Trip to Whampoa, Hung Hom

As Sarah has retired after a very long day, it falls to me, her humble assistant to fill in our avid readers of the events that have transpired today. I can't say how Sarah's day went as I'm sure she'd like to update everyone with that tomorrow. I shall instead tell you about my day, which sadly is still far from over...

I spent the morning trying to get ICE (the application I'm working on) to retrieve useful results. It has great potential but alas it doesn't work yet. It's one of those things - one I crack it, everything will fall in to line. Until then though, I have very little to show for many hours of work. Such is the life of a programmer. I also had to spare some time to reply to some of the forum posts for my university course as they have strict participation requirements. Last but not least I had to finish composing a short biography for the IET election papers. All this by 12:50 because I absolutely had to make it out the door by 1:05pm to go bed shopping.

At 1:20pm I was finally underway after I was waylaid by a Skype conversation from my editor at Apress. The content was important, it was just unfortunate it came through when it did. Still I wasn't too late arriving at Hung Hom station and everyone seemed in good spirits despite the fact I had not brought the two mugs. If you'd like to know why two mugs were an essential yet missing part of the bed expedition, you will need to tune in to Sarah's next post...

We took a taxi to the shopping area as there are no MTR stations nearby and nobody seemed to know how to get there on foot. At under £1.50 it wasn't exactly expensive for four people and it did provide much needed air conditioning. We had originally planned to eat first but were instead distracted by the bed section. The first place we went to was where Nick had purchased a custom made mattress a couple of months back. He was very pleased with the mattress and this was the main reason we were visiting this particular shop.

We tried their best - and it seemed only - mattress on display and it was indeed very comfortable. It has a zip down the side and it lets you take out the mattress (which is in three square pieces) and flip them over if needed. One side is softer than the other so you can 'dynamically' (that's for the programmers amongst us) change your bed. Now this sounds like a great feature but realistically, how often are we likely to remodel our mattress? And it wasn't cheap...

After deciding that was too expensive and moving on (want to take a stab at which one we ended up buying?) we checked out a few other mattresses. We found a nice cheap one which was easily spotted due to it having the texture and feel of a plank of wood. A few mattresses later and quite clearly the more you pay the less brick-like the mattress becomes. We all decided that this would be a good time to stop for food.

There were a couple of different restaurants that we looked at but they were either very busy or very expensive. In the end we found one that specialized in HangZhou cuisine and so we decided to eat there. Sarah and I had dim sum and Nick and Mercy had a bowl of noodles in soup. It turned out to be very reasonably priced and we were all quite full. The food wasn't mind blowing but it was tasty and did the trick.

Next we went a few doors down to Starbucks. I really like the Chai Tea Latte and I wanted to get some fresh juice for Sarah to drink. They had some nice looking fruit salads as well so I added that to the list. Nick went for a latte. We found some comfortable seats and apart from a young mother looking around to see if she'd left her phone there, it was pretty quiet. Now completely full we resumed our quest for the perfect bed.

We tried a different section of the shop. It seems to be one big shop but full of lots of individual sections inside. None of the staff help people in the other sections so in fairness it's a lot like Woolworth - or at least how they used to be. We tried some of the mattresses and one was quite nice and it came with a "mattress topper" which is something the other mattress needed. However this topper was in fact nothing more than a cover for the mattress.

In the end we went back to the first place and asked more about the mattress. They had one that was just an inch thinner but was nearly a third cheaper than the other mattress. This meant that we could get the memory foam topper that we wanted and they'd even throw in two orthopedic pillows. We were able to keep within our budget which was nice. The mattress is currently scheduled to arrive on Monday. They didn't exactly confirm which Monday - and if they did they certainly neglected to mention the year. Still, we remain hopefully that by this time next week we'll be getting a much better sleep.

After doing the honors and signing my name on the relevant part of the payment slip, I decided to leave the form filling to Sarah as I couldn't understand what they were on about anyway and paid a visit to the Aeon shop. Aeon isn't a bank as such but they offer payment cards in Visa, Mastercard, American Express or Union Pay (Chinese debit card). Now they are avoided by most mainstream people but as I was having a bad experience with HSBC I figured I might look at what was on offer. This turned out to be a mistake because these cards have all sorts of features. For example if you buy $100 worth of goods on your birthday and that birthday happens to be during a full moon and Jupiter and mars are in alignment there is a possible chance you might get something for free. Or they will charge double - they weren't really too clear on that last point. The application process was even more confusing so I gave up. HSBC has its issues for sure but at least it's not that bad...

Nick and Mercy decided to head home and Sarah and I proceeded to Sheung Wan as I had to deliver the signed form to the IET. We tried the new West Rail Link which took us from Hung Hom to East Tsim Sha Tsui. We walked through the underpass (air conditioning++) and go on the Tsuen Wan line towards Central. At Central (this is on HK island) we switched to the Island line and got off at Sheung Wan. With my excellent and legendary sense of direction, I confidently steered us out the wrong exit and in the opposite direction from the one we wanted. Sarah soon had this sorted out and we quickly arrived at our destination. I was expecting to shove the letter under the door but instead the office was still teaming with life - at about 6:30pm. Still, at least they got the form so all was well.

After a quick rest we headed over to a local Indian restaurant that we like. The food there is really good and although we weren't too hungry we figured we'd be able to manage something. Well, we didn't get very far and I'm sure the waiter thought we didn't like the food - and we really did - but we just couldn't eat any more. Their mango lassis are to die for though... In the end we ended up eating 4 vegetable samosas and I had a bowl of soup. We barely managed that and ended up waddling back to the MTR station.

The trip home was uneventful with a brief stop at the 7-11 to stock up on caffeine products so that I could get some more work done - none of which I've started because I've been writing this - and then home. We watched the second half of a Top Gear episode and Sarah received a text about a parent seminar this Sunday. I was looking forward to that until she told me it would be in Chinese not English. Still, I have to do my duty as it were and this was when she told me it would involve participation. Now don't get me wrong but I'm pretty sure the average sane person does not enjoy talking to a melon whilst pretending it's a baby in front of 150 strangers. Am I still going? Well I think I will. Sarah will benefit more directly than I will but I can pick up a lot and what I don't get Sarah can always translate for me afterwards.

A quick shower later and Sarah is happily asleep. I am sat in the other part of the room (don't ask) and I'm working. Sort of. At least I will be working when this is posted which will be in the next few minutes or so. I have plenty to be doing, so hopefully I will see my pillow before I see the daylight...