I Heart HK!

Ok, this is long over due post cos my Goddess have been busy doing Paper Polly's latest collection, leaving me no chance to use the comp.

My Goddess and the family went HK over the new year period. So sad that they left me alone at home for 3 days. But happy that they family finally went for an overseas trip on a plane and went somewhere further than Malaysia together! Too bad her elder sis wasn't with them. Otherwise it'd have been the perfect family trip!

The weather was supposed to be cold in HK. But it turned out colder than was forecasted! The average temperature was probably about 12 deg or colder everyday. And it got colder as the days went by.


They headed to the terminal early in the morning, left the house at 5am. Luckily the Horny Devil fetched them over and earned loads of brownie points!

After having a mac breakfast, they checked in the departure lounge.


Had to walk a long way before reaching their gate, Gate 1.


Saw an SIA. Wished they could be taking this flight as my Goddess wanted her parents to sit comfortably for the 4 hours trip. And don't even know when's the next time they (her parents) will have the chance to travel again. But they confirmed their trip too late and there were no seats by then. Boo~


And so, this is their plane instead.


Once they got off, they took a cab to their hotel.


Hotel Metropark Wanchai, a 3 minutes walk from Wanchai MTR.

The lobby

The rooms

The room is so small! To think my Goddess have booked a spacious comfort room already! So much contrast to the last hotel they stayed in KL.

After putting their stuffs down, they looked for a place for lunch. By then, it was already 2plus pm!

The reason why my Goddess chose the hotel at Wanchai was because there was supposed to be a very good Wanton noodle stall near their hotel.

But too bad the stall was close for the whole time that my Goddess was in HK, even on the eve of New Year! Think they are too good to want to open during such hours.

So they settled for a cafe a few doors down.

Her Yu Dan Min

Then my Goddess wanted to try visiting Lai Chi Kok again to see if the HK Industrial Centre is still open. The last time she was in HK, she visited the place on a Sunday, not knowing that the place is not opened on Sundays! The place is supposed to be a warehouse place of HK, something like Platinum in BKK.

In the station, as they were walking out. My Goddess saw many people having bags of goodies with them. Her heart skipped a beat. The industrial centre may be opened after all!

And true enough, it was! And to top things off, many shops were closing in a few hours time, so almost everyone was having lelong clearance sale!

Look at how packed the walkway was!

My Goddess, happy with her finds!

Of course she would be happy! She bought for herself a pair of boots which cost about SGD20, a pair of wedges at about SGD16 and a trenchcoat for SGD30!

But my Goddess felt rather bad. She spent about 3 hours at the warehouse, and her poor parents had nothing to do. The buildings around weren't even opened because this was supposed to be an industrial area. So they ended up having coffee break at Starbucks nearby.

Then, they headed to Edward Street, wanting to visit the stretch of Jade Street, Flower Street, Bird Street etc. But they saw signages of a New Year fair. Wanting to experience CNY HK style, they followed the signages.


And came to this huge open area where rows of stalls were set up. It was like SG's fun fair/ CNY fair, where there were finger food, toys and decorations for sale and flowers for sale too.

It was drizzling then.

And the hot yudan suddenly looks yummy

But they settled for this waffle-like pancake but in egg shaped

The fair was a rowdy affair. People were shouting for visitors to buy their goods. There were lion heads, and a lot of supersized products, like the Tiger Surprise (Kinder Surprise), beer in cans and bottles, arms (for boxing people)...

The pretty flowers

After walking and shopping (for Paper Polly) for a while, they found a 茶餐厅 to have their reunion dinner.



Then they continued walking around where the night market was still very much alive, until they smelt something foul.

Smelly beancurd!

The next morning, they went on their way to 王大仙, the famous temple in HK.

And the place was packed!





They just walked one round around the temple and left, in search of breakfast.

Saw something funny along the way.


Upon the local's recommendation, they found a local coffeeshop and had yummilicious Dim Sum breakfast!

Boy am I salivating now.

They then headed to Ngong Ping. My Goddess actually made bookings to sit in their newest cable car - Crystal Car, which has a see through floor to allow you to look down below at the scenery.

