Homecoming

After a good morning of sleep brought to me by the letter L for lorazepam, it's homecoming day! To be honest, my parents and I had more or less finished on what we planned to do on this trip, and hell, there's really nothing to do for the rest of the day before meeting at the hotel in the afternoon to take the bus to the airport.

Tea eggs! Off to the wet market we went, and we got ourselves 5 tea eggs for the heavenly price of HKD$10, so that's SGD$0.40 each.

These are extra tea-ey, extra tasty tea eggs without the sulphourous smell one often gets with overcooked egg yolks.

Tasty! And you just don't get as them as good in Singapore. Or as cheap, for that matter.

Next is the cooked meat stall, where we bought some fried belly pork and char siew (barbecued pork) to munch on.

That's a whole load of fat!

And where do we go from here? As we've already seen and done everything, it's just mindless ambling around.

The wet markets in Mong Kok area are equally impressive, with ueberly fresh produce everywhere, like those in Central the previous day.

Feeling utterly lazy, and the weather's pretty cruel too, so we went to Langhan Plaza, which is this sprightly new shopping centre that popped out of the ashes of Kowloon area.

This area used to have its buildings limited in height, due to the nearby airport. However, ever since the airport had moved over to Lantau Island far away from the city districts of Hong King, tall and new buildings have sprouted in the recent years. Langham Plaza, which is a shopping centre built upwards rather than outwards (it has at least 12 floors of shops) is one of them.

Settled for a Starbucks Java Chip frap and a blueberry cheesecake to be shared 3 ways. They taste the same way they do in Singapore, which is testament to their consistently high quality. Prices are similar to Singapore, which would mean that this would be relatively more inaccessible to Hong Kongers, considering how much less other foods and drinks cost them.

I shopped around while my parents lazed at Starbucks and got myself a nice Nike black/yellow/grey bottom! Yay!

Back at Starbucks and we were still feeling lazy, and I whipped out my DS together with the 2 girls at the one side of my table and the lady at the other side. Gosh! The school hols are ending and yet I'm not through with Pokemon FireRed!

Seems like the DS is slightly more popular in Hong Kong than Singapore, and the games and accessories are priced about the same though I notice literally everyone uses a flashcart. Yay for piracy!

Oh, and we got sat kei ma, an eggy, floury biscuit made of biscuit bits stuck ogether with sugar. I've always been a sucker for these, so I bought 3 packs of them, along with egg rolls and sesame mochi!

Yay for my keen eye for hidden snack places!

Ambled around mindlessly until it was time for a late lunch, before heading back to the hotel, getting our stuff and going back to the airport.

It's sad, 5 days of Hong Kong and it's going to end. I hate endings.

At this point, parents were getting cranky and whiney again. This is bad. Sigh. Damn you ageing!

We went to this off-the-main-road eatery near Mong Kok MTR and ate the last few classics that we had not tried yet.

Can I comment on the milk tea first? The milk tea here is GOOD. It tastes tea-ey and thick, the way Bishan S11 does it.

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And as for the food, here's to a visual feast:


Fishball noodles. The fishballs are chewy rather than soft, the fishcakes are soft rather than chewy, it's a personal preference kinda thing!


Beef kway teow. I didn't like it - the Thai Express one has better meat and stronger flavours - but mom liked it. Personally I find the meat soft and gooey and all, and it must be all that fat in it.


Back to the hotel, and the tour guide passed all the groups the Hong Kong pastries which we had ordered earlier. This is lao po bing/wife biscuit, which is a classic in both Hong Kong and Singapore. It's this crumbly pastry on the outside that wraps a jelly-like sweet paste. Tasty, though I wasa little disappointed that it wasn't as mindshattering as it's hyped up to be.


Unindentified pastry. Madde of almonds, and well, I haven't tasted it yet.

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The flight back home:


OMG Singapore Airlines put us on a 747-400 instead of a 777-300, so the plane ride was going to be way noisier and cramped. This sucks.


