Because it was a bonus holiday today (7-April Good Friday), meaning... it was a public holiday but I forgot about the existence of this particular public holiday date... I went on a trip to Hong Kong.
Ferry what ferry? I got a ticket for the 9.30 ferry and the ferry was late.
It never quite occurred to me, but then I noticed today that in Hong Kong, there are certain streets that don't have traffic lights nor zebra crossings, simply this "look *direction*" reminder and that if there's no oncoming traffic, pedestrians can cross as they like. And yes, I was looking for those side street alley-way stores but it was a tad early and nothing was opened yet.
And so... I went for breakfast. Breakfast at 11.30am-ish? Okay, brunch. This place had an all-day breakfast menu, and had that souffle pancake too, but I didn't want the English Breakfast as I was saving my stomach for other snacks that I'd come along throughout the day, and I was feeling for something savory, so, I found a middle ground. Avocado salmon and pancake.
Next I went to the Central Market again, where they refurbished to make it a trendy artsy shopping centre. The OCD-ness or the Capricorn in me gets endlessly vexed when seeing people disregard big-worded instructions.
There's this eco-friendly store that sells things without packaging and you buy by weight. I was looking at these incense sticks and up comes a lady trying to explain everything in.... broken English. I wasn't feeling devious quite yet, so I just let her explain. And then she tried to sell me candles in a coconut shell. By then I decided I had to say something. "I'm looking at the incense sticks, thanks." And she left me alone.
In a totally unrelated store, because after buying some incense sticks, I went to another corridor and that was the street food corridor, I saw a stall selling vegan ice cream.
So I ordered a single scoop young coconut flavor ice cream. I thought they'd give me a cup but no, the single scoop came in a coconut shell topped with a cone and some coconut shavings too LOL. So I had to find those cocktail tables and eat it. Mid way though, I got bored and started scooping the ice cream into the cone, then cleaning up, and went ahead and walked around with the ice cream in hand. Oh, and by the way... that ice cream was flavorless.
I wanted to go to the Times Square in Causeway Bay, and was just about to hop into the underground, when an idea popped into my head. I DO NOT HAVE TO RUSH today. I have all the time (well, until 18:30 that is) in the world. So, instead, I hopped on a tram. It was a gutsy move, as I did not read where the destination was, but figured I could see the tram tracks and can see where the next stop is LOL.
Got to the Times Square and went to the Doraemon pop up store. Cute. Very small.
Then as I was leaving I found a side street that had the stalls opened, so I walked through them. I wasn't really looking for anything in particular.
Then an idea struck. I follow a pens-and-ink shop on IG and decided to check that out. It was located in Sham Shui Po, so it was a bit of a ride away, but off I went.
The ink collection was amazing (for me), as, nowhere in Macau has a shop just for inks. But, I didn't like the staff there. They were noisy, talked amongst themselves. The upper floor was staff only, maybe their storeroom or staff rest area. And they were yelling to each other from up to down and down to up. Then came some drinks/snacks delivery for them (something like door dash or uber eats I suppose) and the yelling commenced again "hey you ordered me the wrong stuff!" "What? You said chocolate, it's chocolate!" "oh geez! I'm going up to the toilet then!" I originally had planned to buy a nebula whatnot ink (the ink is shiney and is the color of the universe or something like that) but all that chitty chatter killed my shopping and browsing mood. I mean, it's fine for staff to talk amongst. themselves, but screaming across floors is really..... not acceptable.
Then the shop next door had an interesting name. But it's a fortune telling shop.
Since I was out there in the northern area, I decided on randomly walking around.
I saw signage that said there's a jade market nearby. Since I started my foray into precious stones and gems, I wanted to get a piece of jade. So... there I went! An interesting haggling tactic was, when a shopkeep tried to sell me jade and I looked at the wares, then I looked at the tagged price (HKD 6800), I very simply asked them in perfect non-accented Cantonese "you're not seriously going to charge me this?" and they were all in shock. I got the price down to some HKD 1750. I think I could have haggled some more, but I wasn't up for the long unending "fight". And then when I went to pay with my credit card, as it was another staff, she went all "erm... please..... write.... name.... sign...?" and again I said in Cantonese "oh alright, you mean to sign the slip right?" and she went "aren't you a foreigner?" I had my face mask on, so I pulled it down, showing my *obviously foreigner face* but speaking in super colloquial cantonese "I never said whether I was or was not a foreigner," and I guess she couldn't compute and went brain dead LOL.
I attempted to walk back (I was in Yau Ma Tei at that point) to Tsim Sha Tsui, but my shoes were starting to bother me. Usually they don't but I put on a piece of plastic on one of my toes because I had cut away a piece of hard skin (which I shouldn't have done it but old habits die hard) and was now again getting blisters (that toe sort of slips under another toe so always gets blisters if there's no hard skin on it) so I put that silicon thing to spread out that toe, but it also spread out the other toe, so the shoe was a tad tight. I went on the underground to get to Tsim Sha Tsui.
The Tsim Sha Tsui station got a lot different from I last remembered so had to look at the map.
Found the place I wanted to go to. Saw some interesting teas. But didn't buy any. Bought a postcard though.
Then I decided to go on the star ferry back to the island side of Hong Kong.
Had to walk over the pedestrian bridge back to the IFC.
I figured I should eat something, there was a Shake Shack. I had always wanted to try the Shake Shack in Macau, but since it's a bit out of the way, and I saw one in Hong Kong, so I tried. Next place I should try is Five Guys, just opened in Macau less than a month ago.
Hunted for a toilet and got over-amused by this restaurant.
Then made my way back. Since I still had time to kill, I decided to not go directly to the ferry terminal, but crossed back to the street side (the bridge would have taken me directly to the ferry terminal).
Random weird cartoon characters on a building.
I actually managed to go on standby and hopped on an earlier ferry (my ticket was for 18:30 return). Technically, I came back on the 17:30 but that ferry had some malfunction and only departed at 18:00. I got flipped off by someone seating on the wrong seat (on my seat!) and I said "you're sitting on my seat. Read the seat number." They still said I was on the wrong side of the aisle. So I made a point of walking all over, then a staff came by and this person flagged the staff to try to argue, and the staff said that I was right. So the pair then asked if I really insisted on sitting on my assigned seat, and I said "Well, I already had to walk the big detour to get to this side of the aisle, I could go around again, so it's your call if you would like to make your detour around the boat."
Of course, they didn't move. Man. I don't mind swapping seats, but don't be rude when you don't know how to read the seat number.
My loot for the day: incense sticks, the Doraemon cloth that only now I found out is not a furoshiki (furoshiki is square, this is long, so you hang it like a poster, I suppose), a cat postcard for someone I'm going to send to later, a stack of plain white postcards, and 2 jade bangles.
Mom says they're glass. I think since it's in a certified "Jade Market" as indicated by the Hong Kong Tourism board, it wouldn't be fake. It might be inferior quality, I'll concede to that! She then told me to go give it to her jeweller friend to authenticate, and I was like, hey, if we suspect it's fake then let's not authenticate anything. Let me enjoy my jade bangle without worrying about it being real or not.
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