The Fish has returned!

Finally I'm back. From where? I'll give you a clue...its 8 hours from Australia given a 40km/h tail wind, home of the legendary girls who are never sized 29 (well according to their shops anyways) and land that grows on water ;)

I won't say anymore more about that. In the interest of keeping this post reasonably non-elvina-prolific I'll try to break it down into sections. Here goes :)

Flight In

Perhaps THE worst part of trip :) I flew economy with Virgin Atlantic which meant two things - they were budget...and they budgeted far! The seats were tiny compared to other airlines such as Cathay and Qantas, which in turn meant you really couldn't lean back without killing the person behind you. Also may I say the Beef Stroganoff wins the best poo impersonation award! Compound this with the lovely 4 hours of turbulence which created massively long lines for the bathroom when we could actually go.

The flight wasn't as bad though, I met a nice guy who was travelling back to England after visitng his wife and daughter. We had many games of battleship and trivia :)

Key lesson: Virgin Economy is sub-standard economy.

Base of Operations and Reconaissence

I stayed at the Stanford Hillview in Tsim Sha Tsui (TST), 5 minutes from TST MTR station and TST East. What I didn't know before arriving was that to get there I had to pass through THE bridal street and 100 metres of nightclubs, massage parlours and love motels...a lovely combination.

I arrived at 1am in the morning, trunched through Kimberley Street and then up an extremely steep hill to my hotel, noting the location of the 7-eleven and supermarket along the way :)

The next day, I gathered from provisions from 7-eleven and headed out to find a route to Cathay City, Lantau. That took the bulk of the day, and I had many many asian breads (alas I forgot to taken photos, but I had everything from a breadshop - $125 HK). The trip to Cathay City wasn't so bad after all, only1 hour minimum by MTR.

D-Day
Not much to say about it really. 5 x 1 hour exams starting from 8:30am. Was almost dead after the interview which was 2 hours after the exams. Bought 5 instant cup noodles and Yakult and retreated back to my hotel.

Nothing like a balanced diet...

R&R

Yay! After a decent night's sleep, I headed out for my day and a half of R&R. Started off with converting my ID card into the new smartcard system. Then I had lunch with a someone's mom (who bought some stuff for me to carry home...grr Grace and your bloody handbags!) and we end up chatting for about an hour and a bit over lunch. A quick trip back to the hotel (and yay I bought some long sleeve tops from ES on the way back) and I was ready for my dinner meeting with BIG SIS!

Last call at the airport

We had yummy sushi at Iyame Sushi and then went shopping! Boy has Giordano changed! The clothes definitely look better now :) With jeje's help I managed to find jeans and cargoes that I had been looking for!

The next day Big Sis took me around TST for lunch and some candy shopping (guys you have to thank her for all those quirky lollies I brought home). We finished the day at the airport.

Interesting things

Anyone think pasta and steak is too much for lunch?

How about Smoked Cheese Squid???

Slimming candy!

Collagen Chocolates???

Flight out

Flew premium economy back to Sydney! The difference between economy and premium is too much :) But it was definitely a comfortable ride, met a really nice guy called Bolan who was returning from Spain.

I'll write up something more later. But now I'm too tired.

Calvin