Sunset from the plane. And things got a little hairy when turbulence got bad. Tried to soothe the nerves with a glass of white wine, but it only made me feel bad enough to quickly call for pineapple juice to dilute the alcohol that was already swirling in my tummy.

Distracted myself half-watching Letters from Iwo Jima, and it isn't exactly the best feeling to be bumping around in your aeroplane seat while watching the Japanese shooting down American planes. (Gee, and they're PROBABLY Boeings too) Couldn't really enjoy the movie - turbulence, sleepiness, and hell, the screen was dim and blurry and the subtitles were barely readable. It's a wonder how anyone can enjoy movies on a flight. Anyway the movie's pretty good from the parts where I had managed to concentrate on watching, though it's one hell of a sad movie.


Dinner was beef-something with potatoes. And a smoked salmon salad. Bun and crackers, with a pack of really good garlic cheese.

Oh, and rock-frozen Haagen Dazz chocolate ice-cream, Did they leave it in the unheated cargo area or something before that?

Turbulence got worse. Air stewardess spilled some of containers right next to my seat while clearing the trays. That's who bad it was, and the the pilot didn't even switch on the seatbelt sign. Ugh.

Evil tip, but if you're on Singapore Airlines, remember to bring a 2-pin earphone adaptor so you can use your isolation, earplug-style earphones to block out the engine noise while getting good sound quality. But even better is, as they hand you their own headsets rather late and collect them back rather early, you'd get a whol half hour more with the inflight entertainment with your own earphones.

Then the boring details:
Touched down (the landing was surprisingly smooth.)
Flurry of SMSes as I finally got to replying those I had received while I was in Hong Kong.
Airport. Arrival hall.
Bought duty-free beer and wine.
Lugged everything back to the taxi, and the ride cost $17.

Home! A flurry of unpacking, and here I am.

Exploring

Breakfast at Metropark Mongkok is a bad way to start for the day. For 50HKD, you get cold pancakes (than never got refilled when the tray was empty), mushy scrambled eggs, pastries that ranged from 'I can finish this if I just force myself to' to 'my &*@^#knife can't penetrate it'!

I hate to say this but: The hotel is OK but the food is really horrible. AVOID.

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As planned, a bus trip (buses are crowded on weekends here) on a Kowloon Motor Buses-run Volvo B9TL ALX500 (those brand spanking new wheelchair accessible buses, similar ones found in Singapore).



Star Ferries. At HKD$2.20 you get to ride in the air-conditioned deck from Tsim Sha Tsui Terminal to Central Terminal, which is really a steal that pwns any mode of transport in terms of price or scenery. I'd wager that it's one of those historical modes of transports that the Hong Kong government pours money into to sustain, same for the tram system.

Surprisingly fast and smooth. Though the view got a little boring after staring at so often already.

If you come to Hong Kong, take the ferry at least once though! That's what all the guidebooks say!



Spartan but comfy.

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On Sundays, Central area is teeming with Filipino domestic workers, as it's their designated off-day of the week. Every shopping mall, every corridor and every nook becomes their picnic spot. They even gotta cordon off a couple of roads for them.


Mom suggested taking a look at the world's longest escalator, which links to the Midlands, somewhere near the foot of Victoria Peak.



Went off track to explore the REAL Hong Kong. Its markets, its alleys. This is the real Hong Kong we'd been missing the past 3 days!




Vegetables here are particularly fresh cause they come right of Mainland China or the New Territories.


Roadside stalls.


Traditional stepped slopes. But oh wait, where's my sesame paste dessert! I just can't seem to find it! It's a classic must-try in Hong Kong, but it's nowhere to be seen.

Went back on the Midlands Escalators and passed by SOHO, short for South of Hollywood Road, where the British expatriates love to stay. It's pubs and bars galore, not to mention next to Asia's clubbing capital Lan Kwai Fong. Naturally, property prices are sky high.

