Move over GTL, I got TKLP

There is one thing I truly hate about Korea. Something that bugs me almost daily, and something that I can not seem to escape... Laundry. Yes, I've been known to hate laundry my entire life. It most likely comes from the inner princess in me, who had her mother doing her laundry until she moved out. But even then when I had the occasional laundry duties I knew it wasn't my style. After I moved out at the ripe old age of 17, my hatred grew primarily from separating the colors and whites, but luckily I soon discovered that I truly do not care if my whites aren't white. I then moved on to crying over the folding/putting away process. What should be folded? Why do I have to match socks? Why are there 400 different types of hangers?

By the time I moved here there was no way to keep up with such fussing when I had bigger problems; The Korean Laundry Process, TKLP for short.

Where to begin? Let's start at the root of the problem, the simple cost of laundry detergent seems to be significantly larger than it was back home, on top of that I can't even read the labels to see what sort of product they're offering at such an obscene rate! By the time I take the 10lb bag of over priced white powder home I'm then faced with problem number two, reading the buttons on the machine. Being the diligent Korean learner that I am (ha!) I took out my dictionary and attempted to decode the 15 different buttons on my machine. Much to my dismay the dictionary was lacking in any type of "laundry machine to English" section so I said fuck it and decided to move onto phase two of TKLP and asked my director to help me.

She arrived ready to conquer her one task, then gave it a quizzical look, pressed random buttons and said "okay that's it." What she pressed? I don't know. So I went ahead and asked, "What did you press?"

"I don't know, just press this" she said. By doing so my clothes came out with the white clumps of detergent all over them and phase three of TKLP ensued. Now this phase was about as logical as the war in Iraq but fortunately had a much better outcome. I simply decided to press buttons in any random order and hope for the best. I was quite lucky and during my very first try I pressed one button three times and then the start button and I came out with the perfect result a mere 63 minutes later. Man I'm good.

I'm not finished, but there is a silver lining to this story. See, when the washing machine stops it doesn't mess around with an annoying beep. Oh no, the washing machines in TKLP have a lovely song that plays for a good minute after it's done. But secretly I think it's them telling you, for a very long time, GO HANG YOUR LAUNDRY NOW OR ELSE YOU'RE GOING TO LET IT SIT FOR THREE DAYS AND ACQUIRE THAT MILDEWY SMELL.

That brings me to Phase... Four? I don't know, I lost count in my pointless rambles. But let it be known that this phase, whatever the number may be, is the ultimate worst. This phase is the one that can make or break TKLP: Phase Hang Dry. As I've noted before, there have been a handful of times that my extreme hatred for hanging my clothes has hindered my abilities to do so, thus resulting in days passing and stinky clothes cumulating in a dingy wet washing machine. And finally when you decide that yes, YOU CAN hang your laundry it's too late. It needs another wash to clean the stank out. But, if you're lucky, and you've had a productive day, and you're not too tired you might just be able to hang it up, in the middle of your kitchen, amongst your dirty dishes and toaster oven before it becomes too late. Those are the days I pray for.

On to Phase Five, the waiting period. This can differ depending on the temperature, humidity, season, and general airiness of your hanging area. My current apartment is equipped with a built in outdoor balcony hanging rack. This may seem like the ideal place to hang your clothes, but once again TKLP has fooled us. There are a few cons to this location. Number one: it's not at all close to the washing machine, so carrying your wet, cold, wet, cold, did I mention wet and cold, clothes over there can be a hassle. The second problem with this location is it is connected to someones bedroom (currently mine) so if my roommate was in need of her clothes at an untimely hour she'll be shit out of luck. The third and most important issue with the balcony dryer is it's complete take over of a very nice, and smokable area. I know, I know, smoking is bad, and I almost always stick to doing it while drinking. But there are times, on a random Wednesday night when my roommate and I indulge on a cigarette on the balcony. But noooo, this can not be done if there are clothes hanging to dry because then we have to start all over with TKLP and that, my friends, is not worth the one cigarette. Not to mention the multiple health and economic effects of smoking, but I'll save that for a different post. Let's get back to the main problem here, the drying time. Those of you back in America take your dryer for granted. Are your clothes a bit wrinkly? Stick em in the dryer! Want to wear that cute outfit in a few hours? Wash and dry in less than two! In Korea, you have to plan your outfits at least a day in advance because it takes a minimum of 24 hours to dry.

