowly pushing my cousin back towards the boat. She's a little afraid of water, can you tell?

After some banana boating and wake boarding, the guys eventually got a little competitve and starting a little diving competition.  Here they are trying to do a back flip all together off the boat.

They didn't exactly start at the same time, but I give them an A for effort. hehe.

Here's another fun one:

I even caught one on video. This is my first time importing video on this blog so I hope it works!

Here's another quick one:

Scott loves being in the water and on boats. Can you tell?

Oh and I almost forgot, we were at home one night just chatting. I was getting tired but Scott was in rare form - actually  he was the way he always is - Mr. Chatterbox and I was playing around on my iphone so I snapped some photos of him during his long speech or tangent or whatever it was. Don't remember now, but we laughed about the photos the next day when I showed them to him. He had NO idea I was taking them.

But they are just so funny so I had to post them. The many faces of Scott Hagerman.

I could have done this all night...but I got tired.

Btw, shout out to the Celtics! We bought that t-shirt that day in Sogo. Pretty cool huh?

Birthday, Baos, and Beautiful light shows

The rest of Karin's visit was really great. We had one week left in Hong Kong and made the most of it.

Notably, we celebrated my birthday together. As much I really like my new friends in HK, it was nice to have some family around on my birthday. It was a pretty relaxed day but filled with great things including little gifts, good laughs, good drinks and a good time. Overall pretty nice and relaxing day, if you consider going to dinner and getting drinks til 1am on a Monday night relaxed. :) The wives didn't. After that, they started calling my friends "party animals" hehehe.

First stop, my favorite, Mexican. Nothing says happy birthday like a plate of nachos and a cool cocktail, am I right?

happy birthday to me!

The next day Karin surprised me with a birthday cake at work. You can imagine my surprise, but you don't have to since we have so many pictures to share! haha.

yay

birthday wishes

The rest of the week was crammed in with movies, dinner, and hang out time. I took them to get the ever famous egg tarts in Hong Kong before they went home. It's a definite must when you visit the city. And they loved them!

Warm and straight from the oven

We also checked the symphony of lights show that happens every night at 8pm. There's a special place to go in TST (Tsim Sha Tsui) which is on the Kowloon side where you can watch all the lights, there's music, and a short narration during the show. It was really beautiful and since we were going there already, I took them to a famous soup dumpling restaurant called Din Tai Fung. It's got a Michelin star and has been written up in the NY Times. It's really famous and they have one in almost all the major cities except for NY. Here are some pics from the restaurant. I think this was def in the top 3 for places that they tried during their trip.

Lots of veggies and baos

Monica mastered chopsticks

Karin

 

 

 

yessssss!

 

outside the restaurant

Here are a few shots from the symphony of lights show. This doesn't do it any justice b/c it's really pretty in person with the music and narration, etc.

Sweaty silly sisters attempting to blot our faces. hehe

We had a great time together and on our last day, Karin and I did a little sisterly bonding in the  morning. We got our hair done. It was fabulous, but Karin says her perm has since then taken a turn for crazyville. I'll post pics if she sends me any.

Moi - shorter, shaggier, shinier :)

someone got a digital perm - doesn't it look great?!

Then we met up with our cousin Alycia who lives in HK now for dinner. The Szetos were once again reunited.

Szetos! Although one is claiming to be a Hsieh these days.

Karin and Alycia

Me and Karin - last night of drinks before her flight

 And you know I had to squeeze in some more food shots while I can. I'm such a foodie - it's sick!

We all started with the french onion soup

Alycia had lobster benedict

Karin had the lobster risotto

And I had the salmon

All of it was great! And you know we couldn't skip dessert so we shared this!

Creme brulee!

Unexpected Scare

I read about this thing called the Wonderfish Spa in Hong Kong as a cool thing to do b/c you can't do it anywhere else. It's basically described as a spa pool where you put your feel in the water and have all these fishies swim around you in this relaxing in environment. So we all signed up to do this one night after I got out from work.

