Hope everyone had a happy Easter/Passover! We certainly did, but such is the pace of life these days that I am writing a catch-up post relating to our visitors who came to see us two weekends ago. I will get to our Taichung trip in my next post.
Two weekends ago, one of my college friends, Preetma, and her boyfriend, Jared, came through Hong Kong and we got to hang out with them for an entire weekend. It was great! They are one of the first couples that Michael and I hung out with together back in New York (I can still remember double dates at the Olive Garden, trips to Taco Bell, and lots of Rock Band late nights) and the last time we saw them was our wedding. Lola was really shy and quiet at first, but then completely opened up and blossomed around them.
We started off by getting dim sum at the China Club on Saturday, where we stuffed ourselves with all kinds of unhealthy dim sum dishes and then I gave them a quick tour of the club. We sat in the library, arguably my favorite room in the whole place, and picked random books off the shelf. Turns out they have a nice collection and it's actually categorized! Who knew, right? We also sat around listening to Jared reading ancient Chinese poems (which all sounded incredibly suggestive)!
After that, we went out to the balcony and overlooked all of the construction happening in Hong Kong. I pointed out my office building. Lola ran around giving running hugs (one of my favorite things she does, among many favorites - she picks up speed as she walks/runs toward you, and then basically hits you full force with a hug, burying her face into your shoulder, and then gives you a few emphatic pats on your shoulder/back) and to our utter shock and surprise gave Jared a huge running hug! I had never seen her do that with a previously unknown person before.
After that, we went to their hotel room at the Mandarin to hang out. They got an incredible upgrade to the luxurious and beautiful Statue Square suite (overlooking, you guessed it, Statue Square). The hotel room was probably 3/4 the size of our apartment. The bathroom was unequivocally amazing, with a huge double wide soaking tub, separate multi-nozzled shower, two separate counters and columned sinks.
Lola definitely has a taste for the fine things in life, because when we let her onto the bed, with its 600+ thread count sheets and fluffy pillows, she was absolutely ecstatic. She kept running around on the bed, trying to jump, squealing, and throwing herself full-bodied into the pillows and giggling raucously. She was acting like a slightly drunk person, to be honest. Looking at her, we all couldn't help but laugh as well. It must have felt amazing to her - and it made us all wish we had full-body-sized pillows that we could throw ourselves into as well!
What really made me shake my head in disbelief, though, was the fact that Lola eventually walked into the bathroom and, while we were all oohing and aahing over the fixtures, went and folded her hands over the edge of the bathtub, rested her chin on her hands, and looked longingly at the tub. I kid you not, she recognized that the bathtub was amazing and wanted to bathe in it. At first, I thought she was just tired and playing around. I jokingly asked her if she wanted a bath, and she immediately said "Hao," or essentially, "OK." We didn't take her too seriously, even though my friend insisted it was fine for Lola to bathe there. When Lola made her way into the bathroom and rested her chin on the edge of the bathtub again, Michael asked her if she wanted a bath and Lola again said yes! That sealed it - the girl clearly wanted a bath and, in a rather strange turn of events, was going to get one. It took a while for baby soap to arrive (I could just picture the very, very confused front desk trying to handle a request for baby shampoo and soap for a couple that had just checked in the night before clearly without a baby) but it eventually did, and Lola had a very lovely bath in a five star suite in one of the most expensive hotels in Hong Kong. Clearly she has no qualms about making herself at home!
Here she is, trying on sunglasses in her suite like the rockstar that she is.
After we dropped Lola off at home, we met up again for drinks with another college friend at the American Club, and then went to dinner at the Ningpo Residents Association, another club, for dinner. We figured, there are no clubs like this in the U.S., so we might as well take our friends there while they're in town! Drinks at the American Club (town club) were fun, as we reminisced about college, and dinner at Ningpo was really good. I think the food there is very tasty and my friends also seemed satisfied by it.
After dinner, we randomly went to Cotton On where the guys found these t-shirts that kind of channel Princeton but mystically say "Downtown"?! It's already been decided that these will be worn at our next college reunions.
On Sunday, I had had high hopes for a trip to Ocean Park, as it's supposed to be a really fun amusement park that Michael and I have not yet had the chance to visit. I'm not sure why, because we have been here a long time and I love amusement parks and they are also supposed to have a nice aquarium and animals exhibit. But we got a late start and it ended up raining relentlessly all afternoon, so in retrospect it was a good thing we skipped.
Instead, we got dim sum (again) at a very simple, no frills, but tasty restaurant right near our apartment, Ho Choi. It's actually the restaurant that Lola recognizes from all of her walks to and from Sun Yat Sen Park, and from riding their escalators up and down relentlessly whenever she goes to the park - so it was funny to finally be in there with her, and eating.
For the rest of the afternoon, we all hung out and played with Lola (play doh, cooking, music, drawing, getting coffee, buying raisins, hanging out in our building common area, etc.) until it was time for dinner, where we went to Ho Lee Fook. Incidentally, here she is wearing a really pretty Stella McCartney top that Preetma and Jared bought for her. It is a pink ruffled tank top covered in... fruit! It comes with a matching hat that Lola is actually willing to wear (you will see her wearing it around Taichung). It's really the perfect outfit for her because it has cherries, watermelon, pineapple, strawberries... all of her favorites.