After the drying phase is completed you are left with crusty, wrinkled versions of your clothes. You must then choose to iron your entire wardrobe or say, "Fuck it" and wear wrinkly clothes for the extent of your time in Korea. As you can imagine, I've been wrinkly since December 2009.

Next comes my original problem with laundry: hanging and folding. We all know the drill there. It's annoying, takes too long, etc etc. It's the same as America minus the space. I now have to fit my entire wardrobe in a closet that's about 3 feet wide with only two drawers for folding. It's only broken once but I feel after my shopping spree in Berlin I'll have to start searching for another method of clothing storage.

Finally, after putting everything away TKLP is done. But there are a few more laundry gripes I must express before finishing up. This involves the inability to rewear clothes. You know, if you wear some jeans one night, and they're not dirty, and it was only a few hours... You just can't do that here for two different reasons. Everywhere is smoky and in the summer the humidity will make you sweat within seconds of being outside. So TKLP is an unavoidable for anyone who cares about basic hygiene!

After careful consideration and this thorough analysis I have now placed TKLP among the top 10 things I hate to do, but have to do anyways. The first one of course is dealing with Maya, the angel of death, but coming in at a close second is TKLP. Soon to arrive on this list will probably be blogging because if you haven't noticed by now, I've run out of things to talk about. But, being the college graduate that I am, I've mastered the art of bull shitting. So until next time, be thankful for your dryer and all the soft wrinkle-less quick drying clothes it has provided you.

The Gwangju Scavenger Hunt

So, yet again it's been another month since my last update. What can I say? I'm a boring gal. The biggest news is probably my school. We finally moved into a sparkling new building about the same distance from my apartment. The school has just been remodeled and it looks great. It is a bit smaller than our previously small school, but we only have a few students anyways. My work times have changed a bit lately too, now it's 10:20-6:20 and I can't complain. Most evenings have been spent going to the gym or watching endlessly large amounts of bad television. I haven't played the guitar much or studied Korean. I think my mind is only allowed one extracurricular activity at a time or else I just explode. I keep trying to wake up early and do Yoga, but the idea of being able to sleep longer, even if I'm not tired is too enticing. And this is why I must always have a morning job.

This weekend was a goodun' though. Well, I at least took pictures and lets face it, looking at my pretty face is what keeps you 4 readers coming back. No really though, there are a few good shots around the city because this weekend we did the Gwangju Scavenger Hunt. I wasn't too sure what exactly it entailed besides having a team of 5, a team name, and some kind of run around the city looking for shit. It turns out we had to look for places around the city and take pictures of ourselves in it. So around 1pm the "Gwangju Raiders" consisting of Fliss, Emilie, Skip, Andrew, and I set out to win! Actually, I lie. We set out to have a nice stroll around while we watched everyone running hysterically to win, including our close friends and opposing team, "Team Fighting." Because let's face it, we are not the most motivated bunch, even if there is $500 bucks involved. Some of the clues were easy, some were hard. We had to look for some main monuments, or take certain styles of pictures, or pictures with things found around the city. Within about 5 minutes of the start time the team made a joint decision to stop at a corner store and buy beer. And this is why our team was awesome. Here is a few examples of what we did:

This was near the end, we thought there was something about a picture with a fish... maybe?

Also some kind of clue about looking at a map, also probably wrong.

A pagoda in the city, Charlie's angels style.

The statue of liberty, just tilt your head to the side.

We found bamboo!

Abbey Road style pic across the river.

The wedding couple dressed in all white, senior picture style.

One of the many bridges

All of us had to squeeze into a phone booth, one of many throughout the city. They actually work too!