Since I had been going out every night with the girls since their arrival, they offered me a night off and I took it. I really wanted to try the fish spa but I knew I needed a night to just relax so they went without me. When they got back, they told me only Karin tried the spa. Apparently, the fish were really scary. It's not like 10 little fishies swimming around, but actually hundreds of little black fish swimming around the pull just waiting for you to dunk your feet in. Basically they eat away at the dead skin on your feet and that's their food. Both girls were terrified when they saw the fish. They started out by just putting their hand in to see how it felt and although it didn't hurt at all, the fact that there were hundreds of little black fish waiting to attack was too much for Monica to bear so she opted out. Karin decided to go through with it, but said she couldn't look at her feet the entire time. She said it felt like the jet stream of a strong jacuzzi on your feet, but you could see the fish swimming over to her before she even put her foot in. They knew dinner was coming and since Monica didn't do it, all the fish from the pool were eating away at Karin's feet. They laughed about it afterwards, but Karin said she was tense the whole time. Not once did she relax her feet in the pool and not once could she look down. Monica said when Karin brought her feet back up, she saw fish still hanging on to the bottom of Karin's heels.

Scary! Here are some photos from their unexpected scare.

First you get the feet clean

Then you get the fish pool ready - there are literally hundreds of swarming little fish in this pool

Here goes the feet!

Karin said she had twice as many fish eating at her feet than usual b/c Monica backed out at the last minute. She also said it felt like a jet stream from a jacuzzi on her feet but when she looked down, she would squirm and squeal.

yummy yummy in these fishes tummies

Karin trying to relax by reading a magazine

A family wondering who this crazy lady was, getting her feet eaten by a swarm of black little fish

Finally it was over. See, clean feet! :)

First vacay to Beijing!

I'm back from my first trip to China. First and only stop - Beijing.

It's a city I've always wanted to visit - a city that I knew would provide a rich history of China not to mention beautiful scenic views and captivating temples. A must do on my list of places to see while out here. The 5 day trip can only be described as an adventure. I've never been to any place like it. It's truly a unique city.

I went with my sister and our friend Monica, who if you've read from my previous entries, have been visiting me in Hong Kong. It was all three of us' first time there. The adventure started from the moment we walked out from the plane. First thing we did was use the bathroom. That was Karin's first, "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore" moment. She walked into a bathroom stall only to walk right back out and shriek, "OMG, do they only have squatting bathrooms here?" Luckily we were at the airport and there were both types of bathrooms, squatters (ie a hole in the floor that's made of porcelain where you literally squat down to do all your business) and western style bathrooms (ie what we all call normal bathrooms).

After we got our stuff and headed out to the taxi line, we were immediatly bombarded by a shady, smoking guy who had no sense of personal space and was all up in our business. He kept asking us where we were going and told us that he drove a taxi cab. We didn't want to go with him but had to wait in the line. Karin eventually talked to him and told him where we were staying and after that, he wouldn't leave us alone. He kept blowing smoke in our faces telling us to trust him and go with him, but there was no way that was happening. When we finally got a taxi and got to our hotel, there was  no one there. There were some night lights on but it was completely empty...or so we thought. After standing around for about 5 minutes, a man emerged from the shadows. He looked like a security guard and soon he was helping us awaken the person who was sleeping in the room next to the front desk. It took her about 5 minutes to wake up from his hollers and she then came to greet us at the desk and by greet us I mean give us our hotel room key. Granted, we got there pretty late (around 3am) b/c our  flight was delayed - Did I mention we sat on the plane from 7pm until it took off at 11pm? So we were all tired but we didn't expect the front desk person to be sleeping in the room next door. Day 1 over.

Day 2 was probably the roughest.  We stayed at a pretty ok hotel. It wasn't the swankiest but it wasn't bad either. We were pretty close to a lot of central sights as well as the public transportation systems so it suited our basic needs.

Notable things from day 2:

Almost got scammed by a local. He tried to get us to buy his paintings for $800 RMB (originally priced). He then said he would sell them to us for $200 each if we bought two. Karin and Monica were quick to take the bite but I told them not to buy it there just yet. This was the first place we saw so we should look around first. Don't think he appreciated that. He claimed he would only be there for the next 1/2 hour but we took our chances. We later found out on our last night there, the SAME paintings for much less and we bargained them down to 100 RMB per painting. Go us!

