A few months ago, I received word that my life-long friend Alex was getting married. (HO!) Alex is part of my Toronto crew, where my mom’s best friends live. We have a “kids” group, all eight of us numbered from 1-8, from eldest to youngest. Alex is our “yut-goh” (Older Brother #1). Two years ago, Sandy (Older Sister #2) was the first of the kids group to get married. This year, all of us went to Hong Kong for Alex’s wedding.

Taking advantage of this time off to go shopping and eat, my family and I decided to take 2 weeks off for this trip.

Below is a narration/summary of my trip in words.
If you prefer to skip the words and just SEE our pictures, you can go to these links for the HK trip photos: Pics of everything BEFORE the Wedding and Pics of Wedding and everything AFTER.

Where We Lived:
My mom knew someone who new someone who knew someone (I’m serious) that had a place where we could live. It was low-income, government sponsored type of housing, but not a type of place where our lives felt endangered or anything. It was small, simple, and tight, but it was just some place to stay, which was fine. (Our family has been accustomed to being very open to different types of living conditions: low-income places to sometimes the richest, most expensive places too. We’re used to the variety.)

That’s where the 5 of us slept, with me slipping into the spot on the right.
The floor was hard (which was totally bad for our hip bones)!

How the rest of the room looked. This is the Living/Dining/Bedrooms, hahaha

Left: The kitchen/laundry room, which we used like a bathroom sink too. hahaha
Right: lolol spatula, toothbrushes, knives, and ginger next to the dish washing detergent. (ultra man too!) hahahaha

This is literally how big the toilet/shower room is. And yes, there is no separation between the toilet area and the shower. (WHY DO PEOPLE LIKE BLACK TOILET SEATS I WILL NEVER NEVER UNDERSTAND)

Phew, after those pics, this is where Gruezo will come to me and tell me that Chinese people are dirty. (I hope I don’t get random search engine finds for that last statement.)

OKAY, now that that is done with, time to move on to the good stuff. Hahahah

Shopping:
I totally did not bring enough money for this trip. I also didn’t anticipate the HUUUGGEEE pre-Chinese New Year (CNY) sales that went on the week before CNY. I mean the clothes are ALREADY way cheaper in HK than in the US, but when they’re on SALE, it really hits the consumer in me.

Buying from Wholesale shops: My mom discovered this place where there must be at least a hundred little shops where HK’s boutique shop owners come to pick up wholesale clothes, bags, shoes for women. Some of the shops ONLY sell things wholesale, but MOST will sell you individual pieces. Just here alone, I bought about 4 jackets, 2 formal dresses, 2 purses, I don’t remember what else.

Also, since CNY sales were going on, I didn’t need to bargain because the prices had already dropped! YESS!

Pros:
* This stuff is CHEAP! I bought my formal dresses for about $200HKD, which is about $24 USD; I also bought a nice blazer for $100HKD ($12 USD).
* EVERYTHING is stylish in HK. You know people are foreigners cuz they wear plain-ass stuff aka ME. 99.99% of the things I saw at the wholesale shops were unique and very fashionable.

Cons:
* HK clothes are known to be cheap, but so entails the poor quality, which is not nearly as good as the quality of clothes in the US. Most things bought here will not last for more than a year, if you use it regularly.
* At the wholesale places, you can’t try on clothes. However, you can ask the shop owners if you could purchase the style/size that you want, then go to the bathroom nearby to try it on. They will usually allow you to switch sizes (given that the size is available), but they WON’T let you swap different styles of that item.
* No refunds.
* CRAMPED at lunch time! BEST in the mornings. I believe the shops usually close at 7PM.

The Wholesale market I went to is the Hong Kong Industrial Centre, and is SUPER easy to get to:

• Take the MTR to Lai Chi Kok station
• Take the “C” exit
• Step out of the station exit, turn around so you walk the opposite direction you came out of the exit, walk along that side of the block and you’ll see on your left a big huge driveway that reads “Hong Kong Industrial Centre” at the top. Head on in there, and you’ll see all the shops in there. Be careful, you might get lost in there if you have a poor sense of direction ;)

Visiting Family:
My parents grew up in Hong Kong, and we still have a lot of family there right now.

We visited my dad’s sister, who has long been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and her daughter, who is also becoming more schizophrenic the last few years. We went to a pretty nice dim sum place near uhhhhhhhhhhh some…. mall…. possibly at Lam Tin station area? At the top of some escalators? (Everything in HK looks the same. It’s like one big Chinatown.)

We also visited my mom’s eldest (half)sister and her family. Their family is pretty huge since their family lineage is almost a generation older than ours. As an example of the skewed age and lineage thing, there is a 12 year old kid that’s supposed to call me “beew-yee-mah”, English equivalent(ish?) of Grand-Aunt or something. My eldest cousin is a grandmother. hahaha! (Additionally, I have learned that one of my cousin’s daughters has gotten married a year or two ago. She is younger than me. This terrifies me.)

Only a portion of my Aunt’s side of the family.
Most of my cousins and their kids aren’t all there!

Fun with Friends:
It was GREAT to see all the Toronto kids all together again. Not gonna lie, it’s kinda weird to know that we’re “GROWING UP” or already “GROWN UP” whatever that means. Of course, I always feel so behind cuz I’m the youngest amongst all of us.

In number/age order: Alex, Sandy, Conrad, Ivan, Nick, Anthony, Marion, me

In backwards order, holding up our respective numbers,
and leaving room for Alex and Nick’s stock photos. hahaha

Going out to Nam-Gwai Fong with Ken, our honorary 7.25-goh. hahahah

Asian-glows all around, plz!

Adventures:
Macau:

Hello, Macau!

A few of us went to Macau to tour around and check out the casinos. Lesson learned about Macau casinos: they do NOT have seats for you to sit in if you are not gambling. The women’s bathroom even lacked the “fainting” aka powder room with the couches! Joanne, Sandy, and I were probably scolded at every casino we went to because we were either sitting on the floor, a big tree pot, or doing the Chinaman squat. (I take full credit for doing that last one. No shame!)

We went to a gr8 dimsum place called “8″ at the Grand Lisboa casino. I guess it’s a high-end kinda place cuz the presentation for everything was really impressive. I mean seriously, check out these Ha-gows (shrimp dumplings) in white ceramic “steamers”!!

We also had these:

Porkchop sandwiches and poh-tahts! (Portuguese style egg tarts)

Alex and Joycelyn’s Wedding:
Best to be shown via the pics here. Ivan and Conrad were groomsmen, and Marion was dressed so super pretty! The other girls and I shook our heads as we noted that Marion had to go and wear heals even though she’s already so tall. I wore a curtain for a dress.

Sai Kung Yacht Ride:
We saw a part of Hong Kong that we’ve never experienced before. Mom’s best friend knows someone who lives in the Sai Kung district, where they have this view from their house:

We spent most of the day on the yacht, and Ivan and I even got to ride on the back of a jetski!!

Uncle Michael’s Brother’s Farm:
We spent an afternoon up at Uncle Michael’s brother’s farm at the Kam Sheung Road station area. I definitely sprayed myself with plenty of bug repellent through out the whole event. We picked CAULIFLOWER, huge turnips (like Super Mario 2), and STRAWBERRIES–all USDA approved! :D hahah Definitely a fun experience!

Food!
And of course, here are pics of my FAVORITE foods from the HK trip!!

To see the rest of our pics (and there are MANY!) please go here for our pics! http://picasaweb.google.com/craisin

Additionally, here are Conrad’s pics of: Alex and Joycelyn’s Wedding, Macau, and his Hong Kong pics!