That random red old school car by the wedding place?

And this was the beginning, while we were still bright eyed and bushy tailed.

Afterwards both teams were starving so we set out to find a bite to eat, preferably outside while the weather was still nice. Unfortunately the outdoor upper level patio we found was shaded, and in a pretty bad wind tunnel so most of the people froze. Being that I'm from Minnesota and was wearing a sweater I was fine, but as you can see the Southern boys didn't do so well:

Lovely Erica, on the opposing team, posing with her blanket cuz she was so cold.

Emily had one too many to drink by the time she hit her second beer.

Skip was cold, so I let him use my orange shirt as turban, obviously.

After dinner the group decided to take a stroll by down the dirty ass river and bull shit and have some more beer. Walking towards the river we randomly ran into Kelsey so she joined our group as we discussed pressing matters, like which K-Pop group was the best/worst.

Krish and the boys sitting by the river, contemplating the events of the day.

Oh smelly water, how we enjoyed sitting near you..

Dear Kids, don't drink the water!

Kelsey found us and I took a picture!

By the time our group was ready to leave it was only about 6pm. But we were all half buzzed and ready for some karaoke, so German bar it was! Us and another group of foreigners took over the mic for a good two hours before heading over to Speakeasy for some pool. The rest of the night was a singing, drinking mess as always. I'll spare you the details, though I'm not sure that I know them...

And in the next episode of drunken shit Molly does in Korea: Camping at Biguemdo on the first of May and very soon we will have Berlin/Moscow/Sweden! HOORAY

A Quick Update

So I managed to thoroughly jinx myself in the last update. Not only did I get sick again (this time some horrendous bronchitis like cough) but my school is still going through some moving limbo. At the moment we have currently moved our entire school into her other school upstairs. Everything necessary to teach kindergarten is packed away and I am left with dirty old plain rooms and no supplies or games to occupy these two maniacal children.

On top of that, this school only has squatters, so I just have to pray to god that I don't have to shit during the day. On the plus side, the fear of having to somehow aim my poop into a hole in the ground has disrupted any desire to go out for drinks on a work night. God I hope we move soon.

Anyways, I've missed a handful of updates because I've spent most of my Saturday mornings being busy and I have less breaks at school. But this evening I randomly decided to look through some old facebook albums of the last year, and I was feeling nostalgic, reflective, and urged to write something down so I will be able to remember this experience in more than just pictures.

This last Saturday I said farewell to Dom. Once again I was faced with the inevitable harsh goodbyes that come with living abroad. This one was especially hard. In a way I feel like she has been my little sister. I was the first person she met here, through this blog actually. I watched her change in many ways, like we all do, but I feel like she became a better person everyday. Not that she wasn't already, but maybe it's just the more you know someone, the better they are. Also, I managed to have one of the meanest, funniest, most honest relationships with her, which is something I will be thankful that my time in Korea has given me.

Fliss and I stayed at her house the night before, had a few drinks, a few welled up eyes, but the real waterworks happened at the bus station. It may have been due to my period, but the amount of tears I managed to gush out for that gal was unbelievable. I spent the rest of the day feeling sluggish, partly due to my slight hangover, and obviously the rest due to my sadness of her departure.

Luckily, we had a good last month, and I will attempt to quickly rehash the goodness. A few weeks ago we had a Noraebang record. Not only did we enter the noraebang sober, but we managed to stay in there for more than 4 hours, and undoubtedly exit ridiculously drunk, and all of this before midnight! This noraebang was a special one though, and our new favorite. It's the second floor of a building and there's windows all around so we had a good time dancing in them. We also found a magic drawer of props that made for a good photo session. See below:

WOoohooo!

Window dancing!

Theres a special surprise in the back, haha.

After that mess I made my way to say one last good bye to Chris and Lucy. Quite possibly Korea's cutest couple (and now engaged). They are heading off on an amazing 6 month tour of the Americas and I'm looking forward to their pictures, updates, and finally their lovely faces when they return!