Unfortunately, the weather was so bad, it was so foggy, that the cable car rides were suspended. They then had to head to Citygate, a really big shopping outlet of all the big brands but at outlet prices!


They then headed to Tsim Tsha Tsui for lunch.


Only a few eateries were opened on the first day. So the place was packed! What's more, the stall owners are all very business-minded. They charged an extra HKD5 for food and HKD3 for drinks, that's an extra SGD1 for food and SGD0.50 for drinks!


Her dad had 牛囊min.


While my Goddess, the famous 公仔面 (another must-eat in HK, even though it's just maggi noodles) but in dry, stir fried style.

Lunch wasn't fantastic, so they walked down Hennessy Road in search of the famous dessert place - The Sweet Dynasty.



They had some promotion and were giving away flyers to redeem a bowl of Honey Dew sago. Yumz~


When they came out from The Sweet Dynasty, they realised the roads were all sealed - in preparation for the night's Chingay parade equivalent.

The Police team, which you always see in HK dramas

Setting up the lights and sounds

The people were really efficient! They set up the equipment only at 5pm, and the show was supposed to start at 8pm. Less than 3 hours to do everything!

They then walked down Hennessy Land and found the heritage building - a former Marine Police Station.

Very colonial style building

The clock tower

Moving on, they headed to Hollywood Avenue to view Victoria Harbour and the nightly laser show.

See how much mist there is! Can imagine how cold it could be.

Quite a lot of buildings were decorated with CNY greetings.


Initially my Goddess thought the CNY fireworks was happening that night. They waited, and then all they saw was the laser show. Which was good in a sense cos her mom also had a chance to view the famous laser show, Symphony of Lights.

Concurrently, the parade began.


The streets were packed. Even though they left without watching the Parade, there were people everywhere! And did you realise they didn't even have their dinner yet?


Next, they headed down to Mongkok in search of food for dinner.

Passed by the famous Women's Street.

This is indeed Women's Street! There are even women's undergarments hanging next to the board.

Women's Street was a disappointment. The stalls there were all selling fake branded goods, if not shawls and loads of souvenirs meant for the undiscerning tourists.


Nearer to Mongkok, the night life was bustling! There were street performers everywhere, and the lights were very brightly lighted as if it was day time!

This was the queue for cinema. Looks like it's not only the Singaporeans who are crazy over movies.

Walking around really hungry, they finally settled for dinner at a claypot rice place.

Which had the poor pigs hanging outs.

Look at how crowded the place is

The place was so packed that over the course of their dinner time there, 3 different strangers were asked to sit at their table. And worse still, they were already taking their food halfway when they were made to shift. Goodness, how rude can the shop get? But too bad the customers can't complain much too cos it's the New Year period and they don't have much choices too.

My Goddess, not satisfied that she hasn't tried the authentic 公仔面, this time ordered the authentic one - with egg and ham.

Look at how steamy the claypot rice was. This shows two things - 1) the rice is very hot or 2) the place is very cold.

This was the desert place my Goddess, the Horny Devil and her friends had yummilicious dessert the last time they were in HK

Saw a huge crowd outside this shop selling bubble tea. So they decided to give it a try too.

OMG, there were 698 customers served for the day. And did you realise that the number was 665 when they reached?

According to my Goddess, the bubble tea tasted good. Better than Sweet Talk. But the flavoured ones were better.


They also stopped by to eat some snacks like typical Hongkies.

Octopus Takopachi - which doesn't taste as good as it looks.

Skewered snacks

And they tried another typical HK snack - curry fishball. The fishballs were a bit hard for my Goddess' liking.

On their way back, they saw more street performers.

Look at how crowded the streets was - on the 1st night of CNY!

And shr saw a familiar name - Virginia!


Third day morning, porridge - HK style!


After which they took a trip down to Central with the plan to take the tram up to the Peak.

There was a heritage display at the MTR station. My Goddess could actually recognise some of the cookies!


Fashion then which is in fashion now.


As I mentioned, they intented to take the tram up to the peak. But the weather was simply too cold! It was drizzling so surely the trip up there won't be worth and furthermore cold since the mist would have covered everything.


They decided to take HK's famous tram for the experience. It costs only HKD2 per person per trip, no matter the distance!

