Wan Chai

Alright I gotta hurry up and write about the past couple days before I forget! Happy New Year!!! Justin finally got his butt up so I'm not gonna write a lot. The first day (new years eve) I explored on my own in the morning before JC got back. Got up, got breakfast cooked for me and ate by the TV again. The coffee was amazing, I don't know what Vicky put in it, but it's one of the best I've ever had. Took some pics of the fish pond and ocean views and headed out. When I got in the car (different driver - Jose) I had a cell phone ready for me and the important numbers next to it! I am not sure I want to come back to my peasant life after this.
I decided to explore a non-top 10 location of Wan Chai, which apparently used to be a seedy place, but has been cleaned up since because I knew Justin and i would do all the other stuff. It was sensory overload at first, just walking around a looking at all the signs (all signs are both in chinese and english), watching the people, taking pictures. After I calmed down a little bit I looked at the tourist map posted on the street and went to look for the sights. The neighborhood is small enough to walk around the whole thing in one morning, which was perfect.
I stumbled upon the Pak Tai temple that I didn't even plan on seeing, and took a bunch of pictures because the place is so beautiful. I'm walking down the street past the junk stores, carpet stores, body shops, hole-in-the-wall cafes, and all of a sudden there's this peaceful, ornate temple behind a gate and bamboo trees. It was a really cool discovery.
Walked through my first market and experimented with bargaining. I think it will take practice as the best deal i got was only %15 off. Took a few pics of raw meat hanging in the windows and weird seafood at the fish markets. At lunch I wanted to try something weird, but decided against it until i see Justin. Not because I am grossed out, but because I want the best tasting stuff. So I had a bun for a snack. There are a lot of foreigners around here, so people here are pretty used to us. Most people know at least a little bit of english (enough to bargain with me at least hehe) and it seems like about half know it fluently so it's totally easy to get around. Although it was entertaining ordering the corn cream soup and tea I had as the second half of my lunch by trying to point to the menu item on the menu that was really high up on the wall. Finally an english speaking patron helped me out. Thanks dude.
After walking around for about 4 hrs I had pretty much covered Wan Chai, and was just waiting for Justin to get back from the airport. On my walk to the coffee shop where I sat down for the first time I discovered the American pubs on Lockhart St. Interestingly they share the street with the remaining few seedy places left in Wan Chai. Finally we decided to meet at Central, and I took the MTR (subway) there. It took me about 15 minutes between walking into the subway and getting through to the train partially because I was being retarded. I first stood in a long line for what I thought was the ticket machine, but turned out to be an ATM, then I thought there must not be ticket machines and went to the info booth, where I was told to go to the ticket machine. It didn't take bills though, so I went to look for the change machine, and that one does not exist, so I did have to go back to the info booth to get change. Anyways, the MTR is a pretty standard subway, but the Central stop is like Penn station - pretty huge. I met Justin at Landmark - one of the several high end malls in Central, and proceeded to buy a dress at the cheapest place there.