escapades of the elusive kat

I was researching flights for Taiwan for the Boss and certainly I noticed that 8-December, which is a public holiday here, is on a Friday. So, searching for flights for him turned into just looking into flights for me LOL. I got my flight tickets for 7-December flying out and the 10-December back, which, upon further reflection, I should have chosen to go on 8-December early flight in order to save a night of hotel. But. Anyway. What's done is done.

But.

I don't feel the drive. The FIRE. The excitement. There were a couple moments I wanted to ask my friends if they wanted to come, but I sort of felt like if I do so, they'll hijack my itinerary and do everything else. But they are the ones with the knowledge of what is good and especially the food. So I'm still torn with what to do about it.

Although I booked a hostel but I didn't feel like staying in a dorm with strangers, so I booked a private room. But thinking about that, then maybe I should have booked an actual hotel, but the hostel I booked looks a lot nicer and newer than hotels in the area. I won't be able willing to afford the hotels that my Boss stays at. So there. Still stingy I guess? Or just down to earth, I guess.

The plan? There is no plan LOL. Well, take part in that lucky draw to see if I get the NT$5000 card LOL. I'll probably go to a different night market 2 nights (Raohe and Shida). Would like to spend some time in Eslite. But geez, it's been so long, I don't remember where is where. There's this specific street I'd like to go to, but I don't remember the name, nor the MRT station name. Beitou looks interesting, I'd probably go take a look at that fancy library. I'm kind of thinking of going to Jiufen but once I start imagining the hoards of people then I just lose interest.

I've done the Pingxi route previously as well (that was a gutsy trip LOL). Tamsui is supposed to be another touristic spot but I've been there twice and.................... no comment. A friend brought me to Wulai (sp?) once and I don't think I have the guts to go alone, and besides, I don't normally go to places I've been to before.

Ximendeng, 101, and those usual trendy spots, I'll probably skip. So coming to think of it, there doesn't seem to be much. Anyway.

Maybe my interests will take hold later again. We'll see.

Oh boy. I knew I'd regret coming to Hong Kong.

It's nothing very bad. I was just feeling uneasy all day yesterday and yeah, I guess my uneasy premonition came to fruition.

So the day started beautifully. Well, just before I walked Frankie his morning walk, it rained a bit, and then it stopped, and then we went again.


The ferry ride was surprisingly not packed. I guess people have already sort of gotten used to being able to get out of Macau by now so there's no more travel frenzy? Just a guess.


First order of business after getting off the ferry was to hunt for lunch. I searched and saw a somewhat interesting Mexican place, but it was packed when I walked by, so I continued walking around the Mid-Levels.


Love how the tree is just climbing over the wall.


Found a place serving Nepalese food, so I went for it. The Naan was nice, a bit crispy, I really liked it. The curry was just right, not too spicy.


Then I made my way to the place I booked a room to stay the night. Ugh. That was a poor decision. Originally, I booked a proper hotel near the concert venue, but that area is sort of newly developed so nothing is around, and in the end, I decided to book a place that's more in the Yau-Tsim-Mong area. On the booking website and the photos showed a pretty nice and nifty place, but it's just some renovated rooms in a depilated building. I sort of regretted it once I saw the outer building, but I figured, I'm not here to enjoy the room. I'm here to enjoy the concert, then have a bed to crash the night, then go home tomorrow.

It's those (probably famous) "cubicle apartments" in Hong Kong. So they take an apartment, and then partition them into small cubicles. I think a regular hostel has even better designs than this. Ugh. It was all pseudo-fancy, with keypads and all that.

So I was given the code to a room, and she led me to it.... to a 4-bed mixed dorm room. I said "No, I booked a double room." And the lady said, "yeah, this is a double room." Then I said, "I know i did not book a dorm bed. I specifically booked a private room with facilities."

What do you know, she goes to the next door, and says loudly the key code, so everyone can hear, and puts me in a room that's.... I guess it's a standard bedroom size in Hong Kong, but the toilet's amazing. /sarcasm/ I have a narrow rectangular area with a sink and a toilet and a shower head. There's not even a shower stall, so I'm going to have to shower with the toilet *facepalms*

Well. A bit of a change of habits is in order. I usually shower then go to bed, and wash my hair in the morning when at home. I'll just shower and wash my hair at the same time tomorrow morning. The toilet/shower cubicle is not going to get dry overnight, so I might as well wash up tomorrow and then don't have to worry about it.

Anyway, after getting the room, and since the lady yelled out my key pad code, I was wary to leave my iPad in the room, so I had to take it with me. Let people steal my change of clothes if they want to. But... I'm keeping my iPad.

Went out to Tsim Sha Tsui area, walked a couple of shopping malls, and then hunted for an early dinner.