The next weekend I attended my very first soccer game. We rallied the troops for a little tailgating (minus the cars to tailgate in) outside of the stadium as Koreans stared. Fliss and I went to the Lotte Mart right next to the stadium and found some cute wine juice boxes to consume, which turned out to be a pretty disgusting plan. I barely paid attention to the game, I was more concerned with socializing with the giant crowd of foreigners that managed to all find each other. One group even had a sign saying "Foreigners love Gwangju Soccer". We won the game, I took a few pictures with my new camera, and then we headed off to my favorite duck restaurant that's right by the stadium.

The clown made Krish a whole array of accessories

Wine Juicebox

The next weekend Dom gathered the best of the best for a goodbye dinner and her final weekend in Gwangju. As can be expected there was mayhem, bonding, laughs, and oodles of booze. Heres a few pics of our amazingly good looking and silly crew:

So, that's the extent of my updating abilities for the night. I hope everyone back home is doing well, I'll be making a skype round sometime soon. I don't have too many exciting things in the upcoming weeks. Just hoping to get the school stuff sorted, find Dom a job in Korea and get her back asap (though I don't think she's 100% on this scheme of mine) and continue life over here in Korea.

The end of an era

Yes, the time has come. My kindergarten students graduated. This is quite the big deal, because they are basically my pride and joy at my school. For those of you that don't know, my day is broken up in two parts: Kindergarten teacher, and after school "tutor." Every morning, from 9:30-2:05 I have worked with the same handful of students teaching them everything from the basic ABC's to math, science, and even manners. I have had help of course, my first was a Korean teacher who chose to primarily speak to them in Korean or a terrible English accent, then Oliver, Emily, and now Fliss. But I can't help but feel that I have been the biggest influence on them and as a result I feel even prouder.

In preparation for the big graduation day we had spent the last three weeks working on our ceremony. The students memorized speeches which they wrote themselves. Initially I was a bit disappointed in the content of their speeches. They seemed to only focused on their favorite colors and their longing desire to own their very own cheetahs, but then I realized that they are 7 and we can't all be as well spoken as I am. In all actuality the content was hilarious and really long and they did an amazing job memorizing them. Fliss also helped them to memorize their very own Role Play skits, "At the store" and "At school". Lastly was song and dance. I choreographed my very first song, I'm not going to lie, I should definitely stick with my day job. I also taught them the infamous "Down by the Bay" which probably wasn't the best idea because the students had to memorize a handful of tongue twisters like, "Have you ever seen an octopus dancing with a platypus?" I also strummed a few chords on the guitar while they sang this, unfortunately I managed to fuck it up mid-song so I think I should definitely stay away from a future in music in every way.

Moments before the big ceremony I decided I wanted to memorize a little speech of my own. So with the help of one of my older students I repeated about 5 sentences in Korea, words I'd never heard before, and it was a disaster. For all I know they couldn't even understand me over my stutter and terrible accent, but they clapped, and I felt kind of proud.

Andy

Lisa

Jake

Tommy

Amy

All together the graduation was a success. What hasn't been a success is the new kindergarten students I've acquired. I went from having 6, almost fluent, well behaved 7 year olds that loved me to two little shits. Well, one really. The other one is too small to be too much of a shit. I'd say he's about 3 years old. The other one is probably 4 or 5 and she is the devil. Her name is Maya, she has a cell phone, and an attention span of approximately one hour. After that she's done. I have to spend 4 hours with her. During this time she screams if I come close, cries, throws fits, and is generally really fucking annoying. She is the bane of my existence and has whole heartedly solidified the fact that I will never, ever, ever reproduce.

Since graduation a few weeks ago I've been unlucky enough to be ill twice and hurt once. I came across some kinda flu/food poisoning for a handful of days. Then I got a mean case of tonsillitis, most likely caused from a 4 hour noraebang session that included at least one or more packs of cigarettes. Finally, during my jaunt to work I rolled my ankle. It hurt like hell, was okay for a day, and after going to the gym later that night felt as if I was going to have to personally cut my foot off to alleviate the pain. However, I can finally say that I am currently in good condition.

