We took the MTR into Shen Zhen with Gooma. The ride is only 45minutes.I don’t really know what it is like in China, because we just stayed in the mall that is right outside the customs. The mall is like Pacific Mall but 5 floors tall.

When we arrived at the border we had to go to the “Foreigners” entrance and get through customs. And then meet back up with Gooma, which was difficult because there are multiple exits and you are not supposed to go back in to the terminal once you have left. We were outside waiting and I could see Gooma inside, so as I tried calling to her, the security guard became very cross with me. So eventually Ed had to sneak in to get Gooma. I was worried about getting in trouble if I got caught.

We had dim sum when we arrived as we waited for the stores to regain electricity. This was dim sum #3, Gooma was worried we would get sick of it, but there is no way. My favourite dish was the ginger steamed milk. And surprisingly they didn’t have any hot mustard.

We found the cheong sam store that Gooma’s friends recommended. We found a great material that was left behind by some other foreigner for my dress. It will be ready on Tuesday for a fitting. We also got Ed a jacket and pants made for the tea ceremony.

Then the shopping frenzy began. Gooma had a list given to her from her friends for the best places to go, so we sought those out and we were happily surprised. The first shoe store we were in, the sales girl walked us quite far to a bedding store and behind a big box was a door to another room. Inside this room were “brand” name shoes that cannot be seen by the police because they have labels on them. Everything was there Yves Saint Laurent, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Versace, Chanel, etc. They had to run back and forth to where ever their warehouse was to get the shoes, which took a long time. Gooma used this to her advantage when bargaining. The final sale was $700 Yuan for 3 pairs of shoes and a t-shirt. I got red “Gucci” pumps and Ed got a t-shirt.

Next we got 20 socks for $200; the original offer was 8 pairs for $100.

Another shoe store, the store looked closed from the front, with their windows covered. There weren’t any fake labels here that I had heard of; but lots of shoes none the less. I got away with a pair of grey boots.

Next target, a purse store where Gooma selected several gifts for Christmas presents and I tried to find a purse for Mom but there weren’t any nice ones really, so I will have to keep looking. I did get a brown leather purse though.

Ed started noticing the mass amounts that I was accumulating and started looking. The store next door had fake Abercrombie and AE but nothing really spectacular.

On to the next store, my favourite, it was truly ghetto. I spotted several patterns of “Le Sportsac”and was suspicious that if they can make fake “LV” and “Gucci”, how they cannot have “Le Sportsac”. And I was right, turns out the ones they show with all the fake words on them are just for show. So I was asked to pick a few models and colours I liked and then a girl would go get them. So I figured she would go to storage somewhere. Then she climbed up the shelves and into the ceiling!!!! She had to move a ceiling panel and go in, slide the panel back over and then someone would put a purse back on the shelf. It was truly amazing. I picked out 3 bags, I could have easily picked 10, and Gooma bargained from $480 to $180. I would have paid $300. What an amazing deal.

Finally, we stopped to have an afternoon snack, Peking Duck. First and second course and then we were stuffed. Then before we left we used the facilities, I peed in a toilet bowl in the ground, twice!

And I finally found Starbucks mugs, one Hong Kong and one China, the mugs in HK are espresso cups. So I am happy to have found the full size mugs.

It was a very productive day!

We came home to rest and ended up staying in the night.

We met Gooma and Mah Mah for dim sum. Gooma wanted to show
Mah Mah just how clever Ed is with his knowledge of Chinese words, so she gave
him the order sheet and told him to order 5 dishes. We picked out the chung
fun, the har gao and si long bao. Then we had to order, cause it was taking us
too long, so Gooma just picked a few more. But we continued to look at the
order sheet to try and figure out more words. They were both impressed with our
deductive skills and are convinced Ed is more Chinese than me.

Then we walked to Sogo to check out their anniversary sale.
We bought some Puma stuff on sale. And Gooma researched what bags Mom might
like; the one I picked out was $1900HK.

Then it was time for my facial and massage which lasted 4
hours with a shower in between to kill some time. Ed met up with his friend
Bettina and they went out for snacks.

Nathan came to meet us for dinner, Bettina took us to a
Shanghai style restaurant where we had a 4 person set meal.

