New Year in HK

I feel exactly the same way every year, that New Year festivities are overly glorified. I think it puts unnecessary pressure on people to have fun. However, I must say that this year, like the last, was really wonderful... and it was always about the people that I spent time with. My sister flew halfway across the world from SF to spend the holiday season with us. It was nice to have a complete family unit again, if only for a few days.

HK is not a family friendly place though. We spent time eating and shopping (blah blah blah). We even took a trip to Macau though I don't think anyone really enjoyed it. Macau is even less family friendly than HK itself, especially for a family that's not big into gambling and/or second-hand smoking. We pushed our way through hoards of people at immigration, saw the St Paul ruins (unimpressive), visited the Venetian (disappointing, especially since we've been to the Venetian at Vegas before), and then fought our way back to HK again. Long uneventful day. We were pretty baller though - we sat in the VIP room on the way to Macau, but that was more because my family couldn't bear the thought of waiting at the ferry terminal for 1.5 hrs and VIP was the only one available. My sis and I scalped tickets for a very unimpressive price with a very unimpressive grimey looking man, and I'm still overall very embarrassed by my scalping talents (lack thereof). After that incident, I figured that I should never go into business because I'll definitely get cheated.

The whole reason we went up to HK though, was to have dinner with my dad's grad school friends and their families. Three families were from Singapore, one was from China and the last from HK (the host family). We arrived at the house (nay, mansion), and had a tour of the area. It's nestled right behind all the buildings in the financial district, which could prove to be very claustrophobic since the only area that they get privacy in is the bedroom. Otherwise, the house is free for all to take a peek, especially those with a good pair of binoculars.

Dinner was a lavish affair. The entire group of about 25 sat at a huge round table - parents on one side and kids on the other. We had hairy crab, snake soup, egg custard with truffles... it was about 10 courses long. Service was fabulous. I didn't even know they had taken away my shawl and kept it on the coat rack so that nothing would drip on it. What was really cool was that all the older kids at the table were there with me in Boston when I was first born. They were basically my first friends even though I really don't remember them from when I was zero years old.

We talked about the ordeal that everyone went through the night that I was born which involved a very staunch catholic tiny chinese man driving my parents to the hospital, getting a punctured tire on the way home and then falling into the boot while trying to reach for the spare tire in his very huge Chevy... my dad getting so excited about my birth that he fainted...and of course, it was all worth it because look at the joy I bring to everyone's lives. hah hah.

Apart from that, I got to spend time with some of my closest girlfriends. I saw my buddy from Mich and my two gfs from NY/Singapore. Really didn't see many people otherwise coz I figured I didn't have time and didn't want to overstretch myself by planning to meet too many people. New Year's Eve was spent counting down at the Royal HK Yacht Club with very unimpressive fireworks. Some of the buildings still said Merry Christmas. Hello! Wrong holiday!!! Then we proceeded to M1NT and Dragon-I. I cannot go to DI again for the next 6 months to a year. Of the three nights that I went out in HK, I went out all three nights to DI. Sad but true.

I'll definitely go back to HK again, but it has to be a short weekend and most likely will be in the spring or summer. There was no shopping to be done as it was Fall fashion. Not that I'm a big shopper but HK fashion is quite fabulous (esp compared to Singapore).