Hong Kong Day 05

Hong Kong Day 05

We planned to a little further today. Our plan is Stanley! It is on the southern part of Hong Kong island and is famous for being the place where rich people stay and ironically the prison. To go to Stanley, you will have to take the mini bus from Causeway Bay.

Before we head to Stanley, we had breakfast in Wan Chai again as it is within walking distance from our lodging in JW Marriott. We had breakfast at a CCT that was frequented by many white collar worker and the wisdom is, eat where the local eat and you will get good food at good price.

Awesome Wan Ton! Only at HK$16.

I missed this bowl of beef belly + brisket noodle.
Great bowl of goodness at only HK$18.

After we had our fill, off we go to Stanley. Apologies that I can't recall the bus number to take but I believe if you ask around, they would be able to tell you but remember to ask politely :).

For those of you that watch TVB series, you will find this pier very familiar.
It is the pier at Stanley and is often used for filming.

The view from the pier is awesome.
I could just sit here and enjoy the view the whole evening~

This is even more awesome~You should alight at the round-a-bout in Stanley and here, you will find a supermarket and it is very complete. My wife and I bought plenty of stuffs here. such as sashimi, pork crackling, instant noodle and other stuffs to be enjoyed later. There is a maritime museum and a temple around here and as I have mentioned before, I am not a big fan of temple so nothing much mentioned here. The maritime museum doesn't have much to excite us.

There are plenty of eating place here so no worries about food... just worry about money. There is also the famous Stanley market that sells plenty of goods aka the 'Pasar Malam' (Night/flea market) style. Definitely worth the bus trip! Oh besides, the photo below is the toilet seat cover that I found in one of the toilets... I am kinda "Sua Ku" so decided to post these photos too :p.

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The CC - Grace

We have a guest in the house! My sister's boss has gone on a vacation together with their whole family and left Grace with us. Grace is a one year old Chow Chow and as her name suggests, she is graceful. Quiet, poised, gentle and graceful :).

Grace just had her period 2 months ago and I guess there are still remnants of the scent as Bon Bon has gone totally wild for her as though the fact that Grace is 6 times his size doesn't matter. Grace will be with us till this coming Friday 27th.

Don't they look the same with exception of the size?
Even the mark on Grace's back is identical to Bon Bon's

While she is with us, she didn't give us much problem except for the constant drooling. Oh btw, Grace is not a pedigree but more of a mix between a Japanese Spitz and Chow Chow... hmm, how is it possible??? Bon Bon definitely enjoyed Grace's companionship and vice versa.

So comfy~

The house seemed even more lively with Grace around and I think most of us will start to miss her when she left us to reunite with her pawrents.

Oh, on the second night that Grace stayed with us, she stole a frencher on me while I was sleeping in the living room... it was not so pleasant.

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Hong Kong Day 04

Day 4 is a more adventurous day as we are more daring to try out other areas that are not so touristy that way, savouring the local culture of the country state. We had intended to travel from one MTR to another since we bought the 3-days unlimited octopus card. We traveled from Prince all the way down to Kowloon for the light show in the evening and ended it off with a ride on the ferry across the Hong Kong straits.

The gem lying in the dust... Apliu Street

We decided to have breakfast at Apliu Street which is the flea market area of Hong Kong. This place in IMO is pretty localised with plenty of wet market and second-hand goods stalls. Initially l wanted to try the roast meat stalls but since it is full and right beside the drain... we moved on and found this little eatery which turns out to be a real gem! Prices are reasonably cheap and the food tasted great! If you happen to be there, do try out this eatery.

Considered cheap for the kind of quality/portion you get!

Silky smooth beancurd
Ok, take your eyes off the chipped soup spoon and focus on the beancurd instead.
This bowl of beancurd is very well done as it is truly smooth to the tongue and still retain the
fragrant of the soya bean. It is a norm to get beancurd that is smooth and not as fragrant
i.e. sort of diluted and to simultaneously possessed both smoothness and fragrance,
it is a bowl to die for.

Wan Ton (Dumpling) soup
Its my first trip to Hong Kong and my wife had raved about the dumplings that she ate in Hong
Kong all the time. Prior to this stall, we had a couple of bowls in other part of Hong Kong but I
was not impressed and even to the point of disappointment. This bowl revived my
expectation of Hong Kong as the culinary heaven! On a side note... Wan Ton is not wanton.