Again we did not have bubble tea. It is not as common as we
thought it would be.

By the way, I love sleeping with “The American”, who I have
named Frank; he makes me look forward to coming home at night.

Ed has given up on the Starbucks game at a score of 11 to
-1….HAHAHAH!!!! I rule at that game 😛

We met Gooma for dim sum at 8am. We had our typical fix. Then Gooma said she would take us to the famous egg tart restaurant, which turned out to be the same as the pineapple bun place we went to yesterday for breakfast. We had egg tart, a new bun and milk tea.

Then Gooma gave us a tour of Kowloon city as she went to get groceries at the market. Driving in Hong Kong is crazy and it was hard to get over driving on the other side of the road.

After spending the morning with Gooma we ventured off on our own. We went to Diamond Hill MTR station to go to the Chi Lin Nunnery, which is built entirely without nails. It was quite breath-taking and again there was a park against a backdrop of the city.

Following the nunnery, we decided to take the MTR to the total other end of the city to Tung Choi station to go on the cable cars and to see the Big Buddha. And we found the ONLY outlet mall in the city! Ed bought a pair of pumas. I was not as fortunate.

The cable car ride was very high and with the wind, I was quite scared at times. But it was well worth it. The views were amazing and to see the Big Buddha in the distance was neat. We made our way to Ngong Ping and walked to the Big Buddha in record time. We also visited the Po Lin Monastery which was not as nice as the Chi Lin Nunnery.

We met Kaufu for dinner at Pacific Place mall, which is near his office at the Police Headquarters. We had dinner at a nice Italian restaurant, we shared fettuccini nere ( black pasta with cream sauce and shrimp), risotto with goose liver (recommended by Kaufu), gnocchi with smoked salmon (this was my favourite), peking duck pizza (better than Café Deco’s, more duck) and Caesar salad and then apple tart with ice cream and tiramisu. All was very yummy and fatty and put our exercise to good use!

We didn’t have bubble tea again.

The Starbucks game score is at 8 to -1.

I woke up this morning at 3am and finally again at 6:50am. During my 3am wake up, I strategized how to make the bed more comfortable. The bed is like sleeping on a board. I will ask for 5 extra blankets to be put under the sheets. I also thought about asking for 20 towels, this of course was 3am…

So on our way out, I was completely prepared to put up a big huff about how hard our bed was and how unbearable it was going to be for 13 more days. I found the same guy that had checked us in and got us our new room. I said “Our bed is hard”, he says “One Moment, please, I will call housekeeping.” So I think to myself that we are going to have to move rooms again for the third time, which would certainly set a record for rooms switched in one trip. He comes back and says, “ Housekeeping has to move ‘The American’ from another room, but it will be there by this afternoon,” I picture they are going to put a big fat white guy on our bed…what a sight that would be.

We leave and head to the pineapple bun place that Nathan showed us and wait patiently for the pineapple buns to be ready; and in broken Chinese I ordered 2 pineapple buns with butter and 2 milk teas! I was quite proud.

We begin our day of walking. We venture down Nathan Rd to the Star Ferry, along the way we stop in shops and find our first Pacific Coffee Company for some internet. We also stop in a few city parks and aviary. After chatting with mom and others and emailing, we get to the Ferry. We take the Ferry to Central. Then from Central terminal we wandered up and down through Central. We go to the Zoological and Botanical Garden, which has mostly monkeys and lemurs. Then we walk to the Peak Tram station.

I was impressed with the resources and effort put into having and maintaining the parks and rest areas in the city. Each place we visited had maintenance people working either cleaning or pruning. It is interesting how in a city where everyone is fast paced and stressed that they put work into parks and yet do people really use them? I like green space within a city, it is quite the oasis.

At the Peak, we go to Mom and Dad’s last Hong Kong date spot before Mom left for Canada. We take pictures galore and walk the scenic walk. We have Peking duck pizza and spinach and ricotta ravioli, this cost 10x what our pineapple buns did. We go to the Sky Terrace and wait for the night time light show, which turns out to be less spectacular than I remember.

We make our way from Central to Tsim Sha Tsui to find Granville Street, we made success at the Bossini outlet. And walk to Jordan station and head back to our hotel area.