I have loads more to write about the last few weeks, but I'll post this one, maybe add pictures, and try to remember the rest for another post!

Hong Kong - Friday & Saturday

"Where am I?"

"What happened last night?"

"Ugh."

That was the general consensus on Friday morning. Luckily, I have a sparkling memory and was able to inform my cohorts of their ridiculousness the night before. We also had a handful of pictures to document the night, not to mention Fliss' ridiculously dirty post kebab shirt.

But I'll try to make this day sound about as interesting as possible. Sadly, nothing could have been done to cheer this group up. Fliss had a few pukes, I was deathly hung over, and Em had a monthly visitor on top of a slight hang over. We were not a happy group of gals. However, we somehow made it out of the house around 2pm on a mission for food. Thai food to be exact. Luckily we were in Hong Kong where food of every variety was plentiful. We simply went on a two minute walk, ran across another out door patio, and plopped down. On top of the food being delicious, the sparkling water was a gift from God. For some reason Korean's don't believe in this magical beverage so I managed to consume as much as possible whilst in Hong Kong. What I didn't try to consume was the free desert the restaurant gave us. Apparently it was some special New Years pudding/jello that should be eaten for good luck. The consistency was unbearable and the flavor was mildly upsetting. As you can see by looking at it, "tasty" isn't an adjective I'd use to describe it.

After lunch Fliss opted to return for a little rest and Emilie and I walked around our neighborhood exploring all the little designer shops. The clothes came with sizes and price tags far outside of my range but it was still fun to see the different styles of Hong Kong. We went into stores that I've never even seen in Minnesota and window shopped at Louis Vutton, Vivian Westwood, Marc Jacobs, and Chanel to name a few. I still will never be able to grasp how people can spend so much money on clothes and bags. Maybe one day when I'm rich I'll understand...

By the time we met back up with Fliss, Emilie and I were ready for a little relax time. So a few hours later we finally headed out to Kowloon to see the Chinese New Year fireworks display. Once again we were surrounded by a mass of people. We were starting to get used to this cluster fuck.

After the fireworks we headed to one of the main bar/restaurant districts and contemplated what delicious dish to eat next. Mexican it was. The restaurant was a bit small but colored in the lovely deep yellows and reds that I have painted my own apartments plenty of times. On the down side the Paella I ate just wasn't that great. Massive amounts of sparkling water made up for it though. By the time we finished it was nearly 11pm and bed time was in order to prepare for our biggest day yet.

Saturday: We woke up bright and early and left the house by 9am. Our first mission was food and we thought the traditional Dim Sum would be a great start. We hopped on the Subway for the millionth time and headed to Kowloon again. We had planned to go to a very famous Dim Sum restaurant but being the Chinese New Year, it was closed. Who woulda thought? We walked around and it seemed like most places were closed, except this cute little out door shack noodle restaurant. We plopped down with three other Chinese people at a small plastic table and all ordered the meatball and noodle soup. It was a bit bland so Emilie grabbed the Chili oil, and then spilled it all over herself and the table. Surprisingly it turns out Chili oil is great for making your hands super soft!

We cleaned up, and eventually left for our first mission: The Giant Buddha. We had to walk down to the harbor and hitch a ferry over to Lantau Island. Once we arrived there we took another bus to the area where the temples and Giant Buddha were. Basically we spent a few hours wandering around, trying a few foods, observing the people doing their Buddha worshiping, and taking in the final day of the amazing weather.

Alright, I'm not going to lie, this blog has taken forever to finally write again and actually, I don't feel like typing. So, for the sake of me writing more blogs when more eventful stuff comes up, I'm going to just redirect you to Emilie's interpretation of the remaining of the trip, and I'll post some pictures, and try not to be so winded on my first half so I can finish a second half. Who knows, maybe I will some day...

