Went to the police station nearby(香港警務処-大埔分區警署) to lodge a report on my loss of wallet. Duty officer in charge of helping me with the report was PC20970. Managed to make him understand my situation using Cantonese though, haha since somebody always say that I have Malaysian accent when talking in Cantonese.Edmund said that in the neighbourhood, there is a residence flat named after me. I couldn't believe it till I saw it(picture on the left)! Haha, and the English name was also spelt exactly the same as my name!~~The flat looked rather run down though. I would be meeting up with my friend Candice for lunch at somewhere in North Point(nearer to Fotress Hill MTR(炮台山) rather than the North Point MTR) so first I took a mini van to the Tai Po Market(大埔墟) KCR station, and then changed train at Kowloon Tong (九龍塘)KCR to the Tsuen Wan Line(荃灣綫) at Prince Edward MTR(太子) and then change again at Central (中環)MTR to Island(港島綫)Line in order to get to Fotress Hill! I wished I knew how to take a bus which could have been a more direct and convenient way to get there. Lunch was at Golden Pond Seafood Restaurant(金凱鮮庭) and what I ordered was the following.......(象拔蚌面 I think..=p)
Quite deliciously cooked and it tasted smooth while placing the noodles into the mouth and the clams tasted fresh! Candice was my exchange friend's buddy's friend and also used to be my hall mate when I was staying in Wei Lun Hall. After the lunch, I'd requested to have dessert elsewhere so she brought me to a nearby dessert shop where we ordered banana pancakes(very fragrant!) and some glutinous rice pastries. She sounded quite mushy while talking on the phone with her bf~~Haha..her intonation was quite distinctly different. ^^ She's taking a teaching course in HKU and will be teaching Mathematics in secondary school. Based on statistics, close to 25% of the total number of my HK friends are teachers-to-be or is already teaching. And since there are prevalently university graduates everywhere in HK(there are a total of 8 unversities), it has been made a pre-requisite that to become a teacher, one has to have a degree and take the education course. The publicly announced starting salary for such teachers is HKD16,000(~SGD3,200). It's considered a lot in Singapore but the living cost and standard of living in HK is higher, yet that kind of pay is considered as moderately high over there for a starting pay of an inexperienced teacher. After all that, she went back home and then I had to figure out where to go next and Edmund also won't be free the entire day. So at that moment, I thought for a while and I had an idea. Yeah, Cheung Chau(長州)! So from Fortress Hill MTR, I took the train to Central(中環) MTR and walked over to the Central Ferry Pier that goes to outlying islands. There are a total of about 6-8 piers in a row for which each pier will have ferry services that go to a specific island. I've forgotten which pier no was it to take to Cheung Chau, but I remember that I can use the Octopus Card to pay for the ferry ticket(First Ferry high speed ferries) and it was about HKD20+ something. The ferry trip took about half an hour to reach Cheung Chau. It is a small island 10 km southwest of Hong Kong Island. It is quite a tranquil resort area for people who want to take a break from the hustle and bustle of city life occasionally and I think in fact it seems to have served its purpose well. There's some fishing village along the coastlines, some stalls were selling seafood products which I managed to buy some to bring back home. Cheung Chau was the birthplace of Lee Lai Shan (born 1970), a windsurfer who won the first Olympic gold for Hong Kong in 1996. After 2000, a number of cases of suicide (most of them by "burning charcoal" or 燒炭) have taken place on the island. For some time holiday resorts were not rented to individuals. Stories concerning apparition have resulted from the news of suicides. Some photos I took randomly.....
~~~~~~~To be continued~~~~~~~~~~~