Got lost 3 times trying to find the Forbidden City

Found some DELICIOUS street food. It was some of the best food we've had and all three of our lunches only cost 23 RMB in total which is like $3.50 USD. My dad would be proud. Yum!

 

Almost got scammed by a local at the Forbidden City. Stepped foot in the entrance and was bombarded by a lady who offered to be our guide. We said no thanks but then she offered to get our tickets for us b/c the line was supposedly 1.5 hour wait. Again, Karin almost fell for it until we reminded her that we don't know this lady and she could run off with our money. So we waited in line and it only took 1/2 hour to get the tickets. During this time, we were hit several times by all the umbrellas ppl had opened and no, it wasn't raining. It's China and everyone there has a parasol to block the sun. To be honest, it was pretty hot but we settled for 3 ice waters. We still have our reputations to protect here.

We, then while waiting in line, witnessed a three-year old pull down his pants and pee in the middle of the entrance. It wasn't behind a bush or in an alley or god forbid in a bathroom. Nope, he had to go and there he went. It was really funny and we were def a little shocked to say the leased but we realized part of visiting Beijing would be about experiencing the beautiful sites of such a historical city and part of it would be about experiencing Beijing's culture. This is part of China's culture. No one looked twice. It just wasn't a big thing there. It wasn't a thing at all. We didn't get it but we tried to accept it and moved on, careful not to step on any wet ground moving forward.

Saw the Forbidden city. IT was beautiful but probably one of the most crowded places we visited. Check out the pics.

Umbrella anyone?

Forbidden City

Tried to take a cab to Tienamen Square. Got cut by about 10 ppl before we realized they were pushing to get in front of us only to get in front of us. We thought there was an emergency. Then none of the cabs would take us - apparently we didn't know the secret code or something. So when the bus stopped in front of us and we saw a horde of ppl rush on, we jumped on too. We were so proud. We had taken public transportation on our first day!

People are on top of you non-stop. There is no such thing as personal space here and we're just not used to it. Everywhere you go, there's a lot of ppl and so they push and stand right next to you so their sticky sweaty arms are touching your sticky sweaty arms.

People love to spit here. Left and right, we heard and saw people hocking up lungies and it was so yuck. Another thing we had to get used to.

When guys get hot, they love to roll up their shirts to under their armpits and let their bellies hang out. They walk around just like that. We even saw a man doing that when he was holding hands with his wife walking down the street.

Ankle panty hose. Women love it. We don't get it. It's so hot out. They're wearing sandals yet they all insist on sporting the ankle panty hose. You know we couldn't resist.

It's everywhere - we don't get it!

Saw Tienamen Square, took a few pics. Got really tired from a day of getting lost, getting scammed, walking around, waiting in line, and no seats anywhere. People just squat when they want to rest their legs but that didn't feel so good when we did it. Oh well.

Went to a mall and found their food court with about 30 different asian food stands. It was also really good and totally hit the spot.

Next day, we knew we needed to sign up for a tour so we signed up with our hotel to see the Great Wall. And that was probably the best decision we made. Day 3 was so much better. Here's a run down

Saw Ming Tombs

best tour guide - Alice

Loved these funny English bloopers - no load speaking

Visited Jade Factory. Almost bought a lot of jade souvenirs for way too much money. Thankfully, we got smarter with each day and decided to hold out. Ended up seeing the same souvenirs on the last night for 1/8 of the price that we almost bought them for. Literally we almost bought gifts for $800 and ended up getting them for $100 instead b/c we held out and found the same things in local store fronts.

Had lunch at Chinese Restaurant, it was pretty good except everyone was confused when they put a plate of fries on the table next to all the Chinese dishes.

Climbed the Great Wall. It was, in my opinion, the coolest part of the trip. It's so beautiful and you can climb so far up. It's truly a historical site that you can experience.

Tour Guide Alice had us hold her umbrella for a minute

On the Great Wall - PS. We took the steep trail.

Steep climb!

