HK trip

It's been week since I'm back from HK, and due to the laziness in me, I have not done any editing work on my photos. Didn't take much tho, was only 900+ photos in 5 days, pretty few for my records!

Will summarize the trip and post the photos much later. ;) The night before my trip, I felt like kicking myself for not planning much earlier, I mean, I booked the flights in April, that's 4 whole months to decide where to go, and what to eat. Hotels were only booked 2 weeks before, and itinerary drawn up 24hours before ! What a champ! Nevertheless, we covered a quite a few places in the 5 days, and stumbled upon quite a few famous food spots. Behold our 5 days plan...

Day 1
Arrived in HK International Airport at noon, bus trip to Causeway Bay. Checked in to Express by Holiday Inn. Lunch at Mei Sek Yuen Lam Restaurant @ Causeway Bay. In the evening, we went to Central via 'Ding Ding'. It's HKD2 per trip, and it was a good way to look at the shops and buildings. After a few sesat turns, we finally got ourselves to the Lower Peak Tram Terminal. The plan for the night was to visit The Peak, and Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. The queue was fuii yooo... It went zig zaggin like the crowd at GSC Mid Valley on a Saturday! We were so glad when we found out that we didnt have to follow the queue if we were buying the combo - Wax Museum + Tram. It took us about an hour to get to the peak, and it was a horrid experience with the Chinese tourist as they kept pushing their way through. From the peak, you can catch a glimpse of the magnificient night view of Hong Kong, the cool breeze is much welcomed on a hot summer day! The tour around Madame Tussauds's took us close to 2 hours. We had a jolly good time taking photos with the celebrities and historical figures. Especially like Johnny Depp's wax figure! We had a late dinner cum supper in a place near our hotel. It was the most awful meal we had in HK. A bowl of bland soup noodles with starchy meat balls.. bleks. Went back to our rooms and knocked off in no time.

Day 2
Woke up early morning and had Disneyland in mind, but much to our dismay, it was drizzling outside. We changed plans and decided to go to Macau instead. After breakfast, we made our way to Sheung Wan station and bought our ferry tickets, Macao Dragon was having a promo and it was only 88HKD for a return trip as compared to the other companies which starts from 130HKD for one way. We reached Taipa after an hour on the ferry. We hopped on a free shuttle and got ourselves to The Venetian. It's designed to look like Venice, with a man made canal in the mall, and gondola rides for the public. The casino was huge, as compared to Genting. We tried our luck at the jackpot machines, hoping to win some lunch money, but we lost all 30 dollars. After some pictures in the Venetian, we hopped on a taxi, and went to Taipa Village to hunt for food. 1st stop was Seng Cheong for their crab porridge. Next stop down the lane was
Sawdust pudding and pork chop buns at Tai Li Loi Kee. Yum yum!
From Taipa, we took a mini bus over to Macau. The main objective is to climb up St Paul's ruins, but we got distracted by Sasa and Boujour. Total damage done was 490 HKD ! got perfumes for myself and mommy!
We finally got our tired legs up to the steps of St Paul's ruins, and took some pictures. Then we treated ourselves to Double Steamed Milk Pudding.An interesting dessert it was. Catching the ferry at 09.30pm back to HK, we were tired but very happy with our day trip at Macau. Dinner was a meal at a stall near the hotel. More curried fish balls and noodles. Yay!

Day 3
Since we have decided to skip Disneyland this trip, we made time for The Buddha Statue on Lantau Island. It's a famous spot that we see on TVB series all the time. We had to take the MTR to Tung Chung stop, and then up to Ngong Ping via cable car. It was a beautiful day for sightseeing! We spent the whole afternoon visiting the Buddha Statue and Po Lin Monastery. Only came down at 4+, and proceeded to CityGate Outlet Mall ( which everyone has been raving about) , maybe my purchasing power is really low, so I came out from the mall empty handed. :( Mandy & Wai Mun both got a lil something though. Early dinner was hot food from the supermarket, ate it in front of the water ountain outside the mall. We are being realy tourists aye? Travelled back to the hotel to drop our stuff, and set out again. This time, we headed to Mongkok - meant to visit both Ladies St and Temple St, but only managed to walk down Ladies St. Did quite a bit of shopping and eating. Finally had a taste of HK's smelly tou fu - the smell was really awful.. as Mandy described it, it smells like the drain! Somehow Wai Mun & I found it bearable, so we shared a piece. It taste pretty awesome, I'm so proud of myself! Lol. We made our way back to the hotel at 11+, and along the way, we spotted HK police on standby at the side of the road.. hmm. I wondered if there will be a gangfight soon?

Day 4
After a preliminary packing the night before, we decided that we needed more SHOPPING! hehe. We set out to Central district first thing in the morning, as Wai Mun needed to go up to The Peak again. So we cari makan around that area, tried Wan Tan Mee at 2 shops, and they were right opposite each other. Haha, they must be thinking what a glutton we were. We walked around and explored Central district, stumbled upon hidden alleys of markets, fruit stalls and antique shops. Little did we know that we have walked all the way to the other side of town. The scorching weather did not help at all, but a cup of pure orange juice did! 4 oranges for 13HKD - A bargain it was! After returning to the hotel to freshen up, we made out way out again. This time, we went down to Tsim Sha Tsui to catch the Symphony of Lights and to take a stroll down Avenue of Stars. 2nd part of the night was spent back in Central District, we wanted to go to Lan Kwai Fong. Was fairly disappointed to find out it was just a street of pubs and bars. I'm not sure if there are more pubs that are unexplored though. Well, we'll save some for the next trip ! Oh, the twist of the night was a live drama on the road. A man was shouting at traffic police, and threatening him. It was realy fun watching that ! ;)

Day 5
Finally, it's the day to leave HK. We woke up pretty early on this day, guess we finally realise how little time we have ! We went out to cari makan and had a yummy breakfast of noodles and old style yin yong. Walked around Bowrington Food Market, we were so impressed to find an escalator in the market ! Also made a trip to the MTR station to collect a refund from our Octopus Card. went back to the room to 'lepak' a bit more, and finally got all our stuffs together and out of the room. ;) The ride to the airport took about an hour, and all 3 of us took a quick snooze on the way there. As there wasn't much time to look around the airport, we proceeded straight to the departure hall. Boarded the plane at 6.30pm, and went straight back to KL. Well, that was the end of our trip, we had great fun, and was suprised that we made pretty good travel companions as it's our first time travelling together.

Shall we start planning the next trip ?