6 Oct 2007 - Hong Kong here we come
Before I start the photoblog of our trip, I need to pay a special tribute to Esther from charheimee.blogspot.com. She had recently visited HK in April and her wonderfully chronicled blog was our main guide for this trip.
Click HERE for the entries for her trip.
Why is the Singapore flag the wrong way around?
First stop, Krispy Kreme
What a spread!
Chokolate Krunch
A Bite of the "Rich and Dark"
The Airport Express is super fast, and relatively cheap. We highly recommend you get the $300HKD bundle. It's a 2 way trip + 3 days of unlimited MTR use.
The first room they put us in was mighty small.
Double Bed... The size of the room...
Changing rooms made a world of difference. The Twin room was just a touch bigger, but felt more comfortable.
Yes, there is a gap between the beds.
The City never Sleeps. Actually, this was taken about 8pm, had just got my measurements done for my shirts.
A little late, but I decided to catalog all the stations we visited. 'Mong Kok' is the stop you want to take to head to the beef noodles, and 'Ladies Street'.
This place was packed. Not sure of the street name, but it leads to the Beef noodle shop.
One of the best Beef Noodles I've ever had. The beef was melt-in-your-mouth delicious and the noodles were perfectly cooked al-dente.
I believe the shop is called Rong Yuan. Kudos to Esther for the recommendation. I have no idea how we would have found this place without her directions
That's 'Smelly Tofu' in the picture. I've always wanted to try it, but I really couldn't bring myself to it. I'll probably need to be spurred on by a dare of sum sort before I actually do.
Beef Tripe and other innards. No, I didn't eat any. It did NOT look appetising.
BFF went for the desserts. I'm not really a big fan.
While she was happily munching away on her mango-pomelo-iced-jelly-balled-cocktail thingy, I decided to take pictures of the area.
We walked down the famous 'Ladies Street' and guess what I found... A Hello Kitty store. I had been previously tasked to purchase items for a friend in Spore, so I duly followed the instructions.
I'm not sure if we arrived on a special occasion, but all the side streets were closed to traffic. It was just a wave of people walking up and down the street.
I just loved the lights and signs.
Krispy Kreme.....
From Mongkok, we walked down 'Ladies Street' and Nathan Road, and found ourselves at the next MTR stop. 'Yau Ma Tei'.
Tsim Sha Tsui was the stop to our hotel. Contrary to the signs, exit E is NOT the closest exit to Kowloon Hotel. Exit F is.Yup, our day 1 seems to be exactly like Esther's day 1 :)
7 Oct 2007 - Bright Lights, Big City
First priority of the day is BREAKFAST. This time, we used the good food guide bundled with '8 days' a couple of months ago. Do note that the guide is NOT very accurate. Directions are confusing and MTR exits are often wrong. Be wary if you want to follow the guide explicitly. Anyway, Sheung Wan was the first stop of the day. We were looking for a place called "Lin Heung" which is a famous "Yum Cha" place for breakfast dimsum.
So we walked and looked...
And we walked and we looked...
And we walked and we looked...
And walked and looked... Following the bloody directions in the guide...
Finally, after about 30mins of walking, we found the place. We were positively famished, but it was a good way to build up our appetites. Did I mention that it was mostly uphill walking?
Was it worth it? Hell yeah. The food was lovely. Not the exquisite dim sum you would find in Tung Lok, but it was surely delicious. And the atmosphere was rowdy, noisy and you had to share tables with perfect strangers. Our table was all tourists too, and BFF was chastising me for staring at the guy at our table. To be fair, he was using a Leica M7 to take pictures and I love that camera.
I love Siew Mai... Not the best I've ever had, but ranks in the top10.
I think this one was 'Sharks Fin dumplings'. Wasn't that bad, cept I couldn't taste any sharks fin within the dumpling.
Turns out, we were closer to 'Central' station than 'Sheung Wan' as per the guide. Btw, this place is totally Lucky Plaza (and it was a Sunday too).
Next stop, Causeway Bay (also known as Tung Lo Wan, fans of 'Young And Dangerous' might recognise that name)
Das Gute!! I dunno, didn't get to try it.
A Krispy Kreme a day, keeps the doctor away. There was a branch at the basement of Times Square
Random pic of a lingerie shop.
Times square was next on the agenda. BFF had taken a shot in front of that clock (left of screen) 10 years ago, and we had to recreate the photo 10 years on.
In case you're wondering, the shop does say 'Sexual Well-Being Store'. We did not go inside.
It's the small things that I like about HK. Everyone keeps to the right on the escalators, leaving a path for people to walk on the left. Every window in the train has a window for emergency ventilation (in case the air-conditioner breaks down). It's stuff like these that show that the govt cares for the ppl rather than being busy earning million $ salaries.
There's no smoking in parks, buildings or public places. Fantastic rule. They even build special smoking corners (that are glass-encased) for smokers so that they don't disturb non-smokers. Considering how cheap cigarettes are in HK, it's amazing that the population of smokers is so small. I guess raising prices is not always the right way to do things.
Everything goes up, and up and up. I had a neck ache most of the time trying to take pictures of buildings.
Victoria Peak. There's actually an EA concept store. Awesome.
The View from Victoria Peak is gorgeous. Even with the pollution and the haze. Too bad we chose to go on a Sunday night and it was uber crowded. The tram ride up was a lot shorter than I remember though. I think they've shortened the trip by quite a bit. The walk from Central station to the Peak Tram was super long, and super tiring... all uphill.
Dinner was at Bubba Gumps, a concept restaurant based on 'Forrest Gump'. It was actually quite good. The seafood was fresh and well prepared. Check out the wall of 'hot sauce'.
That was the tram that brought us back down.
From the Peak, we decided to walk down to Lan Kwai Fong, the 'clubbing' place to be in HK. I found this building along the way. The Foreign Correspondents Club in HK. I love the structure.
Got hungry after returning to the hotel so we ventured out along the Bay to look for some supper. Recommended by the good food guide, this was supposed to be a supper place that would be opened till 3am. It's supposed to serve fabulous noodles... guess what. It was only 1am and it was closed.
Food guide wrong again...
Thank god there was a street stall open next door. I had the curry fishballs (which were a tad salty), and the fried stuff mushrooms (Was really good).
Click the image for the full shot. My first attempt at sticking together a row of shots to create a wide landscape.
HK is so beautiful at night. Don't remember the name of this place, but it was basically an above ground walkway leading from one side of the bay all the way over to the old Ferry terminal.
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