Near the hotel, Ed has a huge hotpot meal to himself and we each have a strawberry lactic fleecy.

Now I am beat, but thoroughly enjoying ‘The American’!!!!!

We woke up refreshed from our sleep in Tokyo, there were two separate beds, but they were very comfortable. Sadly the hotel was far from anything, so we didn’t actually venture out of the hotel. We didn’t even get to shop in the gift shop, because it was closed the whole time we were there.

After a quick breakfast and check out, we were on our way again to Hong Kong. The Cathay Pacific flight was far superior to the NWA flight. I finally got a little television to myself; sadly I didn’t notice it working till half way through the flight, so I only caught half of Mamma Mia. We both had chicken curry, since they ran out of the beef I asked for, but it was yummy. I really liked it. And then Ed was flabbergasted when they gave us ice cream bars!!!! I will always try and fly Cathay Pacific to Asia from now on.

Safely in Hong Kong, we made our way to our hotel. After checking in, we were brought to a room with two beds and told that we could change rooms tomorrow. I accepted that. But then I wanted more, give us something free, internet, would have been easy. So I called the front desk and asked for it, and the damn receptionist said that they don’t have a record of my booking a double bed and to bring proof. So I brought my trusty expedia print out and bam we were moved to another room. Our new room is on the 13 floor, you have to get off on 12 and walk up, because the elevator doesn’t come here.

Nathan came to our hotel to get his stuff and to go out for walk and dinner. We walked to the Ladies Market; we were overwhelmed with the crowds and language barrier a little. We had bubble tea #1, dinner at “Eat Together”, and started investigating and absorbing what the Night Market had to offer.

We fell asleep at 9:45pm, tomorrow our goal is one hour later.

So before our flight, I was anticipating the long journey (23hours) to be painful. We started our flights at 9:15am in Toronto and were expected to land in Hong Kong at 10:55pm. We flew to Detroit with no trouble, and then in Detroit we hit a little snafu. After we boarded the plane in Detroit, Ed and I had fallen asleep in anticipation of taking off, only to wake up and find we were still on the tarmac. Then the pilot announced that there was a problem closing the cargo door and the engineers were working on it. So we fell asleep again and alas woke up still on the tarmac, now the pilot’s announcement said we had to de-plane because they could not fix the door and that we were to switch planes. After getting off, I asked the attendant at the counter if there was going to be an issue for our connecting flight in Tokyo to Hong Kong. He was concerned at first because we were the only two making that connection , but the plane we were on to fly to Tokyo, was in fact the same plane going to Hong Kong, so there wouldn’t be an issue. Sigh of relief. So after getting on to the next plane, and travelling the 12 hour flight, we had arrived in Tokyo and were looking to board our next plane, we were now 4 hours behind schedule. We shortly realized this was not looking good for us to be getting to Hong Kong tonight; our flight had left without us.

Northwest made arrangements for us and the 75 other guests to stay at Radisson Hotel for the night and catch new flights in the morning. Our new flight was Cathay Pacific, so I was ok with that. And now we were spending a night in Tokyo! To make our adventure more exciting we started a game of Amazing Race. We marked a target of another couple (they didn’t know we were playing though) and we started collecting clues to get to the check point. Our first clue the new flight info, next to get through customs, next find the red jacket Radisson ladies to get our bus tickets, this is when the other couple were neck and neck with us. But we made it to the bus and to the hotel counter before them! After checking in, we went for our complimentary dinner buffet and beat the other couple. Success for the night!

Back in our hotel room, we were having difficulty connecting to the internet. Neither end of the cable was plugged into a modem. At the front desk, we asked for the code and for some assistance, since the cable jack was nowhere in sight. So a nice busgirl came with us to our room, she was just as confused, and called a maintenance guy to come. He started looking around and opened up the top dresser drawer to access the other dresser draw and then opened it with a screw driver. Then Ed spent time on the phone with a tech person, since the maintenance guy didn’t actually know how to connect the internet. Finally we were connected for 700 yen for the night. And I made a long distance phone call for an unknown amount of money. In the morning when we checked out, there were no charges, I guess NWA picked it all up, woot! Should have called home L

We are finally engaged, so all the planning is becoming real!

I am already spinning from all the choices and options and possiblities.