Hong Kong Days 39, 40, 41, and 42

I am so incredibly annoyed. Our hotel is doing construction on rooms right above ours, so from 9:30am to 6:00pm we get to hear a nice BBBBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH BBBBBBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM POW POW POW. Sometimes we even get to hear a nice little fire alarm go off. =/ -blurgh- how aggravating. Anyways I should stop complaining and keep up with my “oh so incredible journaling skills.” Yeah right. Anywho, my parents did in fact make it safely back to the usa (for those of you wondering), but I will get to that later.

On Friday, I worked. The things we are doing at work is annoying because it is a lot of manual computational work. We are taking a large large function and trying to simplify it as well as we can using trigonometry. When you are dealing with 16 terms similar to “a(Sin((n-1)y)Cos((m+n+1)y)Sin(m*v)” etc. it is easy to make stupid errors when you rewrite the terms or multiply them or add them or try to simplify them. ---real annoying folks, real annoying---- but we finally got that going. It is a little frustrating because we have finally (to some extent) gotten the hang of our project, and we are running out of time. We only have gotten to half of what Dr. Sun wanted. Oh well, guess that is research.

Ok enough boring math info. Chelsea and I met my parents and sister for lunch at a little Singapore restaurant. I have been there 3 times now and each time it has been very delicious. But today when I was there I was a huge huge klutz! I kept dropping my sister’s spoons and straws. And spilled my tea all over the table. I figured that the waiters were all thinking, “wow what an incompetent american moron!” I know that is what my family was thinking. Anyways then we went back to work and later I met Kinnex and some others for soccer. Soon my parents joined us. it was unfortunate that people had booked the courts from 6-8 and then 8:20-10. So we did a lot of waiting until 8. I was worried that my parents would be bored while we waited, but Kinnex, Henry, and Steve all talked with my family and me. That helped pass the time. Then at 8, we went out and scrimmaged against this older team for a bit. But soon we were kicked off the courts again. Boo! So we decided to eat first and then come back at 10. That was fine, but I refused to eat dinner in my smelly soccer shirt (sports bras after you have sweated in them and then sit around in them ---begin to itch really bad) and since I had only brought other nice clothes, I wanted to at least change into them. So then we all went to what they called “the dirty restaurant” –the same place a while ago I had gone with them to watch some of the korea world cup game. I was sad because steve and henry did not eat with us. I think steve wanted to smoke and was afraid of annoying or insulting or making our family uncomfortable because “brilliant” I told Luna that I do not like smoke and it makes me feel ill. I can handle it for a little though and usually Hong Kong is pretty open –I mean I have to sit in a little room while my grandparents smoke and that often gives me a headache (no offense grandma if you are reading this---I love you lots!), I can handle steve’s smoking especially in as open a room as our restaurant. Oh well it was nice and considerate of them, but I still wish they had come (and henry if you are reading this please note that next time I expect you and steve to eat with us!).

anyways dinner wasn’t too bad. My dad and I are definitely have the worst chop stick skills, and he kept dropping his food everywhere. They first set out some nice cow and/or chicken intestines for us to munch on. YUM YUM! Hahahahha….that was very strange and well chewy. After that we ate some other stuff, I felt a little strange because many of the other soccer guys did not eat much and just ate rice. I think they were trying to be polite and allow my family to eat first. They were very nice and talked a lot with them. It made me happy. I tried not to eat too much since we were going to play again and after dinner we took a picture of all of us. Since the bill was not that expensive, my parents wanted to treat my soccer friends to dinner and take care of the bill. This is normal in the usa –for the older person to do. But in Hong Kong, I guess it is not. I think we offended my friends. Kolman took me aside and said that since they are students their parents give them money for dinner and food and that they cannot accept someone else paying for them. So that was awkward. I hope they don’t think badly on me and my family, but I cannot help that now. After dinner, we went and played more soccer. That was fun and my sister didn’t do sooo poorly. Then since my parents were leaving the next day and my parents didn’t stay to watch us play soccer, I and my sister went back to my hotel and showered and then went and I stayed at my parent’s hotel. It was kinda annoying, but still good.