( Talking about food (meat) here so those sensitive can skip )
Then I did the gutsy thing and trusted the google maps public transport information and took a bus to the event venue. I'm not going to say I did not enjoy the concert. It was nice, but I guess I wasn't a real big fan of the artist. Besides, I liked her songs from 10 years ago, and now her style has changed much, so... well at least she did have 3 tracks from her 10 years ago style. I suppose the set list was good? We got a set of 3 songs for the encore. Oh, and the funny thing was, the audience had those light sticks and waved it... and there was one particular upbeat song that.... everyone was waving it at the wrong beat LOL


Concert over, I followed again the google maps suggestion and took a bus back. Way faster than taking the MTR, really. Here's an open corridor of the place I'm going to spend the night in. At least, so far, it's not noisy outside.

Tomorrow morning I have a breakfast appointment with the boss' Hong Kong driver. Let's see what gossip he will share with me.

Finally sitting down to go through my inbox and such. I've missed SO MANY BIRTHDAYS! I'm so sorry for missing out on sending birthday wishes.

Still reminiscing the good parts of my vacation, and putting my thoughts together:
1. Not going on a "free walker" trip with this particular friend anymore. Only group tours.
2. Highly recommend this Wanderlog app and website. Even just using the free version, it was useful. I created my own account and a dud account (to say "friend") and, I put all my expenses in the app. Those that are just for me, was left at that. Those that were shared expense got marked to split evenly (I didn't try if a custom percentage would work, but since most things are 50/50 anyway) and by the end of the trip, I just clicked on debt summary and it calculated, accurately, what my friend owed me. I did a separate manual/excel expense list and came out to more or less the same figure. More or less because I was doing everything according to the bank issued statements with actual currency conversion rates to MOP, while the app calculated the standard conversion rate to HKD. And then calculating the app HKD rate to my MOP rate, it was still 1.03, which is practically the standard HKD to MOP rate used locally. So. It's accurate.
3. To those who considered me silly for continually complaining about the UK not accepting my cash, the GBP rate I had my cash was at a lower rate, than the bank credit card enforced rate. So, it actually came out more expensive to use the credit card rate than using just cash. *haaarrrrummmmmppphh!*
4. I gained a good whole 5kg on this trip. Ugh. We didn't really have 3 square meals every single day, and we walked so much. Whyyyyyyyyy. Anyway, I've trimmed back down 3kg. Work on the last 2!
5. The Lemon jam or marmelade I got from that church in Hastings is really good! I like that it isn't just sweet like commercial jams are.
6. So far what I miss the most is... the milk. We bought a carton of fresh milk every other day, because I drank a lot of that milk (maybe that's where my 5kg came from haha). So creamy! Not like the processed milk here....

I have an upcoming trip in June to Hong Kong. It was really just a concert that I wanted to go, but I wasn't sure how late the concert would last, and since the venue is somewhere where in my knowledge it's a bit out there so I wasn't sure about transport and such... so I decided I'd spend the night there instead of rushing back for the ferry back to Macau. After much struggling about rooms and where, I decided to just find a balance with getting a cheap private room with the comfort of a private toilet and bathroom. I really just need some place to sleep the night and maybe leave my overnight bag while I'm out.

I extended an invitation to my Sis to join me on the Monday after, since she wanted to go to that Jade Market I went to. She seems to be interested, but hasn't confirmed yet. We'll see, it's weeks away anyway.

And it's about time to work on the potential Italy trip in October/November! First thing: hunt for good flight deals.

Okay. As of writing this, I'm already back home in Macau. But I am going to finish this! Last 2 days!

Right, so on this day, it was supposed to be a free day with no itinerary. Friend suddenly said "let's go to that town I mentioned before!" I was like "?" what town? "I told you about it before, it's called Rye!" And I was like, "is it the land of Rye bread?" and she got annoyed, "you said we'd go!" I had totally no idea what she was talking about.

After she sent some links, then I remembered. She talked about this many, many, many years ago, I think we were still in our Uni days (this is like over 15+ years ago). She did not tell me this during the planning stage of this trip (which was back in September/October). I was flabbergasted. And annoyed as F as well. It's near Hastings. If this had been mentioned before, I could have made an overnight trip of like, you know, Hastings, spend the night there then go to Rye or that sort of thing. But noooooo. And then she had the gall to say "we can spend 2 hours here." And I was like, I'm not going to go somewhere that's roughly 1.5 hours one-way trip to spend only 2 hours there.

Anyway.

Welcome to Rye.



Not having a clue of what to do, I relied on the town map at the front of the station. Saw it saying something about the Ypres Museum, so walked there. Then the "shop" location was closed with a sign indicating going further up hill. So there's a Ypres Castle and we went for it.



