Just got back from my night out on the town. I actually got home at 9:30. Which sounds kind of lame but it is Thursday night and everyone has stuff to do in the morning...

We rode the ferry over to Central and went out to Thai food in an area called Lan Kwai Fong or LFK if you're in the know. It's the chic area to go when you go out. Lots of restaurants, bars and neon lights. It's a little ways up the hill from the IFC Mall and the Landmark in Central on Hong Kong Island. Hong Kong Island (and really all the islands that make up HK) is a mountain. Not a lot of flat surface. (And from what I gather most of the flat surface that exists and is built on is all man made.)

So we walked up the hill a bit and settled in to dine at an angle in an alley. For real. The tables were ever so slightly at an angle and we were seated in an alley between buildings. We ordered WAY too much food but we all agreed we wanted to eat family style and we wanted to try a bunch of stuff. For the most part the menu was pretty similar to what you'd see in a big Thai restaurant in the US. They are a little freer with the bones and the dark meat chicken but for the most part it looks and tastes the same and the names of the dishes are similar to what you see in the states. Two of the dishes we got were whole fish prepared two different ways, another dish had prawns the size of my forearm (if anybody saw B's picture on facebook you will know what I mean) and the other dishes were various curries. It was all delicious! Especially one of the fish dishes! B will be in heaven when I take him back there for that! The fish was soooo good all by itself but the sauce was out of this world.

My use of chopsticks was respectable tonight. I made a valiant effort and I can barely type right now because my hand is all cramped. I'm kidding that my hand is cramped. Sort of. Seriously tonight was the first night I impressed myself with my chopstick prowess. But I am kind of hungry right now and I don't understand how this can be! I think I cannot physically eat as much in the same amount of time when using chopsticks. I may consider throwing all my forks away. This could be a good diet trick.

It is customary in HK that a restaurant will add a 10% service charge or tip to your bill. You are not expected to tip over and above this 10% (but it's added to your bill so you can't leave less). You can leave more if you feel the service was outstanding but they don't expect it from what I've been told.

Cash is king here too. I am so used to not carrying cash and always paying for everything with a credit card. You can do that here but no one does... People pay with cash. I was at dinner tonight with about 10 people. Every single person had cash to pay. If you went out to dinner in the USA with a party of 10 would that EVER happen? No way!

So after dinner we stopped into a swanky bar to have one drink. Honestly I would have rather been out walking amongst the neon lights and the people and taking it all in instead of heading into this dimly lit overpriced bar but I'll take what I can get! I was just glad to be out.

This week has been incredibly busy but fun. I am working hard to be very social so I can get to know people here. And the best way to learn is by listening to people. Today I learned that I can refill my Octopus card (for public transportation and more!) at the 7-11. I don't think B knows this... If he does he has been holding out on me. I was under the impression you could only refill it at the machines in the subway station so this is great news! And it makes perfect sense. I mean for god's sake if you can pay your utility bills at 7-11 and buy a sim card for your USA AT&T iphone at the 7-11 then you should easily be able to reload your Octopus card.

And remember yesterday how I made a little joke about boiling my dish towels and 60 degrees C was the hottest setting? I totally lied. I was playing with it today and it just defaults at 60 degrees. It goes up to 90!! That's 194 degrees F. So you really think it can make the water that hot??? The wash time on that setting with 20 degree water is 55 minutes. For 90 degrees it's 1 hour and 50 minutes. Plus 2 more hours to dry. That's a whole bunch of all kinds of crazy.