My Parents' Birthdays 2014

September is a busy, busy month - as usual! Apart from having a full time job now (more on that in another post I'm drafting), I've also begun having driving lessons that take up my weekends! And lets not forget my many doctor / dietician / psychologist / dentist appointments (me and my health problems, lol), which I need to make free time for too. Oh, and did I mention I'm starting Nutrition classes at HKU SPACE soon?

Apart from these obligations, I still have to maintain my already-lacking social life, which has been so difficult thanks to my packed schedule. To make things more difficult, September and October were the months of celebrations, namely:

1. Cherry's birthday
2. Dad's birthday
3. Jason's birthday
4. Sarah's birthday
5. Mum's birthday
6. My parents' wedding anniversary
7. My 3rd anniversary with Jason

But there's more! The cooler and drier weather in Hong Kong means that all the music and art festivals / events / bazaars are all taking place too, and because my time is already so limited, I've had to miss quite a few and they only come once a year. :( Oh well, you can't have everything!

This post though will concentrate on two major events this year (or minor-ish, because my family has never been big on spending or celebrations) - my parents' birthdays!

Daddy's birthday:

Dad's actual birthday was on a typhoon night on Monday! But we celebrated with a dinner outside on Sunday evening at Dan Ryan's Chicago Grill, a casual family restaurant. When I scroll through my Instagram and Facebook, my rich peers celebrate these milestones in hotel dining places that cost over $1000 per head, but erm... my family is much too poor for that. LOL. So nothing fancy - not that I mind at all!

We'd never tried Dan Ryan's before and I pre-ordered a molten chocolate lava cake as a surprise for my Dad, but what I didn't know was that the restaurant actually already provides a complimentary carrot cake for birthdays. As a result, the three of us were stuffed to the brim.

Oh, and of course I paid for this meal using my very first paycheck!

Mummy's birthday:

Mum's birthday is exactly a week after Dad's (well, four years and one week), so we celebrated on Sunday once again. This time, I chose Amaroni's Little Italy because my parents requested a convenient location, and the restaurant was smack right in the middle of Causeway Bay. I realised that Amaroni's is run by the same company as Dan Ryan's, so this time I smartly asked if they provided complimentary desserts for birthdays. They did!

I wasn't sure what to get for Mum, even though I was paying for half of dinner already, so I decided to get flowers. It was my first time buying flowers and I'm pretty sure I got ripped off but LOL never mind, it's the thought that counts!

I would say that Dan Ryan's is better than Amaroni's though in terms of value for money. Both restaurants serve giant portions but I think I like American food more than Italian food, haha. Steaks over spaghetti any day! Either way, I had a great evening with my parents! Who says you need to dine at 1k+ per head restaurants for a good family time?

(Definitely not this poor family LOL.)

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Jason's Birthday Picnic at Cyberport

Following our successful picnic in Tamar Park the previous week, Jason and I decided to have another picnic the following weekend! We just randomly chose Cyberport as the location because the park has a supermarket nearby where I could buy more food / transportation out isn't too bad, although to be honest Cyberport pretty much sucks as a place. Ha ha sorry if I offended anyone! It's just my personal opinion... I mean, it really feels like a dead town. But the park where we had our picnic at was really nice - a perfect place for family and pets!

I actually prepped ("cooked" would not be the appropriate word) a light meal for Jason as a birthday treat for him. Since I am anything but a domestic goddess, I am quite pleased with the outcome even though it is anything but gourmet, haha. The dumbest thing was, I forgot that Jason hates tomatoes and I watched guiltily as he forced them down his throat in respect for my efforts (I spared him though - helped him finish them LOL).

On the menu:

• Ham & cheese sandwich
• Nutella & banana sandwich
• Wheat cracker burgers with ham & cheese
• Fried rice (cooked by my Mum and reheated by me)
• Mixed salad
• Bananas
• Grapes
• Cherry tomatoes

We weren't really hungry after the "lunchtime" picnic, even though it was like 6PM by then. Obviously we couldn't fit in dinner right away so we took the minibus back out to Causeway Bay, walked around a bit, and finally settled for Watami at 9PM. Lol I know, our eating times are so healthy.

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Dinner with Sarah

Met up with Sarah for dinner one typhoon Tuesday. I remember that day specifically because Typhoon 8 was hosted unexpectedly in the morning, which meant I got to take half a day off work! Initially our plans to meet were with Karina as well, but she was busy and had to cancel on us last minute (as always, pfft!), so I just met with Sarah alone in the end. :)

We were going to go to Brunch Club & Supper but it was raining so hard by the time I arrived in Causeway Bay so I went to Outback instead because it was closer - and I couldn't wait to try my new platinum membership card LOL. After eating we went to Holly Brown in Hysan Place to chill!

Oh and here's a little bonus from when I met up like two weeks later with Jacklyn, Vikki and Sarah! We had dinner in Causeway Bay, making sure to avoid the protest areas (Google Umbrella Revolution or Occupy Central if you don't know what I'm talking about - but I won't go into politics here), then got dessert at Cha-no-wa in Citysuper. Here's Sarah's halloween themed ice cream special - this silly girl always has to eat dessert haha, but the ice cream was super cute! :)

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Picnic Date in Admiralty

So out of the blue one fine weekend, I found myself craving a little outdoors - actually, scrap that, the feeling wasn't sudden at all... it'd been with me ever since I started working a 9-to-6 desk job. I mean, it's only natural that even a lazy-ass like me would want to get up and walk around and breathe in some fresh air after sitting in an office for 45 hours a week (sometimes more!). So Jason and I decided to go picnicking for tea!

Jason wanted to go to some place out in the Kwun Tong wilderness or something, but to get there we had to travel super far and it wasn't accessible by MTR (had to either walk or take another minibus) and there were no supermarkets nearby... so I suggested Tamar Park in Admiralty instead. I'd never picnicked there before but I stumbled across this place during a school trip back in April (embedded in a post here) and I remember thinking that it would be a nice picnic spot. Anyway it was a good choice in the end because I ended up waking at 2PM and by the time we sat down on the grass it was 5PM (and Jason hadn't eaten all day cos he was waiting for me wtf).

We bought some snacks at Great Food Hall, and I actually ate an entire salad bowl even though I just had my lunch at 3PM... and fun fact, we had dinner at 8PM-ish just three hours later. So I basically had three full meals in the time span of five hours. Oh, I'm so healthy. Not.

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