Go here

http://emiliesasianadventures.blogspot.com/2011/02/fantastically-wonderful-hong-kong.html

Hong Kong - Wednesday & Thursday

Back to Gwangju, back to reality. After spending a few days in Hong Kong I've got the posttravel depression again (just like after Sweden). Korea just isn't as awesome. This is true. But this place gives me a lifestyle where I have the ability to go to Hong Kong for a few days, so I'll quit my bitching now. Okay. Done.

On to the good stuff. Where to start? I did so much in so little time, and now there is so much writing that I really don't want to punch out after only a few hours of sleep and a frightfully cold desk to type at. But I'm on my first break of the day, I have loads of crap to print out for the month, and this is probably the best way to spend my time.

Tuesday night: After much debate on leaving Tuesday to Seoul or Wednesday to the airport we finally agreed that going directly to the airport would be the most responsible and money saving plan. Unfortunately, since we had waited until last minute to finalize this plan we ended up having to leave around midnight to go to Seoul, to take a cab to the airport. A very smelly, expensive cab, to be exact. But after tolerating the sweet stench of dirty cab driver for 45 minutes we made it to the Incheon International Airport. It was probably around 5 am and Fliss, Emilie, and I were on little to no sleep, and I was suffering from extreme gas due to the cheap beer I consumed a handful of hours before. Not a good start.

The trip quickly turned around as we got inside the terminal and were reminded that there was a Subway sandwich shop somewhere inside that served a full subway menu. By full menu I'm actually emphasizing their turkey status, which was 100% fully stocked. So, at around 7 am the three of us were happily chowing down on the best foot long ever invented. I should seriously considering being the new spokesperson for them, fuck Jared.

After one bus, one cab, two airplanes, and a 6 hour layover in Shanghai we arrived in Hong Kong. Well, in the airport at least. Which is actually on a different island (though they all are closely connected). While we were walking down to catch our second bus of the trip, Emilie ran into some friends of hers from her hometown that had moved to Korea, that were also visiting Hong Kong. Seriously, I used to think bumping into people in Minneapolis made the world small, but now you know it really is! We chatted up with her friends throughout the bus ride, took some pictures, and Fliss gave us an oral tour guide of her vast collection of Hong Kong knowledge.

During the bus ride my initial impression was simply wow. Everything was very new, very clean, very high, very bright, and OH MY GOD WE'RE DRIVING ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD! Obviously because of Hong Kong's giant British influence they abide by many British rules. For instance going the wrong way on escalators and while driving, and having automated recordings on the subway constantly saying "please mind the gap."

Emilie drinking a beer in the airport.

Strolling around by our hostel

Cool looking Chinese money

Having an airport photo shoot

View from the bus

Ok, so let's stop here and talk a little bit more about Hong Kong because I know most of my American readers just assume a handful of things about China. Mainly that they own the world, make all of our stuff, and aren't allowed on Facebook. Parts of these assumptions are true, but Hong Kong is a different situation. After a quick Google search and a little copying and pasting I have some basic facts about this place:

Government:

-Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China. Following British rule from 1842 to 1997, China assumed sovereignty under the 'one country, two systems' principle. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region's constitutional document, the Basic Law, ensures that the current political situation will remain in effect for 50 years. The rights and freedoms of people in Hong Kong are based on the impartial rule of law and an independent judiciary.

Geography:

-At the south-eastern tip of China, Hong Kong covers Hong Kong Island, Lantau Island, the Kowloon Peninsula and the New Territories, including 262 outlying islands. Between Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula lies Victoria Harbour, one of the world's most renowned deep-water harbours.

• Total area: 1 104 square kilometres
• Land developed: less than 25%
• Country parks and nature reserves: 40%

Language:

-Chinese and English are the official languages of Hong Kong. English is widely used in the Government and by the legal, professional and business sectors. Trilingual professionals who speak English, Cantonese and Putonghua play a vital role in the numerous enterprises trading in Hong Kong or doing business with mainland China and Taiwan.

