I was originally planning to move to Austin with the girlfriend back in August of 2014, but my manager convinced me to stay until our current contract ends and help him out doing my usual jack of all trade roles, also to train my replacement for my other project that I do deployments for once a month. I wasn’t promised any remote work when I mentioned moving and might be forced to quit eventually.

Japan Trip Part 1 Japan Trip Part 2 Japan Trip Part 3 Leaving Kyoto 🔗 We started the morning off by visiting a small bakery around our Ryokan called Rauk. If you’re ever in the area I highly recommend you try out the bread here. I regret not coming here every morning. Biting into the bread felt like biting into a piece of cloud. Their bread is baked fresh every morning.

Japan Trip Part 1 Japan Trip Part 2 Leaving Tokyo 🔗Woke up in time for hotel breakfast. It wasn’t particularly amazing but wasn’t bad either. Natto, fish, Miso soup and some fruits. We went into the JR office asking the attendant there how to get tickets for Kyoto. He wasn’t very good at english but managed to understand us and helped us buy all the tickets necessary to get to Kyoto and I was able to charge it to my credit card.

Japan Trip Part 1 We started the day off by going to the cafe across from the hotel and had some breakfast. Our plan today was to explore Akihabara. All this cost around 8 USD. We walked by this bakery right next to the Shinjuku station. Apparently its very famous in paris. We came back on another day and tried it’s pastries and bread out and they were delicious. Typical vending machine inside the station.

After we arrived at the airport I opted to purchase tickets for the coach bus into Tokyo that drops us off right in front of our hotel, the tickets cost ¥3000($30 USD) per person. The reason I chose to take the coach bus even though Tokyo traffic was known to be bad(took 2 hours to get to our hotel with traffic) was that while researching for the trip I figured we’d arrive late and tired and getting lost while transfering trains and looking for our hotel carrying luggage wouldn’t be fun.

Hong Kong Day 1 Hong Kong Day 2 Hong Kong Day 3 Woke up to meet with girlfriends friend to have some dim sum. Went to one of the dim sum restaurants that I grew up going to with my grandfather on Sundays when I still lived in Hong Kong. Ho Choi Seafood Restaurant Congee and rice noodle roll covering fried dough. Varius Baos, Phoenix Claws (Chicken feet), Congee and Ha Gao (shrimp dumpling).

I’ve been making this garlic mashed potatoes recipe for years now. It’s my go to recipe for any sort of holiday dinners / potluck since it’s simple to make and every one tends to bring some relatively fancy things with heavy flavors, and I like to balance it out with something lighter. *Note: this recipe does not include the gravy and I personally prefer it without gravy. Ingredients 🔗(portions are estimated and flavored to taste)

Hong Kong Day 1 Hong Kong Day 2 Hong Kong Day 4 Woke up at around 9 am looking for food. We tried desperately to look for a dim sum place around Tsim Sha Tsui but it seems like every thing was closed. It seems like all the places I used to eat at there has turned into high end and boutique clothing stores. I decided our best bet was to go to one of the restaurants in Ocean Terminal 海運大廈.

Hong Kong Day 1 Hong Kong Day 3 Hong Kong Day 4 Blast to the past 🔗We woke up and decided to pay a visit to where I used to live and pay a visit to my old primary and secondary school which was up the hill from where I lived. Yes, this ugly pink building is still the same old color. For the first 5 years I lived here, it was a dull gray color.

Hong Kong Day 2 Hong Kong Day 3 Hong Kong Day 4 I’ve said that I would try to blog once a week but I have been pretty bad at it so far. But I’ve decided to try and follow the rules of “No More Zero Days” and forgive my past self. Day 1-3 of my Hong Kong trip was short, due to day 1 and 2 being the time difference + time spent flying on the plane and Day 3’s whole morning was spent waiting for our luggage to be delievered to our hotel because our luggage didn’t make it onto the plane with us, I’ll be referring to these days as Day 1 of our trip.