That's nasty!





Very interesting! Booklet was for sale but I didn't buy it.



I'm a bit in awe that people actually respect the signage.





It was dark, looking in from outside, and when I stepped in, must have activated some motion-detection thing and a video and audio clip started playing. Gave me the creeps, also because of that doll standing in the corner.



Cannon garden or gun garden.



Looked down and saw this beer garden, so down we went.



This is a lesson for me that, I don't like cider. I like apple cider, yes, it's a bit sweet, but not regular cider.



Then up to... I think this is the St Mary's Church.



Seems like I missed a photo of the huge pendulum. So when you go in, there's this huge pendulum (attached to the clock tower) swinging in the middle of the atrium, and gave a soft tick-tock-tick-tock that's classic to pendulum clocks. I liked the whole thing!



Some interesting exhibits.



Love these old keys!



Nice glass windows.



Then we saw a sign that said we can go up the clock tower but at your own risk. Hm... ok?



OK, I get it. If you are a little fat or wider then you won't be able to squeeze past.



Then there was a room with a lot of stuff... how did they get up there then?



Another set of rickety stairs.



And another!



So then I was in an... atrium of sorts? It's where the bells of the church are kept. Then BONG BONG BONG! It started ringing right when I was in this room. I got the fright of my life and maybe got deaf in one ear LOL. I looked at my watch.... 14:54... IT'S NOT ACCURATE!!!!



A pidgeon was trapped in there, or in there by choice. I guess the pidgeon can find a way out if it inclines to do so.



Again, going out at your own risk. My friend was scared shitless by all that signage of doom.



But it was AMAZING!



It was hardly scary at all, the railings were high enough that I don't feel like I'd fall. You'd only fall if you actually tried to climb over something to fall.



Panoramic shot.



I actually went 2 times around to admire the view. My friend had long gone back down. Talking about going back down... 上山容日竹心心落山難... easy to go uphill, difficult to go down. Yes. I initially had some trouble going down. But it was simply putting everything fallable (mobile phone, hat, etc) into my backpack, then climbing down backwards.



Back in the mechanical room.



Then we went down High Street and saw some cute stuff. But things have closed by then... typical towns.



As I had a cider, it has sped up my need of the toilet, so we had to go somewhere anywhere!



Cakes and tea!



Continue with the walk around town.



This is Mermaid Street.



Antiques shop that was... closed.



Since I had a cake I didn't feel like ice cream anymore.



Beautiful plants!



If I had seen this sign earlier I might have loaded this up, but by this time we had a time limit.



Walking the other way. Oh. And cemetery/graveyards also scare my friend shitless. I tried to convince her, a Western Cemetery is not like a Chinese Cemetery. A Western Cemetery is a place of rest; meanwhile a Chinese Cemetery is a place of haunting, but there was no convincing to be succeeded.



Awe, this tugged my heartstrings. I was baptized in a St. Anthony's (of Padua) Church. So I sat for a while.



Added bonus, my Secondary School (High School) was under the Franciscan Missionary of Mary as well.



Cute signs from a shop that's closed.



When we got back to London, then it reminded me, oh yeah.



For dinner we decided to try Five Guys (in Europe). It was OK. Back in Macau and Hong Kong, such fast food are treated like luxury restaurants and you pay an arm and a leg for them.

Bucket List # I don't really know LOL. I don't actually have a numbered list :-)

Kew Gardens! Ever since I read (part of) that manga "Emma" where she visited the Kew Gardens (don't remember exactly if that was that though, it's been a long time!), I've been wanting to visit too! Including this time, I've been to London 3 times. The first time, my travel friend was pushy with going with where she wanted to go and I had no say. (I had to "run away" early one morning while she slept just to go to the Sherlock Holmes Museum because on the previous day, while on the way to the Sherlock Holmes Museum, she saw a bus that read "London Zoo" and decided we'd go to the London Zoo.) The second time was a trip in January, so that travel friend (a different person) vetoed going to the Kew Gardens because it's winter. Well, this time I made sure I'd be going.



So in my research I saw that you can have a picnic in Kews, so I searched for takeaway picnics, and found this Newens. I made the online order 2 days ahead, set the pick up time for 11:00am. On the day, we arrived early, 10:40am, so went in to ask. Apparently they didn't pack it up yet, and said they'd pack it up right then. Then people started coming in, and they served those people instead, and in the end, I got my order at 11:15. WTF? And when the lady handed me the bags she asked, "do you want to heat up your quiche?" I was like, "nah, if it could be eaten cold as-is, then I'd rather not, thanks."



