Learning

After 2 days of light rain, fog and muted sunlight, the scenery's glisteningly gold again! Yay. This day oughta be good.

How's Hong Kong so far? It was tiring, activities packed from early morning to late at night, for the reason that Hong Kong hardly sleeps, neither will you. In places like Australia, shops keep a tight 8-5 schedule, while you get major shopping malls closing at 11 or 12. The hotel room's pretty much just for sleep alone. There's so much to do, so much to see, you're pretty much on your feet all the time.

Expect to get very achey calves when you visit Hong Kong.

Dim sum breakfast again! These are fried pastry thingies with prawns in them which was the highlight.

We're sharing today's tour leader with another group, which means 30+ people tagging along, making everything a major squeeze.

Did I mention? My family was meant to be on that other tour group which flew into Hong Hong a day later on Cathay Pacific rather than Singapore Airlines. However, the travel agency wanted to even out the numbers between the two groups, and thus bumped us up to Singapore Airlines for free (usually at a $70 per person premium.)

Of course, what we really wanted was to have the tour guide for ourselves rather than spread out among a larger group of 20. And yay, we got the good tour guide!

Well, there's the prerequisite salted pork congee (yuck) and har gow (steamed prawn dumpling) and siew mai (steamed pork dumpling) - which were all good anyway. Better than yesterday's at least.

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Repulse Bay, south of Hong Kong Island. Where the rich and the famous live. Where the lifeguards outnumber the swimmers, and are so tanned and well-built, I suspect they're there to ogle at each other.

I left my camera's white balance to the wrong setting by mistake, which made everything extra blue and scenic!

There's this shrine along the beach that the older ones in the tour group took extra fancy to. Supposedly, the rich and the famous come to pray and remember - never touch the feet of the statue or your devout wishing would all go to waste!





It's embarrassing when the tour guide's assistant told me to pose with this deity that provides bliss in getting a girlfriend or something, since I'm, well, supposedly at that age. Ugh.



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Aberdeen port, where all we really did was to take in the skyline and ride on this really bumpy bumboat that made me near seasick. The tour group took each others' family photos, but urgh, mine's to embarrassing for here.

There's this really cool floating restaurant smack in the middle of the harbour that looks really grand and all, but the guidebooks all say it costs a pretty penny.

Altogether, I won't come here again, not for the seasickness, not for the boats or sampans or ferries which we see all over Hong Kong anyway.


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Jewellery factory. Boring. They're just out there to sell stuff. No pictures.

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Wong Tai Sin temple. Supposedly the most popular of them all. But with lots Chinamen jostling and with me being a totally unreligious person, I was bored to tears. Or, wait, it was the incense making me tear.



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Lunch was roast goose, which, to be honest, tastes ENTIRELY like duck. The tour guide says that many other smaller eateries try to pass off duck as goose, and I honestly don't care. Either way it tastes like chewing on a shoe!




Some hits, many misses.

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Shop selling dried herbs and seafood for boiling soup. Boring. They're just out there to sell stuff. No pictures. It's a hot and tiring day and I drifted asleep on the bus...

my last memory being shifting my head as I had been drooling onto my shirt...

and the next moment I was jolted awake.

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Avenue of Stars! Not too much about the handprints (Eric Tsang's hands are surprisingly stubby) but the view of the sea is just terrific. But the heat is scalding, and we had to stop at Pacific Coffee halfway to chill.


Bruce Lee terrifies Hong Kong Island!


Rich men in their helicopters.

The tour ends, and parted ways with the tour group, and went to nearby Nathan Road at Tsim Sha Tsui to shop. Didn't really buy anything, walked all the way to Harbour City, which is Hong Kong's equivalent (only bigger) of Vivocity, with shops of every kind. Oh, and they have staff stationed all over to guide people to the various sections. (It's REALLY easy to lose one's way in there.)

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There's this CD shop, but sadly, no L'Arc En Ciel which I was hunting all over for.

Stuff there isn't cheap that's for sure. Especially sportswear.

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Reached Wellcome supermarket there. Did you know that Hong Kong's Wellcome, 7-11, Manning's and Singapore's 7-11, Cold Storage, Shop n Pay, Jason's, Guardian and Photo Finish are all under the same parent company Dairy Farm Group? Now you know.

They sell sandwiches with lotsa veges inside, Subway style at half the price, and they gave out samples that tasted excellent. Also, their custard rolls are to die for!

Bought various stuff, including the obligatory stocking up of chewing gum (they ban the sales of chewing gum in Singapore.)



Short notes: Mcvite's biccies are cheap here. Hong Kong Coke Zero is way sweeter (though not as sweet as Coke Light) than the Korean imports we get in Singapore.




Skittles bubble gum is like the normal stuff except it leaves a little wad of gum when the sugar dissolves. Pop in another Skittle to refresh the taste, and you get a larger wad of gum. Repeat until you get a large, blowable gob. Managed to blow a teeny weeny bubble only after many tries, so I wonder how y'all do it!



Popped by an Internet cafe, checked mails, caught up with stuff. And yay, did the transaction all in Cantonese.

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The MTR is easy to use. In fact, it's used in the exact same way as the MRT in Singapore. Press the destination's button on the machine, put in the coins, and collect your tickets. Easy peasy. It's a friggin replica of Singapore's MRT, down to the prominently-labelled exits and tunnel smell.

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Hotel. The eatery nearby. I know you're gonna be grossed out, but well, this is beef organs, and hey, it doesn't taste bad at all.

Parents aren't too naggy or irritating. I think it's the tiredness setting in. Waking at the crack of dawn and returning to the hotel rather late at night sure keeps people too tired to bitch and moan.

The next day's totally free and easy, and it'll be a day of exploring Hong Kong Island proper!

Stared at the map silly but still couldn't decide on an exact plan to explore the place. Heck, we'd adlib along the way once we start off taking the bus to the Star Ferry terminal then enjoying the views as we cross the harbour.