And oops, the crowds started to thin while we proceeded on the escalators. And we found ourselves off the town, and in some upper-middle class residential area.

And no buses. No MTR. KC to the rescue! Bright KC decided to hail a cab all the way west to Sheung Wan, then tram all the way west, making mental notes of where to go to along the way. Then alighting at Causeway Bay and walking east again!

Taxi ride was harrowing. It descended the distance we took an hour to ascend in minutes. Ears popping. Scary. The cool thing about Hong Kong taxis is that the front seats are bench seats, so instead of the driver's gearbox you get an extra seat, allowing for 5 passengers.

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Tram ride, at a miserly HKD2 flat fare. It's probably running at a loss too, but with the government pumping in money to preserve it. Popular with the Filipinos and the Happy Valley horse-racing gamblers.

It's really slow though, so if you're neither into sightseeing or dirt-cheap transport, avoid it. Even the oldest Leyland buses overtake you at the snap of a finger.

After you get your bones jolted enough once you'd never want to ride on a tram anymore, unless you find yourself a miser in Hong Kong.

But, hey, you just gotta try it once, no? It's like Hawaii without the beaches or France without the Eiffel.

With butts still ringing from the vibrations, we got off at Causeway Bay area.





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Hong Kong fast food! The biggest chain's Da Jia Le, and it has a really wide menu though with a couple of hits and misses. The (unnamed) tomato-seasoned-chicken-leg-over-rice tastes great, though the fish is strictly in the 'bleagh' category.

But as always, the desserts are the clincher, and they have this really tasty red bean ice cream drink with the red beans just done right so that they're still chewy rather than soggy and mushy.





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'Beating little men'. The customer asks the medium to curse a person by whacking a paper effigy with a wooden clog.



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After some walking in circles (the maps we had aren't exactly accurate) we found Times Square, which is, like, THE shopping mall of Hong Kong Island.

PageOne (moved to 9th floor rather recently) there is good for getting postcards, but books aren't cheap. There's a G2000 at the basement where I bought formal shirts. There's a huge departmental store, and lots of upmarket restaurants.

And yay, CD Warehouse had my L'arc En Ciel CD at a reasonable price! Mom got a Phantom of the Opera DVD.

Quirk is, the whole building's 12 floors of shopping, and some areas aren't quite connected, so it's quite a mess.

Hong Kong's adopting Singapore's foodcourt culture, instead of small eateries in shopping malls. You can sometimes find Singaporean favourites like roti prata and char kway teow in these!

And finally! Sesame paste at the void-deck food court!



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Went back to Kowloon by crowded MTR, to get some trinkets from the night market Temple Street (affectionately termed Men's Street in contrast to nearby Lady's Street. Actually they sell similar stuff.)

Got a bunch of fridge magnets at a good price. Yay for mom's bargaining skills!

And on the way back, I led my family to the wrong direction of the main road, which was a really good thing because...


We found yet another Hong Kong classic! Steamed egg pudding! We got the traditional egg custard one and the milk + egg white one, and though my parents preferred the original, I found the overcooked-egg-yolk taste too overpowering and polished off the egg white + milk one instead.

Yay! Another to-do off the list!

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Had a quibble with dad. so I should not correct him when he's obviously in the wrong? Bah.

It sucks when parents are getting old and senile and start acting like little kids again.

Took a REALLY crowded bus back to the hotel, which was a bad decision because we couldn't see where we were going, until we heard 'Sham Shui Po' on the PA (they have an electronic system that reads out and displays the stop name) which means that we had overshot the hotel by 1 MTR station.

A long walk.

3 cranky people.

Argh.

And I've got this chunk of plastic broken off my spanking new camera and I don't know how.

I felt sad.

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The pirate booty.

Felt jittery and couldn't sleep, so popped a couple of those lorazepams.

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.