So I had ordered 2 sets of picnics, and we ate one set first, because we didn't have breakfast yet. The remaining food was kept for later. So this Original Maids of Honor tart was... pretty much like a Pastel de Nata, just with less custard.



Ducky (or Goosey) walks around us waiting for scraps. Sorry. No scraps for you.



The Hive was a nice surprise, I only learned of it when I arrived and picked up a paper directory. Spent some time playing with the phone camera timer and watch controlled shutter.



Because the ground was some translucent-ish materials, scaredy-cat friend was afraid of stepping into this.



Soon friend got moody and demanded to sit down. I made a joke asking "I thought you said you hiked with your mom?" and she retorted angrily "I haven't hiked with my mom for a long time! I do yoga!"



"Well, I'm just repeating what you said. You said you're much better now than before and than Priscilla (made up name of her friend, she is obese and can't walk much), so you'd be okay with walking. I'm not putting words in your mouth. You said so yourself." And she shut right up because, I wasn't lying.



In any case, we did quite a lot of walking. I think we managed to visit all the greenhouses (I think).



Random shots at Kew Gardens for your enjoyment:



I saw some guy with a pro-looking camera trying to shoot this duck at this angle, so I shot the same too LOL.



All so pretty. I really enjoyed ny walk here.



I'm just randomly posting photos so I'm not sure if I got the succulents here, but anyway, upon seeing some of the succulents, I was like "ooooh I've seen this, I know this, and I have this!" and as i'm writing this, I just remembered I meant to water my plants before I went on holiday, sh*t. Hope the not-succulents aren't dead yet.



Stopped for the remainder of the food. Didn't manage to finish though. We kept the scones for later.



This raven was having fun on the seat.



This... installation? was interesting too.



Me with the bag with the leftover scones haha.



More greens.



The Treetop walk was amazing! Though, I have to admit, my knees were starting to feel it. After this trip, I'm going to have to rest my knees.



Scaredy-cat friend is scared sh*tless of these see-through flooring, so she stayed put at ground level. And a random exhibit at the Treetop walk.



It was getting late and I rushed to the pagoda. Didn't climb up it though.



Once again, I just couldn't resist this vertical panorama shot.



You know, I went to Tokyo, Japan to see the sakura trees (cherry blossom) but here in London it's like there's more of them than in Japan.



Temperate House.



Another beautiful spiral staircase!



Truth betold, I am somewhat afraid of heights, but in this situation, where there's a railing, it's fine. It's when the railing or barrier is low then I'd start to feel vertigo.



Seems like I just like the spiral staircases.



Tulips.



Another spiral staircase, this one in the Palm House.



It was hot and stuffy inside (but of course).



Okok, last of these spiral staircase selfies.



I love this restaurant already for saying cash only LOL.



There was still time, so after blundering with the return (I did not realize the same train track served 2 or more different lines), I managed to save it and go back to Baker Street. Finally brought my friend to the Sherlock Holmes Museum. I said I've been to already so I'm not going in. Scaredy cat friend, decides not to go in (because she can't go in by herself). So we roamed the gift shop, but it was SO SAD! I remember there having more merchandises! There's only so few stuff now! I'm so glad I did get my Sherlock Teddy back in 2016!



I saw a greeting card with this "Strawberry Thief" pattern. I didn't get it, because I have no use for a greeting card, instead I saved this image haha. To skip over a few days, I later do buy a eyeglass cleaning cloth of this pattern.



Oh yeah, friend said she wanted to have a "Stargazy Pie". You can Google it, but basically, it's a Cornish pie that has sardines sticking in and out of it as if gazing up in the sky. I did a hella lot of research and found a restaurant that had it. So off we went!



A Fuller Ale and Pie House called The Blackbird. But apparently all that research I did was the result of a seasonal promotion. So there was no more Stargazy Pie on the menu. Might as well get a pie sharing board for 2.

Group tour day! Friend wanted to go on the Stonehenge, Salisbury, and Bath tour, but I put my foot down, because I've been on that one exactly, some 12 or 13 years ago? And since I was on the fence about whether to go Oxford or Cambridge, so, I thought this would. be a good enough tour. In the end, turns out, time was really short at Oxford, but that's fine. It gives me a reason to come to UK again in future.

Aaaanyway, the tour took us to Windsor. Laadeeedaaaaa I've been here before.... soooooo.... boring!



The walk up...





So everything inside, Doll's House and State Apartments were all no photos, so I have nothing to show. But as I was walking through the State Apartments, my thoughts were in the area of "huh, just opening up your house and let total strangers visit?" and then I also recalled, like on Pride and Prejudice, they actually went to visit someone's home (was it Darcy's home?) just for the heck of it. Huh.



