Hong Kong Part Three (We're Singing In The Rain)

SO I STARTED THIS POST WHILE I WAS STILL IN HONG KONG AND JUST NEVER FINISHED IT BECAUSE I RAN OUT OF TIME. BUT IT CONTINUES FROM THE DAY AFTER MY LAST POST. I'LL POST SOME PICTURES ALONG WITH IT LATER TOO. SORRY ABOUT THAT...NOT THAT THAT MANY PEOPLE READ MY BLOG ANYWAY HAHA.

Well, yesterday was another fun filled day in Hong Kong. We woke up super early in the morning again...after getting about 5 hours of sleep because we had been out until about 1 in the morning the night before. We had to be ready by 10:30 in the morning so we all showered and got ready and ate our breakfast (mine consisted of Frosties which are what frosted flakes are called in China). We had an outdoor performance scheduled for yesterday afternoon, so we left at 10:30 to go rehearse. It was raining off and all all throughout the morning so we weren't sure if we were going to be able to do the performance, but we went to the site anyway.
We got there and had a little bit of time before our sound check time slot, so we went to go eat some lunch. Most of the girls wanted sushi so we went to this Japanese sushi place. However, me and amber both do not like fish at all, especially if it's raw, so our options were limited at this place. We ordered a Salad which looked pretty safe, but when we got it it had salmon on it (just our luck)...so we figured we'd just drench it in salad dressing, but i guess they only serve thousand island dressing here (which neither of us is a huge fan of). We drenched it anyway thinking that dressing we didn't like was better than the fishy taste we hated. Then we ordered some cream puffs which were DELICIOUS!
After eating we went back to the stage for our sound check. It was sprinkling a little, but we went ahead with it anyway. The sound was AMAZING and we felt good about it so we finished up, and then went into the starbucks that was right next door to wait until it was time for the show. We sat in there for about an hour and a half talking pictures and being obnoxiously loud haha.
Then we went out for the show, it had stopped raining for a second so the show started early. there were 4 groups that were going before us, including the group from Japan VIP. The weather was great until VIP got up. Then it started raining a little more then the sound people felt comfortable with, so VIP performed while carrying umbrellas...they told us we were only going to do 2 songs...then as soon as we were about to go on the rain stopped...so we performed in just a little bit of sprinkle...it was actually really fun because the rain here isn't cold.
After the show we took a bunch of pictures again and also sang happy birthday to Kenneth, one of our tour guides. Then we all hopped onto the bus and did a little bit of shopping, and we were going to go to the ladies market (which is a street market where you can get really cheap deals), but we were all exhausted and all we really wanted was some good american food and sleep. So we went to CPK (California pizza kitchen) and ate some DELICIOUS pizza. It was still laina's birthday so Snowy and Sofia got her a cake and we sang to her and ate cake and it was a lot of fun. Can you guess how much the meal cost in Hong Kong Dollars?? $1008!!! it's so funny how expensive things look here. i took a picture of the receipt.
Anyway after we ate we just went home and fell asleep at about 10:30 again...which was nice because then when we woke up at 6:30 in the morning we had still gotten our full 8 hours of sleep. haha
Sunday was a day when we didn't have anything planned for the festival so we were able to do whatever we wanted. We really wanted to go to church so we met at about 8 in the morning and went to a church building. We didn't realize it was going to be General Conference here (they do it a week later because saturday and sunday mornings in the US would be Sunday and monday night here) So we just went and watched half of the first session and then headed to the Hong Kong Temple. The hong kong temple is beautiful, but it's like all of the other buildings in Hong Kong...surrounded by other buildings!! it made picture taking pretty hard because we had to run across a busy street to get the whole temple in the picture haha but it was fun anyway!
After the temple we went to eat at a Tai food restaurant. it was SO good...i feel so cultured now when it comes to food hah and i'll probably try a lot more things now which is good and bad. When we walked out of the restaraunt we saw the CUTEST child, we sat there for about 10 minutes just being girls and talking about how cute he was and talking with his parents...i got a video of him blowing us kisses so i'll see if i can upload it.
We wanted to go shopping after tai food because a few of us had a lot of money left to spend, so we headed to some local markets and shopping centers. There's a street here called ladies market that's kind of for tourists so they set the prices REALLY high and you have to try and barter them down...This was really fun, in fact probably TOO fun. It made me buy a few things i shouldn't have because i just enjoyed getting things for super cheap haha. There was one thing i got that started at $59 and i got it for $15! but that's okay it was fun...at least for the first couple of hours/miles....then our feet started to hurt (as well as my head). By the time we had walked multiple blocks we were all SUPER TIRED.
There's a light/laser show that the tourist board in hong kong does every night so we went to go watch that next. It was pretty cool, although i was a bit too tired to REALLY enjoy it. It lasted about 10 minutes and all of the buildings light up with the music...i got some pictures and videos.
After the light show we were walking back to the bus, and decided we should sing on the street and see how much money we could get...so we sang a few songs...we got about $90 HKD which comes to about 15 american dollars. haha that's not too bad for only 5 minutes of singing.
Then we went back to the hotel and fell asleep pretty quick. and i was actually able to sleep until 8:30 today! yay!
Monday we went to a high school and performed for them. It was really funny because in Hong Kong people don't really like to participate all that much...we did a little beat boxing workshop and had to force kids to come on stage to do it. there WAS one little boy who was very enthusiastic and a few teachers who joined in on the fun so it was actually a great show and i loved it! After that performance we just went back to the hotel because we were exhausted and needed to pack and get ready for when we would leave the next morning. We went back, packed, bought a ton of candy from the supermarket to bring home with us...and went to bed.
The next morning (Tuesday) we left at about 8:30AM to go to the airport......and one of our bags was too heavy...so amy rushed to buy a box to stick half of our outfits in so that we wouldn't have to pay $350 the lady told us we'd have plenty of time to do this, so we weren't worried until we realized that the plane would stop loading at 11:25 and it was now 11:00...AND our terminal was all the way accross the airport. By the time we finished checking everything in it was at least 11:08...so (in typical noteworthy traveling fashion) we RAN all the way to security (they were so nice and opened up a line especially for us so we could get to our flight on time!) ran down about 4 escalators to the tram, rode the tram....ran UP a few flights of escalators...ran about 1/4 mile down to our terminal...and made it!! to be honest though we were talking about it and a noteworthy trip wouldn't have been complete without SOMETHING going wrong with our travels so it was okay.
The flight home was about 3 hours less then the flight there, so that was nice...although i didn't sleep through the whole thing!! We got to san fransisco at about 9AM tuesday morning which was quite confusing...considering we LEFT hong kong at noon tuesday morning. we had a layover for a few hours and then flew home to provo. I had never been so excited to see those snow-covered mountains.
We've been home for a few days now and my sleeping schedule is still REALLY messed up. I don't sleep one night...then sleep 14 hours the next...then don't sleep at all the next...and so on. it's terrible. but the weather has been great here so i can't complain.


Tonight is our last noteworthy show of the year...and it's also potentially my last noteworthy show EVER. I've been thinking about it a lot and as much as i love noteworthy, it's not the most important thing for me to be doing in my life. I need to focus on school a lot more than i have these past two years...i also REALLY need to get a good job so that i can pay for it all. I'm not 100% sure i'm not doing it, but as of now it looks as though i won't. This noteworthy year has been SO amazing and i couldn't have asked for anything better. We've been so blessed. :)