• Cantonese speakers: 88.7% of population
• Putonghua speakers: 1.1% of population
• Other Chinese dialect speakers: 5.8% of population
• English speakers: 3.1% of population
• Other language speakers: 1.3% of population

That's enough useful information, let's get back to the useless details of my daily trip itinerary.

Wednesday night: About an hour after riding our double decker bus through the city we arrived at our stop. Now we just had to figure out where the hostel was from there. Immediately I noticed all the name brand shops, delicious smelling restaurants, and massive amount of people trying to get through on the sidewalk. It was a cluster fuck unknown to my small town Gwangjuian self and I kinda liked it. When we located our hostel we went up with Emilie's friends and they tried to book a last minute room. We ended up paying half of what they were supposed to pay and I couldn't be happier that we booked ahead of time. Obviously there were a few down sides to the hostel. It was half the size of my old apartment, barely had any hot water, and the elevator up made me have a panic attack every time. On the plus side we were in the heart of it all and the view from our window was awesome. Oh yeah and it's super cheap.

The amazingness of our location was emphasized even more that night as we got out of our hostel to do our first sight seeing around 10:30 pm. It was a flower show in Victoria Park, a famous park just a few feet away from our hostel. As we approached the mass of people I started to not like the crowding so much. Not to mention I was dead tired, hungry, and generally beat after a day of traveling. But I took a few pictures, found my new fascination with taking pictures of children on their parents shoulders, and tried my first bite of Chinese street food. After about an hour pushing through the masses we all mutually agreed that it's best to go home, get some sleep, and save our energy for the next day filled of fun.

The view from our hostel

Cute kid on shoulders at the flower show
Haggling over the flower prices
Cute baby in gold.
Random bamboo that looked cool

The red balls that were hanging everywhere

Thursday: So let's just start by saying we did have set plans for everyday, but you know it's a good vacation if you just don't get everything done. Too much of what you had planned was interesting, or in our case on Friday we were just too hung over, because Thursday was awesome. But on Thursday we were out of the house by 10am and made our way to meet Emilie's friends on Kowloon, the island next to Hong Kong and explore the day with them. Once we arrived at the hotel we realized that we didn't know their last name and they weren't waiting outside as planned. My guess is they probably just got super lost the night before and opted to stay somewhere in sight. I know that I'm terrible with directions, and new cities, and foreign languages, and this place had all three combined. But English really was spoken everywhere, so that's no excuse. We waited a bit longer but decided to make our way to the subway.

A crowded mess of people on the Subway

Emilie and Fliss striking a pose

Our first stop was a famous temple in the middle of Hong Kong. We started walking towards the subway but got a bit side tracked by the shops and the fact that the weather was amazing and going underground was not. We decided to walk to the next subway stop instead and then Fliss told us that there was a Ladies Market very close to where we were. The word Ladies Market is more than enough to entice three girls on vacation with money burning a hole in their pocket. So we turned down a crowded alley way in between apartments and began our search for junk we can purchase in Hong Kong. Personally I only had one mission, buying a decent pair of shoes to walk in because I failed to pack a pair. As luck would have it this ladies market was filled with shoes and I purchased a pair of sandals and cute flats both for under $20 bucks. Fliss was a stickler with the discounts, she didn't even attempt to listen to their first price and staunchly demanded the "New Years discount" every time.

Buying shoes at the ladies market

A few random shots along our walk

Coolest trees just hanging out on the side of a busy street

The temple with a million people that we couldn't get to

This guy would not move. He wanted something in that store!

Meanwhile Emilie was searching for something a little more pricey than two shoes for $20 bucks. She asked Fliss, leader and queen of all Hong Kong knowledge, how to go about getting a good knock off bag and Fliss made it clear that we are in the land of fakes. Within seconds Middle Eastern men were coming up to us saying "hand bags, watches, hand bags, watches" and the girls opted to follow their purse yearning hearts and the Middle Eastern guys to sketchy apartments above the market. The first guy just took us up about 5 floors to look at a book filled with his current selection. Emilie wasn't satisfied, she wanted to touch and see all the bags first hand so we went back down. Next we followed a little lady to her tiny apartment and I got my first bout of purse envy. All of the purses were quite nice and my cheap ass almost crumbled and spent big bucks on a new one. Obviously, if anyone reading this knows me, you know I would never do such a thing. Instead I sat back and enjoyed the bargaining process. Emilie finally found the bag of her dreams and she got it for a pretty good price too!