Yeah, don't know what else to comment.



Just right now I do not recall the name of the chapel... St. George's? But it was not opened for visits on Sundays. Like. Weird.



Windsor Market? No time to roam, it was a mad dash back to the bus.



We got doughnuts!



It was a long long way to Stonehenge.



I just had to take this shot, but I didn't notice the panorama got a bit cut off in the corner!





There was only time to walk around once.



Spied some birdies.



The visitor centre is totally different from what I know from 12 or so years ago. I remember the visitor centre just being across the Stonehenge itself, now it's a shuttle bus ride away. And there's this almost 360º video installation that showed the progress of Stonehenge, it was cool.









I forgot to look up the sign explaining these huts, so I have no idea what they are.



Meanwhile, my amazing (sarcastic) friend managed to get lost in Stonehenge. It's amazing. It was just two ways, one to the coach station, the other to the private car park. She managed to go to the private car park. Anyway, next stop: Oxford.



I paid attention. This is the Martyr Monument. And the spot where Queen Mary burnt some three guys or so. Retroactive revenge is brutal. But. I don't know if any of those stories he told were true or not. I was a Tourism major student as well, and while I don't have a tour guide license, I did study local history, and learned of the trade somewhat. And I know that most of the times guides just swing it. I did a guiding project and the upperclassman really did just bluff his way explaining the Ruins of St Paul in Macau, OMG.



And then the rest that I didn't really jot down LOL.



The something theatre that doesn't have theatre, but maybe graduations.





I think this is the Bodlean Library.



The something Camera. Radcliffe Camera yes! The "one shot to show you've been to Oxford, is here!"







Forgot what Tower. It seems I forgot to upload a photo of Christ Church College. Tickets were sold out by then and we had only like less than 5 minutes to rush back to the Ashmolean Museum. I only sneaked a photo inside and took a photo at the entrance with my Slytherin Scarf LOL.



On the way back, we decided to get off the bus at Gloucester Station. I was thinking of getting some Indian for dinner, and on the way, we saw a Lebanese restaurant, so decided to try that instead, since, never had Lebanese food before!



We ordered too much though, so we had to ask for a take out box to box stuff up.



Sort of getting used to London, and I just casually got on a bus (and a correct one at that). Friend seemed to be amazed that I didn't even need to check the phone. Well... I looked at the card on the bus stop....

Day 3! Friday! Oh boy!

I've reached my bullshit limit. I should say I'm ashamed but I'm really not. Before this trip, I warned my friend, she's going on holiday with me, I'm a hardcore walker. She said it's fine, she. goes hiking with her Mom. I gave her the planned itinerary, it showed all the sights and locations we would go and the amount of walking, she comes with leather and un-sensible shoes complaining she can't walk much. WTF. Trainers? Sneakers? Sports shoes? Walking shoes? WHY would she come with pretty leather shoes? And she came in long skirts (I casually asked why didn't she come in jeans) and she said she thought we would go to religious sites that don't let you wear short skirts or casual jeans. She brought a ton of crap and complained that her bag is heavy. I don't even want to go into what she's brought with her, it's just stupid.

She was in the mentality of going on Group Tours. No. This is not a Group Tour itinerary. This is a "free walker" itinerary. Oh my gooossssssshhhhhhhhh.

So we started the day a little later today, because friend had to sleep and rest. She was up already around 6:30, went on her phone, scrolled until 6:50, then said, "I'm going to nap till 7am then I'm going to get ready."

Feel me slowly boiling. If you're up already, why can't you go get ready? Saying you will nap for 10 minutes, but really only getting up at 7:15. I wouldn't normally care, but she was surely getting on my nerves.

So since, she did not bring a hair fan (out of all the other ridiculous things she brought) she had to ask the hotel to borrow one, and so had to bring the hair fan up to the room. On the way down she tripped *rolls eyes*. I asked if she could walk, if she needed a doctor, if she needed anything, and she said no.

Off we go. Seeing as she took a tumble, I took the long way on the tube. We could have changed lines and reached our destination sooner, but I decided to sit through the trip (Circle line).



Breakfast! A proper English breakfast, I suppose. I didn't know what a "Bubbles and Squeak" was, so I added that. We also had a blood pudding. I seem to have read/heard a lot of people saying how it's yuck and it sucks so we wanted to try it. We live in the land of tripes and liver sausages and such, this blood pudding is nothing. It wasn't bad, but I had imagined it to be more wet or juicy? Or maybe he fried it till it dried?



Tate Britain, but it was funny that I found the way to the staff entrance instead LOL



Here we go!



