1 Month Anniversary? Yawn.

Nei Hou Stranger,

Where do I begin. It's crazy how little have changed since my initial arrival into this bustling city. I still feel like a foreigner even though I've mastered the MTR system. For starters, I can never decide where to go for lunch because there's simply too many places to choose from. I have found a hipster wrap/salad joint called Mana! that reminds me of Wholefoods since the chalkboard styled menu is written in English, people speak my language of choice, and there's an emphasis on organic products and clean eating/juicing. Grilled veggies, kale and quinoa? YES PLEASE!!! I've had this monstrous beast 3x this week already. You could say that I am addicted.

  

I now despise siu mai. Calm down, I don't mean those delicious pork & shrimp filled delicacies you have at Yum Cha (see that? I'm learning!) but the ones you find at every street vendor. The 7 HKD ($1CAD) for 6 little balls of flour/mystery meat? that comes in the plastic containers. Example here:

(http://foodwejustlove.wordpress.com/tag/hong-kong-street-food/)

"If you don't like them then just don't buy them". *sigh of defeat* You see, after being in HK for a month, the only sentence I've mastered is "ngo yeo yat fen SIU MAI" (I want an order of siu mai). Since they're literally at every shop, when I get desperate and am lost at what to eat, I order what's easy for me, and that, for the nth time, has been.............yep. Laugh all you want and don't be surprised when I slowly begin to morph into one.

You would think HK is cheap but the pricing for food is relatively the same as Vancouver except the average person makes half as much so I'm not quite sure how everyone affords to eat out all the time. Well, I do have a theory. Since rent is "I'll sell all my organs and still can't afford you" high, mostly everyone who is single (regardless of your age) and working lives with their parents. Let's just say the usual "You're 35, single, and still living at home?" Howard Wolowitz deal wouldn't be much of a diss over here. Since there's no need to pay rent, the amount you saved on rent is going towards 1.food 2. more food 3. alcohol

So how have I been making use of my time in HK? I've made a little pie chart to explain (+5 awesome points?):

Very accurate and very self explanatory. Nothing too exciting or overwhelming: yawn yawn yawn. I can understand why people love this city but so far, it hasn't been love at first sight for me. Maybe I left my heart in Rome, maybe because I've lived in Asia before, it's nothing new to me or maybe I just haven't found a stable group of friends. Either way, it's been quite the nonchalant journey so far. 

Because the city never sleeps, I find myself wanting to run back to my room at times to get away from the crowd. And because they're doing construction work in my building (and at my office), I hear drilling and hammering constantly. It got so bad last weekend that I had to wear headphones and blast EDM to drone out the BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ sound going on the floor below me. I swear sometimes, I can feel my blood pressure rising. I never used to get migraines and now I get them randomly at night. Hong Kong: what are you doing to me?! I would like to pay for silence. $50/hour? Sold to the cranky, deaf and siu mai eating lady!

Lastly: I have tons of pictures on my phone but I cannot load them onto this computer so I've been putting off updating this blog. I know I promised pictures of my place on my last post but given the circumstances and my awesome pie chart above, forgive me!