Hong Kong Day 2 (24 Dec)

it's the long awaited christmas eve. got out of bed pretty late, around 9ish. the weather in hong kong now is really conducive for sleeping in. *bleah* shirleen woke up early and headed to the supermarket to get the ingredients for her chicken stew for the house party we were attending for the night. tried to be of some help with her preparation (not much actually *laughs*) as we were looking at a packed schedule for the day. it was a little past 11 when she finished her last step of preparation.

changed and made our way to causeway bay by MTR. shirleen bought me the egg tart along the way. she has been going on about it since she stepped foot on the island. it was close to an adrenaline rush when i took the 1st bite. i've never tasted anything like that in singapore. the crust was baked to the right texture and the egg custard was as soft as tofu. simply yummy! it was a short ride from wan chai to causway bay. headed to ikea to do furniture shopping for shirleen's almost empty hall. our 1st mission was to get the right sofa. right design, measurement, colour, fabric and softness included. took her more than half an hour before making her final decision. it was a tough choice i would say. 2nd mission was to get a dining table. if you think sofa was not easy, dining table was much worse. when she finally made her choice, we found out to her dismay that the table she wanted wasn't available in the desired colour! so much for even picking the right chairs to go with the table. it irritated her so much that she decided to forsake the table for the time being. 3rd mission was to get miscellaneous stuff such as cutlery, laundry basket, dustbins for her apartment.

left ikea around 3 and we went on to find the 许留山 that is supposed to have 2 outlets in causeway bay. as shirleen tried to google it on her blackberry, i saw the familiar signboard right across the street. *happiness* had our then favourite mango dessert with different flavours.

made our way to pacific place for the next round of shopping. a crazy sale is on at mango but i've stopped liking their not-so-appealing apparels since some time back. zara has got pretty nice stuff that interests me but the store is not offering any discount. went in to a number of boutiques, kate spade, coach, louis vuitton.. can't seem to find anything that i had a need to buy there and then. decided to head down to the supermarket, great food hall, to complete the rest of the grocery shopping for the chicken stew and the mojito that i'm supposed to concoct. shirleen said it's her favourite supermarket and i will know why when i get in. the 1st thing that hit me was, the queue at the cashier was amazingly long. i guess many people were doing last minute christmas shopping like us. the place provides a huge variety of food which impresses me and the food looks good for supermarket standards. as expected, we digressed and spent a good time at the cheese section. bought 100g of blue cheese and another 100g of soft cheese (which i cannot remember the name). decided that we should get on to serious business. quickly grabbed the mint leaves, limes, soda water, plain flour and bread and made our way to queue for payment. to our surprise, the waiting time was pretty short as many people had only a few items i suppose. juz as we stepped out of pacific place, shirleen suddenly exclaimed "we forgot the brown sugar!". as both of us were too lazy, we decided to give up mojito for the night.

took us about 15 minutes to walk back to her area. settled ourselves at the 茶餐厅, king food restaurant, right below her apartment. we had the most unsatisfying meal which was a waste of our calories. the fries and egg salad sandwich was not worth the price that we paid. nevertheless, shirleen enjoyed her iced water cress drink which everyone has in hong kong.

it was already 6 when we went up to shirleen's place to check if they had delivered the correct mattress as the previous one was too small for the frame. to her delight, they changed it for her and she finally gets a proper and comfortable mattress to rest on. spent some time trying to get her mattress protector and bedsheets on as the dimensions are now a little too big for the frame. she went on to complete her chicken stew task while i lazed around. *bleah* by 730, we were ready to get out of the house but not so ready. she had to get a sushi party set for her friend, jess who was still working at that hour on christmas eve. how unfortunate. however, the sushi place below her place does not offer party sets and it's not economical to order ala carte. hence, we decided to order pizzas from across the street. waited a good 20 minutes before the pizzas were ready and we set off to the mid levels.

we reached seymour road slightly past 8 and were greeted by the hosts, edward and joanne, and the rest of the guests. as everyone was hungry by then, we did not wait for jess to arrive to start on the big feast. there were loads of food and wine, good food and wine. it was a great pot-luck dinner. ed offered each of us a chocolate which had a message in it and mine says "to love a person is to learn the song that is in their heart". i knew almost immediately what is the song i have to learn. *bleah* spent the rest of the night chatting and watching dvd with everyone. the show that we caught (which i couldn't remember the title) was silly and lame, had a good laugh though, and everyone else did. left the place around 2am. it was indeed a christmas eve to remember, my 1st christmas eve out of town.