All in all, it cost us around HK$55. It is a real steal!
Oh, the bowl of rice on the bottom left of the photo is a signature dish by this eatery and
doesn't really have a name as they say its name is "Chew Pie Fun"which means signature rice...

After the meal, we just stroll around the flea market and make our way to other areas such as the Goldfish Street, flower Street and the likes. For lunch, we just settle for some street side pao (Steamed bun) but the new thing about it is that after being steamed, the buns are fried on both top+bottom to give it a golden brown crust on both sides. I forgotten what they call these sort of pao but I am pretty sure I have read it in Terri's blog before.

When the time is about right, we headed to Kowloon's Avenue of Stars to wait for the starting of the light show at 8pm. This is truly Hong Kong, I am not sure of other countries but I reckon Hong Kong is the first in the world to utilise its high rise to lite up the sky and to make it into such a beautiful display! Although we managed to catch the light show from The Peak, but you only get the commentaries while watching it from the Avenue of Stars. Be sure to catch this light show and you won't regret it!

Hong Kong island lightshow
This photo doesn't do it justice!
You have to experience it on your own!

Can't resist the fragrance of the cuttle fish barbecued on a bed of charcoal.
It is yummy especially during this cold season.

Right after the light show, we headed to the Tsim Sha Tsui Pier to board the ferry back to Hong Kong island. Hungered for more Hong Kong fare, we tried one of the roast meat eatery at Wan Chai but was kinda disappointed. The number of patrons is there and everyone seemed to enjoy their food pretty well but I am definitely let down as the char siew (Honey roast pork) was so-so and the stir-fried beef hor fun was only OK to me... I guess I still prefer the Singapore char siew more. As for the stir-fried beef hor fun, I am pretty darn sure it is lurking somewhere in Hong Kong, its just a matter of finding it, that's all.

Roasted pork +crackling with char siew
By reputation, Hong Kong roasted dishes are one of the best.
This dish almost murdered the reputation and left me wondering what went wrong.

Stir-fried beef hor fun
Not very good. Firstly, too oily for my liking and lack of wok hei.
Maybe the chef is on MC and the apprentice took over.

Its ok, I still have plenty of time in Hong Kong, haven't I?

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Hong Kong Day 3

Hong Kong 9th Dec 2009

Today is the day whereby my wife and I will take a trip down to our childhood memories and where else would it be if its not Disneyland Hong Kong? During my childhood days, Mickey mouse and gang is the best thing that could happen on TV and my brother would record the cartoon down on our then sophisticated VCR to watch. Watch we did! In fact for so many times that we could memorize the dialogue/lines from the start through till the end and perhaps that was one of the ways that my siblings and I learnt our english.

Our morning breakfast spread.

Before we headed to the Disneyland, which is in Lantau Island (Near to Chek Lap Kok Airport) we headed to Wan Cai for breakfast. We just pick one Cha Chan Teng (CCT) and placed our order. I ordered Teng Jai Porridge while my wife ordered the French Toast. Teng Jai porridge are porridges with seafood ingredients such as fish and squid. Meals in Hong Kong does not come cheap especially so in CCTs as the prices ranges from HK$30-60 per set. However, for that price, the portion and quality you get is pretty reasonable. The porridge is delicious! The dumpling is so-so while the milk tea (More affectionately known as the Silk Stocking Tea) is really tasty!


We then make our way to the Admiralty MTR and headed to Disneyland! One thing to take note is that you could purchase the Disneyland ticket from the Admiralty MTR itself. I am not sure whether you could purchase the ticket on other MTR but having it in Admiralty makes our trip a lot more convenient. The journey from Hong Kong Island takes roughly 30-40mins (as far as l could remember) to reach the Disneyland MTR station and if you are someone easily annoyed by loud chattering noises, bear with it... Both my wife and I are annoyed by our comrades from the Mainland who board the MTR as a group and sat between us. Not only did they talk to the person seated directly opposite them, some guys seated on our right even attempted to talk to the person seated on our left, thus sandwiching us in their chattering chatter!!! Boy, would I love to give it to them but since I am just having my holiday here, lets live and let live.