But never did they know, the Peak stop was just 2 stops away. They didn't even have a chance to sit down or move up to the 2nd level and they had to get off.

Looking at the directory at where to go

And they passed by a Cathedral

The queue to take the tram to go up to the Peak was still ridiculously long.

Look at how foggy the place was.

And so they explored around and went to HK's Zoological and Botanical Gardens instead. It was a free admission place, surprisingly.


Walking around, my Goddess saw quite a lot of plants and flowers but no animals, except for...

This

and this

And this

And my Goddess thought that was the end of the zoo. But luckily farther in, there were more animals, mainly monkeys and reptiles. The zoo was like really private limited.

Coach at Lan Kwai Fang

They had little alleys like these selling really cheap stuffs. But you really need to sieve through the stuffs slowly.

After walking around Central realising there's not much to shop (all the shops there are big brands and the outlet there was closed!) and nothing much to eat for lunch too.

The outlet that was closed.

Saw a red bean pie at macs which look interesting. So decided to have a bit of it to fill their stomachs.

Every body was looking at the guide on where to go. Looked as though they were studying for exams!


And they walked over to the jetty to take a look.


The sky still looked forgy from across the jetty.



After walking around for a long time and couldn't find a decent place to eat - there was no C茶餐厅s around and Crystal Jade wasn't opened, so they ended up having Macs again for lunch, at 4plus pm.



After lunch, my Goddess went in search of Long Champ bags cos she heard it was cheaper then and she regretted not buying it the last time she was at HK.

Saw a Vera Wang boutique. Woohoo!

At night, they went back to Tsim Tsha Tsui to catch the fireworks which they thought happened yesterday.

Look at the crowd!

Unluckily, they stood at the wrong place, the main part of the fireworks were blocked by the clock tower and a building. The fireworks lasted very long however, 20 minutes in total!

As my Goddess still haven't found her Long Champ bag, she brought her family down to Mongkok and later Times Square and Causeway Bay. These were the places that she visited before the last time she was in HK but she can't remember which place exactly did she see Long Champ.

Finally she found her Long Champ at Sogo in Causeway Bay. She also managed to get a decent luggage bag too! So happy, for the last day in HK, she actually was very lucky (Sogo closed later at 10.30pm that night when they reached at 10om) and got all the things that she wanted!

By the time all the shopping was done, it was 11 plus. So they stopped by another 茶餐厅 to have their dinner - their last dinner in HK.

So many menus to look at!

This was what they ordered. Finally at the last day in HK, they managed to eat Bo Lo Bao! However, the toasted bun with butter and condensed milk (picture at top right) tasted much better.

The finally eaten Bo Lo Bao

The place was really good! And it was so near their hotel furthermore. So my Goddess and her family decided to go back to the same place for breakfast the next morning.

The place was still packed with people in the morning.

The place was actually recommended in magazines! Another lucky day for my Goddess!

So does my Goddess!

The cute cup

Yummy Tang Yuans served in a very cute bowl and plate too

A final look at the highly recommended cafe

After breakfast, they had 30 minutes to spare. So they decided to walk around the area.

Saw a cute Doraemon

And a seafood market

After packing their bags of luggages, it was time to face back reality and hit the airport.


My Goddess' new luggage in white, and her shopping buys in the smaller trolley back.


On the way back, there was no food served on Tiger. So she bought a pancake to eat and read the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" (given to her by the Horny Devil) to occupy her time.


There was a DIY section which she could write in her own diary. My Goddess decided to turn it into diary of her wedding.

So this marks the end of her exciting and really lucky HK trip! It was a good time for my Goddess as through this trip, she got to bring her parents out to travel for the first time, somewhere beyond Malaysia. And she found out more about her parents and grandparents. That her maternal grandfather from Guangzhou went over to Hong Kong to work and met her grandmother. They then shifted to Singapore after he found a job as a tailor. And throughout his life, he took on various jobs as a handyman fixing things, as a laborer and also tailor. My Goddess
grandmother also passed away at a young age of 60 (my Goddess was just born then) as medical technology wasn't advanced then and they took many tests on her to find out the cause behind her illness. In the end she couldn't take the many days of tests, and the day she finally went home from the hospital, she left too. :(