Monday, June 21st: My first day out on the town (by myself)

After giving our apartment the “full-treatment” and figuring out what I am planning on doing with all of my time in Hong Kong this summer, I ventured out tonight for some dinner at the same food court-like area at a nearby mall. Usually, I stay at least 10 feet away from any “fast food” in America, but the “fast food” in Hong Kong is actually more high quality. Tonight I decided to go with the pad thai since Eric gave it the approval last night. I was so hungry that I didn’t notice until I was about halfway done with my meal that within my pad thai were multiple (20-30) bright red, ~1-2cm long crustaceans mixed in with my noodles- exoskeleton, legs, big black bulging eyes and all. Wow, did I feel less than observant at this point! When I was eating my meal I assumed they were red chilies because I was not familiar with this new sea creature. Not only were there full bodied critters in my pad thai, but there were scattered mangled fellas too! After finishing, I realized it was probably a good thing I didn’t know what I was eating. I think this is something that I will probably be experiencing quite a bit here!


Creepy crawlers in the Pad Thai!!!

As I sat there chowing down on my pad thai, I watched the ~4 elderly, food court attendants walking around with their surgical masks covering their noses and mouths waiting to jump on the next table that opened up. As soon as people were finished eating, I bet someone was their within 30 seconds to pick up their tray and dispose of the mess at the proper receptacles. I was able to test this observation when I realized I needed to take the rest of my pad thai to go but needed a to-go box. I waited for the line to go down at Yummy before I jumped up and walked quickly to the counter nervously looking back at my table to make sure no one was taking my precious leftovers. Of course the 3 employees at the counter were not just standing around even though they had no customers, so it took a few seconds for me to get their attention. The language barrier took a few more seconds, and just as the worker at Yummy was reaching down to get the container on the bottom shelf I see a food court attendant walking up to my food and going in for the kill probably not more than 15 seconds after leaving my seat! I got my to-go container and fled back to my seat, just as the Cantonese family next to me was explaining to the attendant that they didn’t think I was done. As I walked up to my seat I made eye contact with the mom and I gave her a big smile in thanks that she had saved Kenneth’s dinner for the night.