Day 2: I needed my coffee so desperately that I asked 豬豬 whether we can find a Starbucks somewhere close. Ahhh… the aroma of something familiar is always a comfort to the heart! 豬豬 is such a sweetheart! Unfortunately we didn’t really get to see each other that much because of the scheduling and the fatigue that was hitting me in waves. (Not to mention the heat, humidity and rain.) We made plans to go our separate ways in the morning since she has to meet up with a colleague and I wanted to go back to the apartment, I don’t even remember for what.
We met up around 11:00 at the MTR, the masses of human bodies was a bit scary. 豬豬 wanted to go shopping for boots, so… more walking~~ I finally gave up and dragged her into a coffee shop to have lunch. I told her let me sit and if she wanted to look around the shops… I will be waiting right there! Poor thing, she didn’t know what to do with me. Ha-ha! NN caught up with us in the afternoon and off we went, more shopping. While looking at these tiny shops, I was thinking to myself, there are no dressing rooms. How would I know if I fit the clothes or not? Interesting… hmmm. Then it was off to those stall shops on the streets, I knew I needed to get some tops because none of the shirts/blouses that I brought would work in this weather. Two t-shirts caught my eye. One was black and had these big Chinese characters “低調”written in gold and another was a white T that has “好人” in black. I thought “Perfect!” Of course there were also tiny characters that said “我不是”to go with the white t. I decided to wear the black t-shirt for the dinner gathering tonight. By now, my voice is getting bad with lack of sleep. Okay, I am in bad shape! Voice is almost gone, legs and feet are killing me and body aches in places that shouldn’t be aching. Hey, but I got myself new walking shoes! Threw away my old ones (total idiocy!) on the spot. Cool looking ones but I will live to regret this decision later on. Met up with M at another shopping center and sat for a bit in the food court. I asked whether I could go “home” and change because the restaurant where we are having dinner is close to the apartment. 豬豬 had lost her hotel key and so she went back to the hotel to get a new key.
Most of the gals were meeting at the MTR before dinner and I hung back from approaching them while NN and M greeted them. From afar, I tried to guess which one was which… but to no avail since my brain was not functioning and there seems to be so many of them! They were all standing around and I was a nervous wreck. So I took a deep breath and cautiously approached them and they all kind of looked at me blankly. Oh, well… okay… let’s do a slight turn and go to 7-11 to get something cold to drink. Ha-ha! I am screaming inside my head… “豬豬, please hurry… I need moral support! Help!!!” Anyway, I took a deep breath and walked over again to say my first hello. They all kind of shyly “hi” me back. I don’t exactly recalled what happened but I remember guessing Puiling first because she really does look like her avatar! Wakaka! Green was easy to recognize since I saw a picture of her before. Then Winnie and Garfield were next because they looked like sisters with the same eye glasses. Then someone said, lets’ get going to the restaurant because we have reservations at 7. By this time, 豬豬 finally rejoined us. Sigh of relief there was nothing missing from her room.
At the restaurant, there was this HUGE table set for 17! With 豬豬 as an anchor, I took out the little souvenirs that I had brought with me, I had written names on them so it was like a list for me. Again starting with the ones I already knew: M, NN, 豬豬, 00, 綠綠, 小紅, and咖啡… then the others, one by one I guessed the faces and gave away the mementos, 貓貓 (she really looks like a cat), 視框 (definitely baby face), 多多 (seen pictures of her with Muse), 魚魚 (also seen a picture), Terrain (only one that looks “foreign” and May (she sat next to NN). I was left with 3 names and 3 presents… hmmm…雁雁, 花花, and Dada… how am I going to differentiate them? I called out “雁雁”! Of course, the true 雁雁’s natural reaction would give her away. Gotcha! One down, two more to go… innie-minnie minie-mo… the quiet one must be 花花 and the other jovial looking one must be Dada! Right-o once again! Perfect! Dinner was a noisy and fun affair. And it was the first time in my life, I came across a “crouching” toilet! OMG!!! There was no way, absolutely no way I can do this! Guess I didn’t need to go as bad as I thought. Anyways, I was not use to the weather, I was so hot! I mean some of these girls were wearing jackets! Some of them were so sweet that they even walked me back to the apartment. I remember crisscrossing arms with雁雁 and talking like old friends. 00 tried to hook up my internet connection once we got there and May seeing that I was not going to get any connection at all because the phone line was funky offered to lend me her USB wireless connection as soon as I returned from Macau. Because the next morning, I was off to Macau for 2 days, therefore I wasn’t able to stay with 豬豬 for the night. I felt really bad about it. The schedule just didn’t work out right. I really wished I could have spent more time with her. Now we joke that we have had a “one night stand” and destined not to have another night together. Ha-ha!
Well, when they all departed and I was left to the quiet of the night, in this strange apartment, in a foreign country… I couldn’t stop grinning. By now my voice was practically non-existent. I braced myself for a nice cold shower in this ‘tiny’ bathroom because I was too hot and sticky to wait for the water heater. After the refreshing shower, I packed another overnight bag to take with me in the morning… I am beginning to feel nomadic…