Em is a little distraught after the shady purchase, but happy with her new bag!

Eventually we made it out of the ladies market and on to our original destination. But, being the Chinese New Year and all, this temple had quite the line. Or should I say mass of people crowded in front waiting to get inside. We all had enough people crunching the night before and decided that it'd just be better to get on with our day than waste it in line. So we wasted it in other ways. First, we went through a mall near by and found a place to eat, which was desperately needed after all that shopping. We didn't really know how it worked but it seemed to be a Chinese version of fast food. I unknowingly ordered two meals for myself because I thought everything was ala carte. After ordering came the hard part: finding a place to sit. This was probably my worst experience in Hong Kong. Basically after picking up the food you go look for a spot to sit, but there are none, so you walk around with your shaking tray and continue searching. Then we realized people just camp out in front of people who look like they're about to finish, so we tried that, and we even secured a table. THEN some bitch goes and sits down like milliseconds after "our" table gets up and claims that she has 4 people so she gets the table. What???? How do you even begin to argue that logic. WE WERE WAITING! We finally managed to find a table but it wasn't even sitting together. On top of that the food was terrible and this whole experience angered us for a good few minutes, until we discovered more shopping.

Actually we HAD to shop because we had about three hours until the parade and it wasn't worth going back home and coming back there. At the first place I found the camera bag of my dreams, a much better substitute for my fanny pack looking thing with straps. The excitement of the new purchase was then topped when we found exactly what I had been hoping to find... A bar/restaurant with a patio outside overlooking the skyline. We walked past it with envy knowing damn well the fanciness from its outward appearance far surpassed our budget. We walked back into the mall and saw a Starbucks and debated having a coffee there while we wait for the parade and then decided to fuck it and have an over priced drink. After situating ourselves on the lovely patio furniture we saw that the prices weren't all that bad and had a glass of wine. Then we had a bottle. Then we had another bottle. Then we had another bottle. Then they told us we have to leave in 20 minutes so Fliss ordered another bottle. Then Emilie lost her ability to walk and I was on cloud nine. We asked our waiter where to go for fun and we headed to the subway.

Right before we found the patio of our dreams

Fancy lit up bar on the patio

Where all the magic happened

And commence drunkeness

At this point Fliss took over my camera and took well over 100 pictures of us drunk walking through the quiet and calm subway. To our surprise we ended up running into that waiter of ours and he helped us find our way to the bars. As if that's what we needed! Or the the free margaritas we got for ladies night! Somehow we managed to stay out until 3am. The majority of the night was spent having Fliss run up to any white person and saying "You're ENGLISH!!!!" (because most Hong Kong expats are from England and she doesn't get to speak with many of her people in Gwangju) and Emilie saying "I just want to kiss someone!" Eventually she got just that, from a random boy walking down the street, and I got a kebab. Yes, a delicious, lamb filled kebab. The three of us drunkenly inhaled the rollup. Fliss managed to get most of it on her clothes as opposed to her in her mouth while I kept yelling "we need more sauce!!!" The night ended amazingly. Well almost. Minus the part where we got in a cab and Fliss insisted that they were ripping us off (for a whopping $2.00) and kept yelling at him "You're taking us in a circle, you're taking us in a fucking circle!" Once we got to the hostel Fliss ran out of the cab in a fuss. Emilie then offered to pay the cab driver in kisses and I subsequently left so I didn't have to view this exchange. By the time they all made it back to the door I was informed that the driver refused the kiss payment and Emilie reluctantly paid in cash. Cue bed time.