Oblivious tourist walking in front of our camera.
The look on Betty's face is priceless!

The Disneyland in Hong Kong is not really that big but because of such, it is easy to cover it within half a day but since the fireworks display is at 8PM, you may want to stay all the way like we did. My wife and I made a pact to just enjoy the show and not bother about taking photos or videos so nothing for you guys here. You gotta experience it on your own.



There are a number of attraction that I sincerely hope you would not miss as I enjoyed it and thought that you would missed out big time if you did not make it a point to visit and they are as follow:

1-Performance in the Academy.
It is located up north of Disneyland and if you take the locomotive train, it is directly under the train station. Make sure you go there early as the queue is very long.

2-Small Small World
This is a river ride and it brings you from tunnels to tunnels filled with a lot of colorful animated statues from all over the world. During the whole ride, there will be the song "Its a Small Small World" sung in different languages as you passed by each country.


3-Firework
It only happens on 8pm. Don't miss this!

There are plenty of eating place in the Disneyland and of course they do not come cheap and not really tasty. The safest bet is to go for something deep fried as nothing can really goes wrong with deep frying.


Overall, it truly is a nice place to relive your childhood memories. Both my wife and I would really love to bring some of our cousin and especially my niece, Angeli to Disneyland I truly believes that they would enjoy Disney more than I do and will leave them a far memorable trip.



**NOTE: All rights reserved. If you would like to use the photos from this blog, please seek permission by e-mailing me.

Hong Kong Day 02

Come the end of this year, both my wife and I have planned for a vacation to Europe. Well, someone once asked where's the rest of my Hong Kong honeymoon posting which happens like one year ago, so before I go for my Europe trip, here's something that happened last December.

Room view of our Executive room in
JW Marriot Hong Kong
(Great location! The Admiralty MTR is just opposite the road)
King size bed
The room is reasonable spacious but very comfortable.
The view from our room.

Basically, there is not a single plan as to where we are heading to in Hong Kong except for foodie stuffs but since the airport provided us plenty of information, we decided to spend our first day exploring some touristy area.

First Stop: Wan Chai neighbourhood
Actually, it is more for buying extra HK$ as we realised we didn't have enough to last us for the whole week. Along the way, we checked out the local haunts and street alley. Nothing much here so we board the tram or more affectionately referred to as "Ding Ding"in Hong Kong due to the ringing bell on the tram.

Exterior of Sun Yat Sen Museum.

Sun Yat Sen Museum
Our next destination is the Sun Yat Seng museum, which used to be used by the Mormons as their church but was sold back to the government to convert it into a museum in memory of the late Sun Yat Sen (Most people would refer to him as "Guo Fu"or Father of the Nation). Before you reached the museum, you would have to take the longest escalator in the world (Wonder if it still is) to reach the museum. Along the way, there are also other touristy area such as the "Man Mou"street where they sell antiques and all. Then there's also a famous temple which I don't even bother to visit (Least remember its name) since l am not into temples.

Yours truly.

The Peak
Next we headed to The Peak, which is a must do in Hong Kong as you will be able to catch a glimpse of the city from the highest point in Hong Kong. The night view, needless to say, is the most breath-taking and as I do not have proper camera (Or rather skill), the photos doesn't speaks volume so all the more motivation for you to experience it on your own. Madam Tussauds is also in the building so if you are OK or a wax figurine buff, go ahead. There are plenty of eating place in The Peak from Burger Kings, American soul food, Thai cuisine, Chinese cuisine, Western cuisin and whatnots but apart from the BK, the rest are pretty pricey. We headed out of The Peak to the square and there is a cottage eatery on the corner of the road beside the square. Portion is big, price is reasonable and the ambiance is fantastic. So head down to this cottage and enjoy a good cozy dinner.

Tram station at the bottom of the hill
to The Peak.

Night view of Hong Kong city from the top of The Peak
The cottage eating place (Can't recall the name after 1 year... pardonable)

Serving portion is quite huge.

Nice + cozy ambiance.

That's pretty much IT for our second day in Hong Kong. More to come as we are in Hong Kong for a whopping 7 days all free and easy!

**NOTE: All rights reserved. If you would like to use the photos in this blog, please seek permission by e-mailing me.