So when I was getting a ticket (wanted to see The Rossettis exhibit), my friend said, "I'm actually not interested in art, so I'll sit and wait outside." Okay? I had given her the itinerary, I had asked her if that was ok, she had said it was all fine. So sure. I went on my way and you can bet I took my sweet time. Why Rossettis though? I guess I also went through a goth phase in my teens LOL. At that time I had a blog at Diaryland, and we had to make our own layouts and designs (I was rather creative and had some spiffy designs, if I do say so myself) and the designs featured a lot of Christina Rossetti poems. I wasn't sure if this exhibit was about this Rossetti, I came to find out it is, so I was a happy clam.



Gift shop browsing, this book was cute! But I did not get it.



When I was done, I texted my friend and we left.



Got a bit confused by these arrows.



We took the boat to the next Tate, Tate Modern. The guy told us to tap the Oyster going in, but going out they shooed us away and didn't tell us to tap. Later we found out we got charged over 15 pounds because we didn't swipe out. *mad*



View from the boat. Standard tourists spots. Which my friend was just scrolling on her phone and not looking at any of these.



Friend wasn't interested in Tate Modern, saying "I don't really understand art" (this will bite her ass later) so on we went.



The Prison Museum that I was intrigued about since my last visit in 2016.





They had this funny free photo thing that my friend was "afraid to go into the photo room because it looks haunted." Sorry, I'm not going to let anyone stop me from having fun.



Borough Market. I don't remember this part of the market though?



Since I'm sort of a minor fan of Uncle Roger, he always recommended this Mei Mei restaurant, so we tried. We were still full from breakfast, so we had a simple Kaya Toast. Wasn't anything special to me. Guess we should have tried some actual food? The Sodas were okay, but we weren't told to mix it well, so we drank all the syrup (using straws) thinking it was disgustingly sweet then getting to the tasteless part of the drink in the end LOL.



More random walk around.



Walking over to... the VA.



When we arrived the VA, my friend looked at me, and I looked at her. I said, "I've been here twice already. We are here solely at YOUR request. You ASKED to come here." I said this while standing in a room full of art sculptures. So. Tail between her legs, she had to go look around. I went outside to the water feature and read amongst the pigeons. It was nice and sunny one minute and I thought I got lucky with the nice weather, and as soon as I thought that, it turned overcast and chilling winds started blowing.



Walked up the road to Harrods.



So my friend didn't seem all that interested in Harrods and asked me why I took her there. I thought Harrods being this fancy department store with history would be an interesting place to at least have a gander around (I myself admired the elevators). I actually threw in the towel and said "alright since you're not interested, let's go." She then said she'd like to look at the souvenir bears. We went up to the Toys floor, but that wasn't what she wanted (more on that later). After getting lost in Harrods (how do you get lost in a square shaped building?) looking for the way to the basement, I found the "souvenir bears." Left my friend there and I walked around... LOOK at this beautiful line of books! I abstained and didn't buy them.



So after placing my friend there, I had to take a break from her. I actually went back the way towards V&A and roughly a block down had this Cafe de Nata place that I wanted to try the nata when I saw it on the way to Harrods. I wasn't feeling homesick, I simply wanted to try the nata from overseas. The stuffing is a little creamier than I know it (more like custard?) but, I have to say, the shell was amazing. Nice flakey filo pastry. I liked the shell very much.



After that, I went back up to Harrods and my friend wasn't done yet. So I waited, and finally out she comes. Since she asked if our Oyster cards only worked for the tube, and, I figured, going from Knightsbridge to Marble Arch or Baker Street by tube was basically walking the same way, but underground (due to changing trains and such), I took her to take the bus. Something was going on though so the traffic was terrible, and she complained about that. Geez. Plan your own itinerary next time. It was late, so might as well have some dinner at Bill's.



It was a bit of a letdown. We got seated at this table that I could see the service pledge card, and guess what, NONE of the steps listed was done. No taking drink order, no getting asked if I want to pay for water or just have the tap water, no nothing. Even trying to get them to come over to order something was a whole dance, because I practically had to stand up and dance in front of them, short of going over, holding their hands and bring them over, to our table.



Oh yeah. I was at my tipping point with the cash thing here LOL. Heck even a street stall hawker type kiosk shop wouldn't take cash and I had to pay by credit card. The cash I had on hand can practically be considered dead. So at the Toys floor at Harrods... I did something. I know Steiff Teddies are expensive (I saw one that had a lacey finish, in Rothenburg ob dem Tauber in Germany, it was unimaginable!), so when I saw them at Harrods, I said, I'd get them. But I also wasn't going to make it easy for the staff, LOL. There were very many other teddies, but I chose this one, that had a tag, but no price on it, and the other same teddy didn't even have a tag, LOL. The staff were stumped, thinking of ways of getting into the system to get the price. I knew more or less it would be in the GBP 200s in the second hand market, so wasn't exactly sure about this one. I was thinking if this was outrageously more than GBP 300 then I'd say no. When the supervisor was keying into the computer, the other staff was already removing the security tag, and I was like, no... don't take it off yet.... I haven't decided if I'd buy it or not yet.

