Summer in HK

Well it wasn't the bright sunny summer that anyone would imagine...it was rain, rain and more rain. I just touched down this afternoon and already feeling damn shacked out from the effects of terrible weather, heavy alcohol and endless walking and dodging of poking umbrellas.

And here're some parts of my short 3-day trip with joshua, serene wong and serene tan, and accompanied by our tourguides kachun and josephine...

And this is my hotel...Harbour Plaza Metropolis that is located right beside Hung Hom KCR railway station and the HK Coliseum (紅館), where I watched Sammi's concert. Was quite unhappy with the location at first but because of the extremely convenient and f.o.c hotel shuttle service and the airport express service buses, everywhere in Kowloon seems like 5 mins away from harbor plaza metro.

Serene Tan got us the room at IBM corporate. It only cost me about SGD 200 plus for 3 nights. I'd recommend this hotel for those who wanna watch shows at the HK Coliseum. The hotel's too far to travel from town by foot. So if you're the walk-back-to-hotel kind of person, I suggest you find some other place in Tsim Sha Tsui.

(Left: view from outside the coliseum ; right: view from my room)

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And above are some random pics taken at Whampoa Garden (黃埔花園）near our hotel where we had our first meal at Maxim Eatery (美心). This place has nothing, so please don't go.

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Cakes from the Harbor Plaza Metropolis patio....

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Upon arrival on Friday afternoon, we went straight to Tsim Sha Tsui (尖沙咀）and walked down the whole stretch of Nathan Road (彌敦道）until Mongkok (旺角), and then it started to pour. So we were stuck at Langham Place (朗豪坊）which is like one huge landmark in mongkok where shoppers take a super long escalator up all the way to the top before walking down a shopping spiral filled with gift shops, collectible shops and weird kinda shops like the one above. It sells some limited edition bra or something. Ladies, go check out.

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But the rain was a blessing somehow, cos i've never taken such nice pictures of the HK skylines on my previous 3 visits to HK!

Taken from Tsim Sha Tsui ferry point


International Financial Centre standing tall...josephine said the middle floors are always lighted up 24/7 and they belong to an all-too-familiar company - UBS AG (my internship firm)


(click to view full panorama)

And then we headed off up the peak to catch the breathtaking view of Victoria's Harbor before cabbing to Lan Kwai Fong （蘭桂坊）for drinks! That place is full of Ang Mohs and SarongPartyGals!

(click to view full panorama)


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And the next morning, Josh & I kind of got a slight hangover. But nothing's gonna stop us from whacking dim sum, so we went to the 21st floor of One Peking Road for brunch at a restaurant that kachun recommended. It's called 潮樓. It serves porridge in the watery form, so it's easy to tell it's a teochew dimsum place.

(left: spicy carrot cake ; right: sweet water chestnut cake...yumz!)

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And this is something new that most of the locals like Kachun himself have never tried before - Ngong Ping (昂平） 360 cable car ride at Lantau Island. It cost 88 HKD per person. And yes, you can judge from the color of the skies in the pics below...we saw nothing but clouds of white and more white while hanging in mid air in the cable car. And when we reach the top, we couldn't go walk around to see the big buddha cos it just kept raining.

But there's always the wet weather programme....that's to find more things to EAT! Woots!
This dessert chain is called Honeymoon Desserts (西貢滿記甜品）. And there's an outlet near the cable car station at the top of the mountain.

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Every Sunday is Maids' Liberation Day in HK, very much like what we see in Singapore. And our weather girl Josephine already forewarned us it's gonna RAIN AGAIN! So these hordes of Filipino maids who usually gathered for picnics at the lawn outside Central Station (中環）, camped at the ground floor of the HSBC Building instead. The picnics go on as usual anytime, anywhere, any weather. I saw a few groups of them camping under the staircase of overhead bridges in Causeway Bay (銅鑼灣）. What a sight!

And then after that we made our way down to Yung Kee (鏞記) restaurant which Serene Tan had placed a reservation earlier in Singapore. Yung Kee's supposed to be Asia-Pac renowned for stuff like roasted goose etc. And this was also the place which completely disgusted the hell out of all of us. Apparently, we tried to get one of the waitresses to take a picture for us, and she accidentally smashed Joshua's camera onto the floor. The zooming lens cracked and we demanded compensation. But the darn manager refused to honor any form of compensation and wanted us to just leave him an address. We had quite a row over there, and then we chanced upon the HK Tourism Board branch office at Tsim Sha Tsui ferry terminal and lodged a complaint subsequently. The HKTB officer told us Yung Kee was amongst the top of their "Quality Service" awardees' list, and we were like wtf! But luckily josh has insurance for the broken cam, if not relli very 哀怨.

And here's the plate of goose that turned cold and the extent of the camera's damage.

So all of us actually got so pissed we didn't feel hungry, so we didn't eat much at Yung Kee. Subsequently, as we went to walk Soho, and then to Causeway Bay, we started snacking around and here's what we had at a Portuguese-style 茶餐廳 - 豬扒包& 葡京蛋塔.

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You don't see this in Singapore, do you?

"Star" Ferry Pier in the day

And we wrapped up Sunday with Sammi Cheng "Show Mi" 2007 concert at the Hung Hom HK Coliseum. This was perhaps the only thing which i really looked forward to on this trip, and the show itself made up for all the other disappointments. As an ardent fan and listening to her songs since I was in primary school, it's definitely quite an experience for me to see her live in concert in HK, especially after her 3-yr hiatus from her singing career. And i totally din expect her to sing Stephanie Cheng's 紅綠燈 (currently playing track). Will be looking forward to the concert CD/DVD.

Still, a little disappointed the concert was too short and there was no encore and I couldn't find any souvenirs! A very stunning performance overall.

(crowds pouring into HK Coliseum...the acoustic is so much better than our indoor stadium lor)

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And here's the saddest part of the trip.

Although I wouldn't say i enjoyed myself very much on this trip, considering it's my only holiday getaway for the entire 2007 summer (after which it's internship all the way till school reopens), it's still very very nice to meet my old friend kachun again in HK, and traveling with new dudes and dudettes like joshua and the two serenes.

It's really not about the food or the shopping that thrills me. Maybe it's cos i've been there quite a few times before, and the expectations have already been established and can't go any higher. And this time round, I finally can make the locals understand a little bit of the Cantonese I blabber. And it's really easy to get around if you get your bearings right.

Shall look forward to going back again, and hopefully Michael would've been back in HK too. That'll be doubly fun!

As for now, it's back to the books. ~haiz....


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