Out of Bounds

In the past, I used writing to relax me and to take me away from the stress of office work and family duties. But during the last few days, my stress reliever and guilty pleasure has been reading some heavy gossip on the net. I have been consumed by the Brian Gorrell blog and his outrageous stories about members of the Gucci Gang. At first, it was interesting but now, it's just turned into an ugly slugfest of hurtful words and accusations. So to veer away from that, I shall continue my beautiful adventure with my beautiful friends who don't indulge in alleged nefarious and illegal activities. Heehee.

When these girls say, be ready by 9 am, they are knocking on my door and ringing my doorbell by 8:59 am. For a person who goes through many rituals before dressing up, this was indeed a challenge to me. Unlike my roommate the bumbero (her term, not mine!), she can wake up at 8:30 and be out that door by 9. As you can see in the picture, almost all the shops along Granville are still closed as we make our way to the Star Ferry to take us to the Hong Kong Side.







Upon arrival at the IFC, lo and behold, the shops are still closed. Well, most of them were except for a few here and there. We decided to go inside Lane Crawford and look around all the latest clothes by those well-known fashion designers. The clothes looked really pricey, alam mong mamahalin sa tela palang! And of course, they didn't just look pricey. They were very expensive as well! Maja and I looked at one another and sighed. We turned our attention to the more affordable make-up counters and consoled ourselves with a few Shu Uemura purchases.



By 11:30, I was getting cross-eyed since I skipped breakfast to make it to my 9am call time. I convinced the girls to have lunch about the same time we chanced upon Crystal Jade. The first thing that struck me about the place were the words XIAO LONG BAO written underneath the restaurant's name. Yum! Memories of Shanghai. I was super excited to eat that soupy dimsum once again. And the place did not disappoint! We ordered just enough dimsum, yang chow fried rice, deep fried dumpling and spicy peanut noodle soup to get us through the afternoon for what would be....the Maja and Ria shopping extravaganza.

Maja directed our cab to the Hong Kong Island-South Horizons district better known as the Ap Lei Chau area. Its a good 30-minute ride from IFC and its already in the vicinity of Ocean Park. Talk about outskirts! Anyway, our cabbie brought us down at the SPACE outlet. This shop is Prada-owned and despite the fact that the clothes and leather goods were already of last season, the quality was still outstanding! Unlike Ross or Marshalls, you don't have to siphon through loads and loads of stuff before you find the one you want. In fact, it was like being in a Prada store at the mall. The one thing though I couldn't stand was having to deposit your handbag at the counter. Hassle because you have to hold on to your wallet while shopping.

After the SPACE outlet, we took another cab to the Horizon Plaza which was described to us as the Lane Crawford warehouse. OMG. This is where the girls literally went crazy. Marc Jacobs, Kate Spade, Pedro Garcia and all the other brand name designer shoes selling at 30% off. All the clothes and the bags and almost everything at the store was 30% off the discounted price. It was really a steal! Too bad I was wearing my killer boots because it was really a hassle for me to be taking them off and putting them on. It didn't seem to bother Maja and Ria though. They ended up with 5 pairs each! After going to about five more floors and with no more arms left to carry our shopping bags, we took a cab back to our hotel so that we could unload then shop again!



I had just dropped my shopping bags and was about to sit down when Maja and I hear someone knocking on our door. It was Ria and Jaz ready to go to Harbour Centre na. My gaaaaaaad. Patawad. I need to rest kahit 5 minutes lang. So the 2 giddy shoppers left us and headed straight for Canton Road. Maja and I left about 30 minutes after as we took a leisurely walk towards the Ocean Terminal. Look, look, shop, shop until we ended up in Toys R' Us. We finally met up with the 2 giddy shoppers and even bumped into old law school classmate Stef Baltao who also happens to be Ria's first cousin. From there, we dragged our aching feet to....you guessed it! Day 2 in Happy Garden. After having all the rice toppings we could eat, we headed towards the other end of Canton to the coveted LV store. I was so sad when Anna and Rica's bags were both out of stock! Its as if it was my loss as well. Heehee. Maja could no longer walk the mile so we took a cab back to the hotel after getting disappointed at the LV store.

Wala pa talagang 5 minutes, Ria and Jaz were at our door again! These girls take too much vitamins! As soon as we get down to Granville, I head to the first shoe store I see and buy myself a pair of FLAT shoes. It's really against my religion to wear them but at this stage of the game, I needed them to survive the rest of the trip. We go through the whole street, cross-over and make a few purchases and by 11pm, we call it a night. I can't believe we have 2 more days to go and I'm this tired! I must recharge....