Hong Kong Oct 2011 - Day 3 Highlights

Day 3!

Well, I decided to bring my parents to this well-known dimsum shop that I came last time. It was actually very near my hotel (as opposed) to my last trip here earlier this year. The place is called 添好运点心专门店 (Tin Ho Wun). Even though the shop only opens at 10am, it's best to start queuing by 9am if you want to be in the 1st batch, or else you've got to wait for at least an hour or more. Well, that's what happened as we arrived around 9.30am. We missed the 1st batch (and 2nd batch by 1 queue in line) but were issued queue numbers. By the time we finally got in, it was already 11 plus. But anyway, in between, we walked around the area and found a small shop selling some traditional snacks like 白糖糕 and the elusive 砵仔糕. It looks something like chwee kueh, but is sweet and has red bean inside normally.

My parents also bought some dried Korean persimmons which were very much cheaper in Hong Kong (HKD15/S$2-3 for almost half kg) compared to Singapore ($1 for 2 persimmons).

Anyway, when we finally went into the Tin Ho Wun, I basically ordered most of the same thing from before. A bit less though since it was just 3 of us. The char siew bao seems to have shrunk though, but I think the 马拉糕 is still nice. Think the 桂花糕 is also a personal favourite, giving us refreshing palette after the end of the meal. We waited very long for the siew mai, which wasn't super though.

I believe this place is popular because of its affordable prices and it's supposed to be famous for its char siew bao. They do have outlets elsewhere which are bigger and open earlier, but I doubt I will visit here again. There are so many other places to try! And don't want to queue again. Waste time.

Well, this day's plan was to visit 南丫岛 (Lamma Island) which I told my parents before. However, we stopped by my cousin's Vietnamese restaurant first. I say my cousin, but he's actually around the age of my father already. My grandfather is his father's brother. I've never met him before, or so I thought, but it seems that he came for my brother's wedding a couple of years ago. Anyway, the hospitable him gave us a good meal (even though we were quite full) of beef pho (large bowl), some Vietnamese fried snacks and his homemade kamquat tea. We visited his apartment too, which was located in the street behind the eatery.

View from his apartment:

After the full meal, I was quite concerned about the ferry ride to Lamma Island, but fortunately, we got there safely. I couldn't resist taking a picture of the new HK Apple Store at IFC on our way to the ferry pier. It was bustling.

My mum was pretty onz about the trail through Lamma Island as compared to my father. That's why we were there as I felt safe to bring them there since I was before. She enjoyed herself pretty much while we tried to motivate my father by allowing him to order a can of beer at the end of trail. Haha!

Anyway, this time we were a little late as we took the 4 something ferry. Due to the time of the year, the sun was setting at 5 plus, so we were walking in darkness nearer the end of the trail. The trail took about 2 hours (from the speed we walked). It can be done in less.
Our destination, the Rainbow Seafood Restaurant at around 6pm:

15 minutes later:

Looking back:

If we were even later, it would have been a longer dark road for us.
So here's our well-deserved dinner.

The restaurant has its own ferry back to the main HK island and Kowloon. Good thing it was a bigger ferry, or else I might have gotten seasick. Here's a not very clear pic on the way back.

We alighted at Tsim Tsa Tsui, and I couldn't help but take photos of the changing coloured lights of the Space Museum.

 

Well, that's day 3. Hey! No shopping!

Hong Kong 2011 (2) - Day 2 Highlights

As one of my objectives of visiting Hong Kong was to visit at least 1 museum, we went to the Hong Kong Museum of History. Interestingly it started off like a natural science history journey and neolithic revolution first. Who would have thought since I only think of Hong Kong from the Chinese history perspective. Admission is HKD10 (less than S$2) and HKD5 each for my parents.
This is the museum main entrance:

And some exhibits:

After the museum, it was already quite late, around 2 plus and we were hungry. However, the 2 places around we thought of going to were closed for lunch already by the time we reached around 3pm. In the end, we settled for Fook Yuen at Houston Centre for afternoon dimsum, which was so-so, and staff weren't as friendly.