Meet Frederic, Steiff Teddy 000430. At least it's a yellow tag, so it's not limited edition :-)

GBP 209, thank you very much Harrods, for accepting my cold, hard, cash.



Please note, this is not a toy. This is a collector's item. Says so on the tag. Now I've brought upon myself another headache: How am I bringing it home? I'm surely not going to stuff it in my check in bag, I don't want to squash it. I also don't feel like taking it as a hand-carry, I want my hands free........ I'll think about it in a couple of days again...

Hello from London!

I've got some time to kill right now (just before 7am) and my friend is still lounging around in her pyjamas, and I've got nothing to do.

Day 0 - Hong Kong to London

We used to have a spiffy service where we can take a ferry directly to the Hong Kong Airport and since it drops you off already in the restricted area of the airport, so, technically, you only depart from Macau, but never have to "go into Hong Kong". After Covid-19 they've cut that service to 1 sailing a day, so, instead, we had to take the "Bridge Bus".



They got a similar service that would take you from Macau to the Hong Kong International Airport, but you still had to get off the bus to go through immigration and customs with your bags, then get back on the bus. And at least, on a bus, you don't get sea sick when the sea is unsettled.



So apparently my friend got herself an e-reader, but some China off-brrand. Took out our e-readers to compare. Looks more or less the same, only hers wasn't hook up to Amazon. I might get a China off-brand one in the future when I need to replace it (it's one-third the cost). We'll see when I get there.



Last Asian meal before we fly. Korean stone pot rice.



As I guessed, the in flight food was mediocre. They didn't have tomato juice either. Oh, and I had the relatively most painless flight, I've found out the joys of the absolute middle seat LOL. My friend complained that she got non-stop nudged and pushed when people walked along the aisle, so she couldn't sleep at all. I was able to sleep off around 4 or 5 hours until my butt got numb and I had to turn, and the person behind me was rather decent too. Nobody bothered me to stand up for the toilets LOL.



Okay, got to London, smooth immigration. Apparently the EU passport still had a slight advantage to my friend's SAR passport. Since we were together, the guy told us to go to the "Middle queue" usually for families. If not, my friend would have have to go to the longer queue. Lucky. Got our local SIMS, made our way to drop off the bags at the hotel. (No, we are not staying at the Hyatt)



Then off to the Bank of England. We arrived around 10:15, everything done by 12:30. They didn't exchange coins and I have 7 GBP of 1-pound coins that are dead money. Hm... Guess I'll have to find a donation box and drop them off? Have to be one of those Bank-associated charities, I read somewhere.



Since we got extra time so I swapped the itinerary for a bit. Covent Gardens for lunch.



I don't really know why I bothered with changing the GBP notes now. It really seems that everywhere we go, it's cashless payment only. And you can't even use your old style swipe or stripe credit cards. It has to be those new chipped contactless payments *Shrugs*



And then back to the hotel to officially get our room.



They gave us a high floor (technically 3F but the room number starts with a 2). I liked the room enough. My friend is complaining it's a long climb with her heavy bag.



View out from the room.



So next stop, early dinner. I somehow got mixed up. I don't know why I thought we had to go to The Shard, when we actually had to. go to the Sky Gardens. So we had to walk. I didn't mind the walk, but my friend was silently revolting by dragging her feet.



Past the Monument.



And arrived!



Wasn't really that far away, come on, don't be a baby!



Early dinner.





Here's us. The lady at the entrance said "No Slytherins allowed," my brain was slow and couldn't react. I should have said "But I've got my Potter Glasses on!"



Past Leadenhall Market which was a big let-down!



And then we called it a night and went back to our rooms, given my friend didn't sleep well. Conked off by 10pm. Today is another day!

I forgot the annoying quirks of this friend LOL. More if I feel like writing. I think she's finally ready to go.

I'm kind of elated that I'm flying in less than 5 days. The weather here is terrible now. Muggy. Hot. Humid. Ugh. That, and the tendency here to have the A/C blasted on, so it's like, you'd think to dress light because it's so hot and stuffy outside, but then you go anywhere indoors, the office, the mall, a shop, and the A/C is at full blast, so you are freezing, so you HAVE to take a jacket with you, but with the outside being to hot you'd think "Nah, it can't be that bad that I need a jacket", and then wham! YES, you DO NEED a jacket.

And then you get sick.