Beautiful view isn't? It was breathtaking...

Climbing down was believe it or not, even more scary than going up

Stopped at "Dr.Tea House" on our way back home. Bought some tea and then bought some cool mugs. Shoulda known better. Later saw them THAT night in this other area that we had dinner for 1/3 of the price. damnit! totally over paid. We just never know! Oh well.

Took the train for the first and only time that night to get to an area called Ho Hi which means behind the lake. It's a really popular area in Beijing with lots of restaurants, bars, and nightclubs. We took the train to the right stop but then walked in the complete wrong direction for 15 minutes. Finally a young man told us where it was and told us to hop on the bus. We were done with getting lost so we hopped in a cab which we probably should have done in the first place.

Ho Hi was really cool. Tons to see, a lot of  nightlife. We ate at a great restaurant. Forgot the name but it was next to a restaurant called "Sex and DA city" hehehe.

Dinner at a really great chinese restaurant

Cucumber appetizer

Really spicy fried fish dish

Beijing Duck!

Greenbeans

Dumplings

and our favorite - soft shell crab

4th day, we decided to do another tour. It was just so easy with a tour. No getting lost. No waiting in lines to buy tickets. No reading all the signs for yourself. Everything is explained, bought, and taken care of for you. It's def the way to go - ESPECIALLY if you don't speak any mandarin. We were able to get by on our Chinese but our friend Monica said she would never be able to visit this city if she didn't go through a tour or come with someone who spoke Chinese. There just aren't as many ppl there who speak English.

So 4th day, we saw alot too. We saw Lama Temple, Beijing Zoo - cute pandas! Even though they were dirty and mostly sleeping when were there. That zoo supposedly has the most pandas though - typically between 10 - 15 at a time. We also saw the Summer palace, got to ride on a short peaceful boat ride, visited a pearl factory, and saw the tallest wooden Buddha in the world. This Buddha was at the lama temple and it was made from one piece of wood.

We also saw Summer Palace but there are just waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many photos to post them all here. I'll have to updload them to kodak gallery and send you all the link when it's available.

That night, we found a different night market with so much food and little souvenirs that we spent all night there trying different things. Here's some of what we saw. :)

Fish balls

scary!

Why can nothing beat meat on a stick?

Corn on a cobb

dumplings

These tasted just like fried dough. soo good!

On the last day, we checked out the silk market. This is like the mecca shopping center for buying all things fake. It's literally floors and floors of shoes, bags, shirts, pants, coats, etc. We ONLY checked out the basement and we still spent 3 hours just on that floor. It was sick. There were probably over 100 little boutiques selling pretty much all the same types of bags except with slight variations in color, style, and price.

It was an experience and something highly recommended from friends. We really had a lot of fun there checking out the merchandise and examining what looked real and what didn't and how good of deal we could negotiate. By the end of the trip, I think I got pretty good. Having a stone face and the ability to walk away are the key factors in getting what you want for your price. We didn't buy much - just a couple of Hello Kitty things here and there b/c we thought they were cute, but overall, the fakes really weren't that tempting.

A few things we noted:

1. People there really know English as well as a few other languages. We heard some Italian and French.

2. They all start with Which bag do you want? or Come inside or How much you want to pay? They're really good salespeople but they are so in your face the second you touch anything that it almost makes you not want to browse or touch anything otherwise you'll be harassed until you buy something.

3. They try to dominate the sale. It's always, "what's your best price?" "Come on, don't be so tough" "no way, what's your best price, come on come on. be real." Finally, I just couldn't let them push us around anymore and started being as annoying as they were being towards us. When they said $1,800 for a bag, I would start saying $100 as my counter offer and wouldn't back down. And when they started saying or rather typing into their calculators, what's your best price, I would turn it around on them, cuz seriously there were 50 other stores selling the exact same product. So I would say,  no, I don't think so. What's YOUR best price? And when they began to pretend cry about me being so "tough" on price, I would also pretend to cry and say "that's all I can do, take it over leave it" Karin and Monica got a real kick out of all this. Overall, we had a good laugh and got some funny memories from our trip. It was a success.