Yi Lian’s scribbling and musing

Greetings from HK! (Relatively long post ahead!)

I’m still quite frazzled – so pals, sorry if I didn’t reply to your well-wishing smses, emails and online chats.

Hahaha, so much for a much-anticipated first day of work today.

A Typhoon 8 warning was issued at 7am today and when a Typhoon 8 and above warning has been issued by the HK government, everyone is strictly instructed to stay indoors until further notice at 11.30am.

Thanks so much Sue (Woo)! If not for your extremely prompt update at 7:03am, I would have no idea and got ready for work anyway, thinking the rainy weather is just typical HK. Really feel the love all the way in HK here, having her texted me immediately after she got the notice.

This is a blessing in disguise anyway since I only slept a grand total of one hour the entire night!

I arrived at the airport early as I suspected my luggage would just meet or slightly exceed the baggage limit and Bern advised that if you arrive early, they’re more likely to overlook your slight excess baggage and true enough, they did!

My cabin luggage was at 10kg (3kg overweight) and on top of that, I was carrying another two hand-held bags but thankfully, the officers at the gate waved me through anyway and I think it’s cos of my Platypus water bag (an inflatable water bottle). They were both impressed and curious about it and asked me where I got it from (Campus Corner from Capitol).

The flight was delayed for a good 30 minutes and I spent the time reading the letters Matt and Molely wrote me (made me laughed and teared) and the scrapbook the girls made for me. It was thoroughly funny and one could easily see that there were so much efforts put into it! I counted the number of photos in the book and there were 104!!!

Apparently, Sue and Bern missed Alicia Keys’ set during SingFest to fuss over this scrapbook. Feeling the love, pals! So what did Pam do? Ditch yall to watch the set herself?!?!

Anyway, I really, really love the book! Gawd, I never knew there were so many unglamourous pics of me… I met Belle and pals at close to midnight at Times Square last night and brought along the book to show her since she didn’t see the finished product but had “many contributions here and there” (as I quote her. hahaha) as she took off for HK last Saturday morning for leisure.

She was very sweet to help me bring many of my belongings over. Thanks Ah Belle! She was totally in love with the book and wanted to colour photocopy it… But it was 1am so, I’m sorry Belle…

We had supper at a cha chan ting (tea restaurant) at Causeway Bay and I had the best condensed milk toast ever! It was OMG-amazing. We ordered one serving to share among four of us but after one bite, I know I had to order one for myself and I wasn’t even hungry… 

Ok, before I digress further… After I touched down at 8.15pm, I took the Airport Express train (just about $18) to Central and met Angelia. Took a cab back to her place and braced myself for the six floors walk-up. But it was surprisingly effortless as the number of steps per set are lesser than your typical HDB (Matt has been forcing me to walk up the five levels at my house for the past few months so I guess some training there!) and also of course thanks to Larry’s help in carrying the massive luggage while I lugged my cabin luggage.

Angel’s place is extremely cosy, which I didn’t find surprising cos you can always trust her to do that to her own places. She showed me my room and I was extremely grateful it wasn’t as small as she claimed and i’ve got loads of windows! Love.

Had a hard time sleeping though. Hit the sack at 3am, didn’t fall asleep till 4am and think I woke at 5am to the howling sounds of the wind and started having cluttered thoughts again. Soon, the sky started to lighten and I thought, “Ah well, it’s gonna be 7am soon anyway. No point sleeping.” After about another 30 minutes of tossing and turning, I checked my mobile and it was only 6am?! Damnit. Went to toilet, came back, still couldn’t sleep.

7am – got sms from Sue. Logged on to check weather updates.
8am – woke Angel up to check if need to turn up for work. She said no. Happy cos I could catch up on sleep later. Not happy cos I was really looking forward to work. But guess it’s a blessing in disguise. Gives me a bit more time to settle in.

I was surprised that I didn’t cry myself to sleep last night. I really thought I would be a mess at the airport and for the first few days in HK but so far, I’m managing quite fine.

I didn’t tear when I hugged everyone goodbye at the airport until I hugged Matt. I was very close when I first hugged Karen. But I avoided that by avoiding eye contact before and after hugging. My family and friends probably thought I was being a rude child but I know if I even had a glance at them, I would have the waterworks.

And I would have done well with Matt, if not for the fact he showed me his very lovable sad face before I hugged him. Was all grumps during and after the flights until I turned on my mobile to receive a text from him telling me that he and Kirsten miss me. Apparently Kiks said so. Hee.

I was extremely frazzled most of the night and just wanted to spend a little time alone. And I managed to for a short few minutes when I closed the bedroom door behind me shortly after I arrived at Angel’s place and before I logged onto Skype.

Thank God for technology. I was so happy to see Matt and my mum. After chatting for 20 minutes, I unpacked a little while Matt continued watching my Heroes Season 1 DVDs – all the while with Skype on. Other than the fact that I couldn’t touch him, it felt like another day of us fussing about our own things while being in the same room. Some people get a tripping out of watching baby polar or panda bears through webcam, I do so by watching my boyfriend (which sounds rather psychotic from the way I said it…)

Ok, after much verbal diarrhoea, time for me to try to snooze again. If the warning does get cancelled at 11:30am, I want to be more alert at work later!