Oh, and I saw the nice bag from Giallo, which you would now know that I went back to buy eventually (yup, didn't buy it straightaway). I was holding out in search of a lightweight black bag I would like and willing to pay for (which I didn't). I wouldn't say I specially went back to buy, but we wanted to try Lei Garden (see later post) which was one of the restaurants that was already closed when we reached this day, so had 顺便 bought the bag.

After that, we decided to try to explore Uniqlo and H&M. We never managed to reach the latter, as we got side-tracked first to Sogo TST, which we didn't find anything (no sale going on), and then nearly "lost" our way, because we didn't know which part of Canton Street Uniqlo was. It was actually in Harbour City itself, and we thought we could see it from outside. But, as a result, we unwittingly wandered to the outlet mall, where we found some shoes at Mirabell, my father 1 pair of Merrell, and me 2 pairs from Stonefly (which I think we can't find in Singapore) :P. That's 3 pairs of shoes for me already within 2 days! And all three cost us a total of HKD 2,236.

Anyway, there were some Halloween decorations along Canton Road that were pretty cute.

Well, we finally found Uniqlo. My mum wanted to buy one of those lightweight down jackets they had and well, I got a long-sleeve tee and a white blouse (JPlus). Bought some stuff there (I got a white shirt and long-sleeve tee) and by the time it was already almost 9pm, so we settled for Crystal Jade Xiao Long Bao. We heard that Crystal Jade in HK was good, and it was not bad. We tried to order some of what we don't normally see on our menus here.

 

So that ended our Day 2. Thankfully we could just take the shuttle bus back to the hotel after a long day of walking.

Hong Kong 2011(2) - Day 1

I went off to Hong Kong 2 Saturdays ago with my parents and guess what? I started my shopping on the plane with a S$38 foldable pair of pumps. It didn't really fit my mum or me (there was only 1 size), so we gave it to my sis-in-law who has smaller feet, and she liked it, especially with its foldability. :)

And well, only reaching the hotel (Metropark Kowloon) at about 1 plus to 2pm, we took a while before coming out. And on checking with some locals, we were recommended some eating places. It was to our pleasure that we're living very near to lots of food. Previously, we stayed along Nathan Road which was near the shopping. Ha! Looks like staying on Kowloon side when I'm in Hong Kong seems quite convenient.
The hotel wasn't too fancy, just a simple set up, a bit older maybe, but at least it's generally clean. That's the most important. And there's free internet access!

There's also a shuttle bus to send us to Mong Kok (Fa Yuen St) or Tsim Sha Tsui MTR stations (Peninsula Hotel) every half hour. Oh, the taxi driver also told us quite a few HK stars stayed near us, e.g. Andy Lau, who's on the hill just behind the hotel. Hmm...since we were out most of the time, I guess we probably missed seeing any stars.

By the time we left the hotel, it was around 4pm, and we visited a nearby restaurant for dim sum recommended by our local hotel agent, which was just 2 minutes walk from our hotel. It's called Bauhinia Seafood Restaurant (紫荆阁海鲜酒家) and it was supposed to serve "怀旧" (nostalgic-style) food & dimsum. As it was quite late, some of the things were not available already, but there were some interesting ones that we can't find in Singapore, like the 蛋黄千层糕 (salted egg yolk multi-layered cake) and the 奶皇马拉卷 (custard malai roll).

And yes! After this first meal, we started our shopping spree. It so happened that Wing On Plus (Nathan Rd) was having their pre-sale sale again this time round (around the same time we came last year) and I bought my first pair of shoes there, a SBPA velvet? heels with a frilly scrunch (HKD399). My mum bought a pair of shoes too (her only pair) from her favourite Pansy brand (HKD295). We also bought a CoBo leather handbag for my sis-in-law (HKD 598) which loved :). Hee...sorry I only have a pic of my shoes.

We were quite tired after that since we'd only just arrived, so revisited the Tsui Wah just opposite (behind Nathan Hotel) and had our late dinner.

Oh, as I was still having my cough, we got the usual Poon Goor Soe (潘高寿) cough mixture for me. The ones sold in Singapore are different, with a pinkish coloured packaging & smaller (which I think is from Malaysia) and somehow, I find this one with the green packaging works better, which is from Hong Kong. I remember long ago, I first bought a bottle of this in San Francisco's Chinatown and it worked pretty well.

So that ended our 1st day.