The next morning I woke early and ate breakfast with my family before they left. I was sad –especially later, but it was still fun. Then Chelsea, John and I went to Stanley market and I bought some gifts for my family and friends. I also bought myself a cool lamp and a pretty pearly necklace and matching bracelet. Then we ate at the lion rock bistro and played cards and dirty minds. I stayed up too late because I thought that our hotel would not have construction work in the morning. I was wrong –I was woken at 9:30 with a loud BBBBBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. Oh so annoying. And it is all on our floor too. Bah! Stupid hotel. =( I hope they finish soon! Then after people finally got all going, me, Chelsea, andrea, nick, meghan, and Michael all went to the jade market. I got some more gifts for my family and friends. We were all going to go to the bird and flower and goldfish market, but kinnex called me and I didn’t have time before I was going to meet pui and we both were going to go to kinnex’s house for dinner. So I left and took a quick shower before meeting pui at shim sham po.

We got on a bus that would take us to kinnex’s place which is located in the new territories. He lives on the 22nd floor of his building and it was much bigger than I expected. It was also very clean. His and his sister’s rooms are small like closets. We took a picture of me pui and kinnex in his small room. His mom and dad didn’t know much English, but they were very nice. We watched a silly soap opera/drama thing in which Sean’s friend is in. I did not understand it but it looked ridiculous hehe. Dinner was very delicious although I wonder how typical of a meal it was. Because I am scared to eat the chicken with the bone on it, kinnex told his mom to not buy that kind. That was so considerate of her. We had chicken, pork, squid and broccoli, the really yummy local veggie and some shrimps. They were very nice to me and helped me cut the pork and kinnex’s mom helped and peeled the shrimp for me and kinnex and pui. It was very cute. She was very hospitable. Then we had some soup with something like a sweet potato. It was very good. Then we had watermelon and orange for dessert. It was very good and I hope I didn’t embarrass anyone too much =) including myself! Kinnex’s mom complimented my chop stick skills (she was being too kind) and she also liked my teeth.

Then we left and went met some of our friends and went to a café to watch the world cup. By the time we got there, it was like 11pm. I was very tired, but it was fun until I got a headache from being too tired. I met a new friend named Ives –he likes to fence. The café was exactly like the ones in the usa and they had lots of board games. I taught them how to play a few including twister which was a lot of fun. Then I tried to sleep for an hour because I began to feel sick. I didn’t actually sleep but I was so tired it was alright. As I was watching the game my eyes kept crossing because I was so tired, so at half time I laid down. I thought that I should maybe leave at half time because I felt very sick and wanted to sleep but I was afraid that if I went to get a taxi, kinnex or sean would try to come with because they are afraid of me traveling alone. So I stayed and had to close my eyes during most of the 2nd half and all of overtime. It was so sad, I wanted to watch and it was an exciting game, but I could not stay awake and then at one point I almost threw up right there in the café, that was not good so I tried to stay still and sleep. I felt bad for sleeping because I felt like a dork, but not too much because I felt too sick to care that much. They woke me for the PKs so that was good. I was glad it was a good game and italy won, although if france had won, that would have been good. . After that we were waiting to take the elevator down to the ground floor and I almost threw up again, but I closed my mouth and swallowed it down. That was so gross. And then we walked down the stairs which had lots of bags of smelly garbage…which was great for my headache. Then it took a while to get a taxi but it was crazy. It was 5am and the whole city was alive with people. =) that was cool. But I was too sick to really enjoy it. Sean and vic went with me in the taxi and got me back safely. This was at about 5:15am. Then I got back to my hotel and threw up a lot in my toilet –thank goodness I didn’t do it in front of my friends. And then I showered, took a pill for sleeping, and went to bed. I only slept for a few hours before waking at 9:15 to the construction and to go to work a little late. Lucky for me, Chelsea accidently slept in too. Work was very hard because I was still under the sleeping pill, but after lunch it wore off and I felt better. We had to present today and that went well too. I was awake for that because I took a short 30 min nap from 3:30-4 and then presented at 4:30.

After work, Dr. Fairweather, Chelsea, andrea, sam (who came back from Beijing), nick, john and I went to an Indian restaurant. The atmosphere was very cool, but the food was a little to spicy for me. I had a mango yogart drink thing with dr. fairweather. Then I came back here and typed this because I was so behind. I think that is all I will say tonight though because I am soo soo tired. so good night everyone. =)