20th Day - Back to Japan

This morning I had to wake up real early. REAL EARLY. Like 5am early. OMG. So I took the taxi to the Central Airport Express Station and checked in my bags. I then took the Airport Express Train to the airport afterwards. I had these 3 jars of black bean sauce that my mother brought over from Taiwan that I had in my hand carry bag because I didn’t want them to break in my suitcase. However customs won’t let me bring it on the plane and won’t let me check them in at that point either, so they had to throw it away. What a waste… I was so unhappy about that.

Then I flew back on Northwest Airlines which wasn’t bad at all. No personal TV like Singapore Airlines or Cathay Pacific, but at least the flight was only a little over 3 hours. Then my friend picked me up and we spent another 2 hours on the train. It’s funny how the train ride from the airport itself is half the time of the plane ride already.
After we dropped off my luggage, we went to the Kawasaki station mall to have dinner. There were over 30 restaurants there and we couldn’t decided what we wanted to eat. Finally we came across this California Pizza Kitchen which is the same thing as the US, but we thought that we could try it since we haven’t had American food for a while.
The menu looked exactly the same and since we didn’t seem like we knew a lot of Japanese, we were handed the English menu. The color, size, weight and items were almost exactly the same as the US.
I basically ordered the same thing I would have ordered in the US.

Singaporean Shrimp Rolls
Milan Crispy Pizza
Fettuccini with Garlic Cream Sauce and Shrimp and Mushrooms.

It was the first time in Japan that I was truly full. I think I need Japanese food in American quantities LOL..

19th Day - MORE food - 3 meals in 5 hours!

This morning I woke up late and needed to rush to the bank to get some Yen. First I went to Citibank and the staff told me that they only had US Dollars and directed me to Hong Kong Bank across the street who directed me to another Hong Kong Bank 2 blocks away where I waited in line for 1 hour.

I left home and realized that I forgot my phone, so after I got the money I headed home to drop it off and pick up my phone. Not a bad idea at all though. Then I met up with my friend in Causeway Bay where I went to look at some stuff and then we took the bus to Central to go shop a little more, but before we went shopping, I needed to eat. Notice that it’s past 3pm and I still haven’t eaten yet? Ok so we went to this restaurant that is very famous for their Won Ton Noodles. I haven’t been here for many years, but could still remember how good the food was.
They don’t have a huge menu, and it is places underneath the glass on the table. Of course I ordered the Won Ton Noodle which was a very very small bowl for HK$25. The soup alone was HK$15 per bowl. Normally would need to eat at least 3 bowls of this. It comes with 4 pieces of Won Ton which sits at the bottom of the bowl when they serve it, so I flipped it over to take a picture of it so you can see. Immediately after we were done with lunch, we went up this building across the street from Landmark above Shanghai Tang to have afternoon tea at the China Tee Club. You have to be a member to go to this place. For afternoon Tea, you have 2 options – High Tea Set or the Dim Sum Tea Set. The High Tea Set included Rich Tea Scones with Real Devonshire Clotted Cream and Fruit Preserve, an assortment of sandwiches, tarts, cookies and cakes. The Dim Sum Tea Set came with dim sum like Hargau, Siu Mai, Beef Ball and Glutinous Rice. The place was quite comfortable and very suitable for chatting. There were quite a few other foreigners also.

We ordered milk tea with the food and I picked the High Tea Set while my friend ordered the Dim Sum Tea Set so I can take pictures of both hahaha.
After eating and shopping at the Landmark, we took the MTR over to Mong Kok on the Kowloon side to go to the cell phone building where they had over 50 small shops which only sold cell phones. I didn’t want to be like snapping pictures all over the place and it was quite crowded, but as you can see in the pictures that all stores had these glass counters displaying hundreds of phones. Imagine the 3 story building filled with ONLY these stores. Heaven for me hahaha…

Afterwards we went to the Mongkok Computer Center where we looked at some computer stuff before we headed off to dinner.

We went to the Hong Kong Aviation Club to have dinner. You have to be a member to enter and in order to be a member, you have to have a pilot license. It’s very funny how my friend has a pilot license but not a drivers license. They had 2 small airplanes on display on their lawn which was pretty cool.

The regular restaurant was closed off because the Hong Kong Land Rover Club was having a meeting, so we went to the Aero Bar instead.

My friend ordered a Guinness
I ordered my favorite Iced Lemon Tea
We had bread
I originally wanted the Fettuccine with Fresh Clams, but they were out of clams, so I ordered Fettuccine with Smoked Salmon instead.
My friend ordered a Slow Cooked Spring Lamb Shank
And since we were still hungry after all that food, we shared a Foir Gras. LOVE IT!!
Then I went home to pack as I needed to get up very early the next morning to catch my flight back to Tokyo.

18th Day - seeing old friends

This morning I woke up and went to exchange the suitcase my mom got that was too big at Sogo. Then in the afternoon I met my friend at the MTR Admiralty Station and we took it across the bay to Tsim Sha Tsui to eat at the sushi place that I mentioned before that is always crowded. However this one is at another location, and my friend said that the last time they were there they waited 3 hours on Christmas day.

We arrived at Itamae-Sushi at about 2 pm and we still had to wait about 20 minutes on this hot weekday afternoon. IT was one of those revolving sushi bars and you could also check off items on the little order forms. Unfortunately because I left the sheets in my pocket at it went into the wash, I don’t have the exact names of all the items that I ordered, but I will try my best.

Some kind of fish sushi?
Shrimp Sushi
Salmon Sushi
Lobster Salad Sushi
Foie Gras Sushi. (Goose Liver) We ordered 2 of these! VERY GOOD!
Baked Salmon Sushi and some kind of Shellfish Sushi. We the latter came with curry powder.
Shrimp Tempura Sushi with Green Tea powder.
Soft-shell Crab Hand Roll
This is the grilling of the Eel
Squared-Shrimp Sushi
Yellow Tail Sushi
Eel Rolled in thin rice-paper with other stuff…
And this is what we had!

Then I walked around Tsim Sha Tsui (TST) as there was a super huge mall there. Across the street was one of my favorite stores Dior Homme. After my friend left, I shopped a little more at a chocolate shop Royce while I was waiting for my other friend who was going to meet me for dinner.

After work, we went to this Italian Restaurant. I was so hungry that I almost forgot to take pictures. The place was dark and I didn’t want to be flashing my camera so the pictures came out a little dark…

We ordered Red Wine
I ordered Salmon Tarter stuffed Ravioli
My friend ordered Spaghetti Bolognese
We shared a Tiramisu
After dinner we sat and chatted for a while before we went home. I got home and started packing early because I didn’t want to rush the last minute.