Day 7: A Trip to Ikea

As you can guess (and if you can't you got problems) today I had to go to Ikea. I needed to get some dishes. Specifically ones that were microwave safe. You see at my apartment they don't have any nuker safe dishes, and since I didn't want to be eating partially melted plastic I decided to go to Ikea and get some dishes. However, before I get to my adventures in Ikea and outside let me properly set the stage for why I needed to get dishes. First, as noted is the whole nuking issue. Second, is the fact that all of the dishes in my apartment are disgusting. No, not just dirty but literally the grossest things I have seen in a good long while. Not even on my mission were dishes and the sink wherein they fester this gross. At least there someone cleaned it. Here, nope no one cleans 'em. Now I could clean them but then I would have to cut off my hands they are that gross. It ain't happening. So I needed dishes, my dishes that I clean and deal with on my own. I needed to venture into Ikea.

Now, in Hong Kong there are three different Ikeas. One is way far north almost at the border between Hong Kong and the mainland. One is in Kowloon Bay, and the other is in Causeway Bay. I decided to go to Causeway Bay since it was the most convenient in terms of proximity to my apartment. However, before I got my consumerism on I decided to go to the Hong Kong temple, which is no where near Causeway Bay. It is nowhere near any of the Ikeas. No, the Hong Kong temple is a few blocks northwest of the Kwong Tong MTR station. The Ikea I went to is on the actual Hong Kong Island. I went in a really big triangle to get from house, to temple, to Ikea, and then back to my house. Below is a picture of my route (more or less):

"Oh but wait Scott," you might say, "this doesn't look so bad. See it only takes thirty minutes in Hong Kong traffic." (which is an atrocious mess by the way). Ah that may be true but remember I took the train which means just traveling took me a couple of hours. But that is not what was most interesting. Nope, I had to take a double decker bus from Kowloon over to Causeway Bay. That was a trip. We were packed in that bus tighter than sardines. The thing just exploded people once it made it to its destination. Ah, but little did I realize that this particular Ikea location was in the middle of a massive mall. Yeah, that's right a mall in Hong Kong. It was just pure insanity. People were everywhere. I want you to imagine a Christmas time mall experience in the states and then multiply it by about 1000. Yes, it was that bad. One of the more interesting things I found was this:

Look at that tennis racket! LOOK AT IT! The sucker is massive. Everything else in that mall though was pretty average.

The biggest adventure of all today was lunch. I went to a Korean place called the Hungry Korean. I had, upon suggestion from my wife Megan, bi bing bap. Squid bi bing bap to be exact. Really spicy bi bing bap.

Alright guys well it's time for me to be off. Have a good day.