My Neighbor Has Returned!! (Hong Kong Edition)

- December 23, 2009, Wednesday

- My neighbor has recently returned from her 4-month JTA (Junior Term Abroad) trip in Hong Kong.

- Today, we decided to go out for two reasons:
1. She needs to return her locker keys to Hong Kong Baptist University. She forgot to give her keys back when she was still in Hong Kong. Luckily, her roommate Inna would be going back to Hong Kong with her family soon.

2. We need to bond as neighbors!! :)) :)) :)) :))

- I went to Charmaine's house, a floor above ours, around 9am. She gave me a Tajik doll won by her little sister, because her little sister, as well as her whole family, were freaked out by the doll. I adopted the doll because it was nice and, um, cultural.

- We went ahead to Megamall via MRT, and hailed a cab to Inna's house nearby. We arrived shortly and I met Inna. I think she was freaked out by my hyperness. I introduced myself as the person with the big fat caterpillar (Heimlich from "The Bugs' Life"), because that was how Inna knew me when they were both in Hong Kong with my neighbor.

- I also met Andy, their American friend from Hong Kong, because he went to the Philippines to tour around. Inna was his host. He seemed like a nice guy.

- After our less-than-10-minute stay in Inna's house, we hailed another cab to Megamall. It was harder to hail a cab back, since a few cabs passed by that area, and those that did were usually occupied. I sang the "Happy Working Song" nonstop until we were able to get a cab.

- Now, back at Megamall, we ate a semi-early lunch at El Pollo Loco. I missed that place. Their chicken always brings back childhood memories.

- After lunch, we had an odyssey around the mall in search for a new hair dryer. Their old one broke down.

- We got hungry (again), after luckily finding a reasonably-priced hair dryer at the department store, and decided to have some frozen yogurt somewhere at the basement.

- We walked again and again after realizing we had nothing else to do. I told Charmaine that since we were about to head home, we might as well head home in an unusual way. Yes, I proposed to go home via the Pasig River Ferry.

- We went out of the mall and rode the MRT to Guadalupe. We simply walked to the nearby Pasig River's Guadalupe Station and waited for around half an hour for the next boat to Escolta. Charmaine pulled her cellphone out and listened to some Korean songs. We were both bored, so I semi-danced SNSD's Genie and Gee. (I simply moved my hands a little, while sitting down. I couldn't dance fully at the station. It was full of people.)

- The boat came around 3:35pm. Luckily, we got on a nice boat (complete with aircon, flat screen tv, and nice movies.) We went out the deck after two stations and looked around. She got bored, so we went in after two stations more.

- We arrived at Escolta around an hour later, and walked towards Golden Fortune Soler for discounted dimsum. Who doesn't like discounted dimsum??

- We ordered a lot of dimsum, though not as much as the time Marga and I ate dimsum, and managed to finish them all. I just treated her since I wasn't able to treat her during my birthday a few months ago.

- We went home around 6, as the sun was about to set.


**Dear neihgbor, thank you for letting me adopt the Tajik doll. I don't know what name to give her, but for now, I'll just call her "Tajik Doll". By the way, your family isn't the only one that was freaked out by the doll. My mom was freaked out by the doll as well. Haha. I still want to keep the culture-ish doll anyway. Haha.

(January 1, 2011: Hello old blog post!! Just to update you, I have named the Tajik doll "Arafan" several days ago!! That's all!!)