I thought Ho Lee Fook was too dark (so dark you can barely see the food and you really can't see the menu without the lone small votive candle that they provide to you) but the food was tasty and good. We ordered a prawn toast, kurobata pork char siu, Shaanxi knife-cut noodles, lamb dan dan noodles, spicy morning glory stir fry, and, for dessert, the "Breakfast 2.0" which was the strangest but also tastiest concoction of Horlicks ice cream, corn flakes, dried longan, walnut oatmeal and cocoa coffee crumbs. I had not been before because the reservations process is such a pain for small groups and I had never been organized enough to manage a big group, but I would go back there.
On Monday, Michael and I had work so we couldn't really do too much more with our friends, who were leaving in the afternoon anyway, but I managed to take them to one last place for lunch - Crazy Noodles in Central. This is probably my current favorite spicy Sichuan noodle joint in Central, athough I think their dishes have become a little too oily for my taste.
And that's it! We hope our visitors had a good time. We certainly did! And as you can see, it was an action packed weekend and we managed to do a lot despite not having good weather on our side.
Two weekends ago, one of my college friends, Preetma, and her boyfriend, Jared, came through Hong Kong and we got to hang out with them for an entire weekend. It was great! They are one of the first couples that Michael and I hung out with together back in New York (I can still remember double dates at the Olive Garden, trips to Taco Bell, and lots of Rock Band late nights) and the last time we saw them was our wedding. Lola was really shy and quiet at first, but then completely opened up and blossomed around them.
We started off by getting dim sum at the China Club on Saturday, where we stuffed ourselves with all kinds of unhealthy dim sum dishes and then I gave them a quick tour of the club. We sat in the library, arguably my favorite room in the whole place, and picked random books off the shelf. Turns out they have a nice collection and it's actually categorized! Who knew, right? We also sat around listening to Jared reading ancient Chinese poems (which all sounded incredibly suggestive)!
After that, we went to their hotel room at the Mandarin to hang out. They got an incredible upgrade to the luxurious and beautiful Statue Square suite (overlooking, you guessed it, Statue Square). The hotel room was probably 3/4 the size of our apartment. The bathroom was unequivocally amazing, with a huge double wide soaking tub, separate multi-nozzled shower, two separate counters and columned sinks.
Lola definitely has a taste for the fine things in life, because when we let her onto the bed, with its 600+ thread count sheets and fluffy pillows, she was absolutely ecstatic. She kept running around on the bed, trying to jump, squealing, and throwing herself full-bodied into the pillows and giggling raucously. She was acting like a slightly drunk person, to be honest. Looking at her, we all couldn't help but laugh as well. It must have felt amazing to her - and it made us all wish we had full-body-sized pillows that we could throw ourselves into as well!
Here she is, trying on sunglasses in her suite like the rockstar that she is.
After we dropped Lola off at home, we met up again for drinks with another college friend at the American Club, and then went to dinner at the Ningpo Residents Association, another club, for dinner. We figured, there are no clubs like this in the U.S., so we might as well take our friends there while they're in town! Drinks at the American Club (town club) were fun, as we reminisced about college, and dinner at Ningpo was really good. I think the food there is very tasty and my friends also seemed satisfied by it.
After dinner, we randomly went to Cotton On where the guys found these t-shirts that kind of channel Princeton but mystically say "Downtown"?! It's already been decided that these will be worn at our next college reunions.
On Sunday, I had had high hopes for a trip to Ocean Park, as it's supposed to be a really fun amusement park that Michael and I have not yet had the chance to visit. I'm not sure why, because we have been here a long time and I love amusement parks and they are also supposed to have a nice aquarium and animals exhibit. But we got a late start and it ended up raining relentlessly all afternoon, so in retrospect it was a good thing we skipped.
Instead, we got dim sum (again) at a very simple, no frills, but tasty restaurant right near our apartment, Ho Choi. It's actually the restaurant that Lola recognizes from all of her walks to and from Sun Yat Sen Park, and from riding their escalators up and down relentlessly whenever she goes to the park - so it was funny to finally be in there with her, and eating.
For the rest of the afternoon, we all hung out and played with Lola (play doh, cooking, music, drawing, getting coffee, buying raisins, hanging out in our building common area, etc.) until it was time for dinner, where we went to Ho Lee Fook. Incidentally, here she is wearing a really pretty Stella McCartney top that Preetma and Jared bought for her. It is a pink ruffled tank top covered in... fruit! It comes with a matching hat that Lola is actually willing to wear (you will see her wearing it around Taichung). It's really the perfect outfit for her because it has cherries, watermelon, pineapple, strawberries... all of her favorites.
I thought Ho Lee Fook was too dark (so dark you can barely see the food and you really can't see the menu without the lone small votive candle that they provide to you) but the food was tasty and good. We ordered a prawn toast, kurobata pork char siu, Shaanxi knife-cut noodles, lamb dan dan noodles, spicy morning glory stir fry, and, for dessert, the "Breakfast 2.0" which was the strangest but also tastiest concoction of Horlicks ice cream, corn flakes, dried longan, walnut oatmeal and cocoa coffee crumbs. I had not been before because the reservations process is such a pain for small groups and I had never been organized enough to manage a big group, but I would go back there.
On Monday, Michael and I had work so we couldn't really do too much more with our friends, who were leaving in the afternoon anyway, but I managed to take them to one last place for lunch - Crazy Noodles in Central. This is probably my current favorite spicy Sichuan noodle joint in Central, athough I think their dishes have become a little too oily for my taste.
And that's it! We hope our visitors had a good time. We certainly did! And as you can see, it was an action packed weekend and we managed to do a lot despite not having good weather on our side.
We did! ❤��
ReplyDeleteYay! :)
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