I've been careful. I have a cardigan at the office, so I can go to work and out and around without taking a jacket with me. But sometimes if I go somewhere without dropping by at the office, then I'll be caught out cold.

The forecast for London says it will be in the teens and low-teens for the duration of my stay. But I don't know why I've got a sneaky suspicion I'll die of overheating while there, especially during the noon times when the sun is out. Did I mention I actually got a tan while in London in May 2006? In the London Eye too. We were roasted alive in there. It was brutal.

All pertinent tickets are in place. I've paid off all my credit cards so I have full credit limit on all of them. I've got the old cash ready. But. Now that I think about it, should I keep some of the Queen silhouette notes? Since now it's King Charles, they'll eventually change out the cash notes again................? But even if I keep one each of the Queen notes, it's a.... "For what?" I'm no collector, I'm also no reseller etc. And apparently London is trying to go "cashless", I've booked 2 restaurants that states "We are cashless. Bring your credit cards."

I guess I should write up a list of souvenirs to get. Because a colleague gave out Panadol tablets as "souvenir" a few months back, it sounds like my colleagues are expecting me to bring the same. And this is why I hate getting souvenirs or announcing to the office that I'm going on holiday. The expectation for souvenirs.

Not to mention those that have the audacity to ask you to help them buy stuff. "You're going to Europe? Help me buy this and this and this and this!" The thing is:

- That means I have to allot some of MY holiday time to run THEIR errand.
- Most of the time they don't give me the money for that, which, since they are asking for a favor to buy stuff, I'd say it's best if they give the money first, but then, it's actually BETTER that they DON'T give me money, because then I'm not OBLIGATED to run that errand for them.
- Say I do go about and do that, then I have to leave space in my baggage to carry that stuff for them.

I think I'll just buy 2 boxes of Turkish Delights at the airport on my way back and consider the souvenirs done. They can go into the pantry snack cupboard. And as to why I consider Turkish Delights as souvenir from the UK... it's been ingrained in my brain.... I actually had a colleague who's from Turkey, and he would sometimes go on holiday and visit his daughter in the UK. He'd bring a particular brand of Turkish Delights that's more chocolate than the gel candy and it's actually good. I remember him saying that it's not because he's Turkish, it's just because that particular brand is just that good, and that he buys it at the Heathrow airport on the way back. Granted, I don't remember the brand LOL, neither the box design, but it's now in my head "souvenir from the UK = Turkish Delights". I'll see when I'm there.

On this final day, we left early-ish because although our departure airport was at Narita Airport, we wanted to go visit the city of Narita itself. Apparently, Narita was the place for Unagi-don うなぎ丼 (Japanese eel rice).

We reached the shrine there. Throughout the trip, whenever we visited temples and shrines, my friend got herself a Shuin, but due to the coronavirus thing, all these temples changed their Shuin format to, you just buying a piece of paper with the Shuin, then you stick the Shuin to your book.

At this Narita Temple though, they took the book and wrote the Shuin in your book. So my friend was slightly annoyed that she left her book in her luggage that was in the coin locker.

Since it was the end of the trip, so of course, I went to get my last omikuji fortune. For me it was like I went to Thailand to "Change my fortune" LOL. I started in Japan with the bad fortune, and after that I took 3 more fortunes and it got progressively better until this last one where I got the best blessing 大吉. The slightly spooky/worrying thing was all these sort of mentioned my getting sick this year (but eventually getting better) so, despite not being superstitious, I guess it's a call for me to get myself checked out.

We had taken a queueing number for the Eel place there and then it was our turn to go into the restaurant.

I thought we were sharing one Unagi-don, and a grilled Anago and dashimaki, but my friend ordered us one Unagi-don each and shared the Anago and the dashimaki. It was a lot of food. It was gooooooooooood!

The Unagi was a marinated thing and the Anago was just plain grilled.

We then slowly made our way back to the train station. On the way I got myself a furoshiki 風呂敷 but now I'm feeling a bit of regret as I should have gotten a 100cm X 100cm and the bamboo handles so that I could fashion the furoshiki into a bag, but anyway. I got a furoshiki for bento box size wrapping, and I got myself a pair of custom chopsticks. The guy doing the engraving looked at the words I wanted engraved and said "but キャット is cat" thinking I had mispelled, but I said "don't worry, yes, I want キャット and Kat."

It seems that Narita also has a lot of peanuts and peanut products. I didn't get any.

The trip back was the usual: flight back, light shopping at the airport duty free, Hong Kong, get on a bus, get to the bridge, get to Macau, take a taxi home.

Here's also a box of cookies from the Totoro place that I didn't share photos of yet!

And this concludes my trip to Japan.

I have to start working on London now!