Maggie

  Hello again:)) Hope you've all have had a brilliant day so far (or night). I seems like I keep neglecting my blog, but whenever I don't post, it's genuinely because I had been busy. So thanks for understanding!! This is the view from my window, taken at around 6pm. Yes, the sun is setting and theres a beautiful glow. I think this is the first photo where the sky is clear? Oh well. 

  So I have been talking loads about the music, the food and the transport recently, and well to be honest, it can be quite boring reading about it, so today I am going to tell you about something called Maggie (馬仔, translated to little horse, but thats just the nickname). Maggie is actually sort of like a comic book like book. There are several books in the series, and they're funny, but they're all written in Cantonese (It's written in Chinese, but like the way you talk, with all the slangs and stuff). I used to adore them. 

  This is the main character of the books, Maggie, drawn super adorably. All of the book titles start with 我的低能___, which means My Stupid(or lame, in a not very polite way) and focuses on her life. I've only read the first 5 books, but they're basically about her life, her friends and her family, and the next few books on her marriage, pregnancy and her daughter's baby years. It's quite funny, and all of the characters are so cute. 

  This is the first book, translated to My Lame Life (I think its life) and there are so many more (and still coming), including My Lame Marriage, My Lame Babysitting, My Lame Holidays.. The name sounds really mean in English, but believe me, in Cantonese, it's fine. The pages inside look something like this: 

  Of course, there aren't only just books, if I were to write a whole blog post on Maggie. There are also merchandise, including calendars, online games and apps, and I'm going to introduce you to some of the games that revolves around Maggie, which you can play online. So this is an example of some merch Maggie has: Greetings, which are hung on the walls or on doors during Chinese New Year. They are traditionally red, to ward off the evil spirit, but over time they turned into something like this. Each has it's own greetings or 'good' sayings.

  There is a website with almost all of Maggie's online games (most sites only have a few), and I found it. Again! I thought I've lost it. Though of course there are other games there. But most of the Top 10 games there are Maggie games. The first, and one of my favorites is called 經營美容院, translated to Facial House. So basically you give each customer a facial, but it is super fun and you have to help several people do their facials at once. You basically cleanse their faces, then steam, get rid of the blackheads and put a mask on, then make the bed. It sounds boring, but it's fun.

Click here to play :)  (opens in a new window)

  The other one is called 香港茶坊, which means Hong Kong Tea House. In this game, you make drinks, including juices and teas for your customers.  You have to make the juices in a juicer, and then mix and put in a plastic bottle and cap, so its like a factory. You also have to brew the teas, but if you leave it for too long it will burn. Unfortunately, this link only has the Chinese instructions, but you can still give it a try. 

Click here to play:) (opens in new window)

  The third game is called 香港茶餐廳, which means Hong Kong Cha Chaan Teng. Cha Chaan Teng is a traditional Hong Kong cafe. This game is super hard, and you have to make the food super quickly, or the customers will cancel their order and you'll just be left aimlessly with a bowl of egg noodles. I used to only get the coffee and tea orders done because they're the quickest, and I still can't manage to make stuff other than the drinks. But still, try it out. It's fun and the instructions are in English. This game I only found on a huge HK online game site, so I guess its special. 

Click here to play:) (opens in new window)

   Of course, there are tons more of these Maggie games (like Kill Time in Your Office, Mag's Nursery, Maggie's Bakery...), and you should find more in the websites I gave you. There are also other fun games in those sites, so you're interested, give them a try. I used to love them a lot, and I still enjoy them now.

  We all carry our smart phones everywhere now, so well, of course there would be an app for Maggie. It's called daipaidong. So just search that in your iPhone or Android and you should see our friend Maggie. A daipaidong (大排擋) is a type of restaurant in Hong Kong that used to be common, but is rarer now. It is basically an open restaurant, where seafood and simple dishes are cooked and beer is served. The dishes are usually cooked in a wok. They are open until pretty late, so they're for friends and get togethers. 

  In this game, you are the chef of the restaurant and you have to cook the correct food for the correct table. You accumulate points, which you could use to buy more dishes and better tools. If you are too slow, the table would cancel their order, but relax, I think the ones in HK Cafe cancel their orders quicker. I really like this game and I've already unlocked fried rice/noodles, two woks, a golden spatula and a few more locations. (You get more scores/time if the location is more expensive). I think this game is really fun, and you should really try it. There are in-app purchases, like buying more points, but of course you can earn those yourselves. 

  You can play daipaidong online here, to get a feel of how it would be like. Personally, I think you can cook the food faster with the phone app.

Click here to play:) (opens in new window)

  I really hope you found this post interesting, because I really like Maggie too. It's funny and the characters are just adorable. Bye bye!! 

Mags and her daughter:)