Leap year 2020

It’s 29-Feb!! Once in 4 years! 4 years ago I posted here and wondered if I can still remember 4 years later. And I did!
So much have happened in these 4 years. I’ve graduated from University, started my working life, ROM, got a house, getting married this year. :)
I wonder what will happen in 2024?

Leap year

It's 29-feb! Once in 4 years! Hahaha, 4 years ago I posted in this blog and here 4 years later! Hopefully I still can remember this 4 years later and I wonder what will happen 4 years later in year 2020!!! :)

Hong Kong!

Hello HK!

Went to Hong Kong with a group of friends two weeks ago, to preserve this HK memories, I shall blog about what we did there. :D Anyway, it was a 5D4N (only) Hong Kong Free and Easy, we booked the hotels and flight ourselves. We booked both the hotel and the flight like quite early, February? And there SIA has got this promotion, so cheaper flight, around SGD360plus (tiger airways was cheaper by a little but we still choose SIA, free food and shows to watch in-flight).

 For hotel, we booked through agoda.com, we booked "Rosedale Kowloon Hotel", we were attracted by the atomising glass toilet door (haha although it wasn't VERY fascinating). The room is pretty nice, clean and new but quite small (I heard all HK hotels are all quite small), and we need to pay a deposit of HKD500 per room. About SGD150plus for four nights, no breakfast. Location is pretty convenient, about 10mins walk to Olympic MTR, free shuttle bus service from hotel to Mong Kok (good place to shop), can walk to Tim Ho Wan, the famous dimsum restaurant (at Olympian Centre II), a few 茶餐厅 around and Macdonalds opposite.


DAY ONE
We took the airport express from the airport to Kowloon, then we bought the Octupus card (八通卡) and took the MTR to Olympic MTR. The airport express is really quite fast, with comfy seats.

Waiting for airport express

Inside the airport express train

The scene welcomed us to HK!

My Octupus card!

Waiting for the MTR..

 

After much effort pulling our luggage and trying to locate our hotel, we finally found our hotel. I realised i have no picture of the hotel haha..



View from our hotel room

Our first stop, Mong Kok (took the shuttle bus from hotel)! With the help of the map, my friends were able to locate where Ladies' market is, it is like our pasar malam, can buy a lot of clothes, souvenirs, shoes etc. A place where you can bargain as well, most of them knows Mandarin as well. Quite a good place to shop except that the weather is too hot and there are a lot of things sold there are repeated. I think we went to another street, almost exactly like Ladies' market, it is quite near to the Ladies' market but I'm not too sure of the name. We went for our lunch (our first meal in Hong Kong) at this shop we chanced upon while "roaming" around. 

The 茶餐厅　we went.

菠萝包，奶茶

叉烧意粉　It was actually quite nice, suaku me but I have never tried sphaghetti in soup ><

The HK mini bus, never had the chance to take one tho

After the Ladies' market, we went to Argyle Shopping centre (walkable distance from Mong Kok MTR), we went on a Sunday so it is really quite crowded D: try going on weekdays, will definitely be a better shopping experience. Ohya, anyway this Agyle Shopping centre is really a GOOD place to shop, much better than the street markets, because there is air-con! Haha, and it's quite cheap! This centre is like SG's bugis street.

 

 

 

In the taxi, HKD20 within 2km. Yupp it's meter based.

 

 

Time for dinner! A small restaurant near our hotel area.

I ordered just dumplings, 猪肉韭菜饺子, I am amazed by my ability to finish that 10 dumplings cos it's really quite filling, which means the dumplings must be not bad as well, I think it taste quite well. The celery dumpling my friend ordered is really not nice (but I don't like celery to begin with :/ )

DAY TWO

Macdonalds in HK!

Pork sausage with macaroni! :D (@ Mcdonalds)

To Ocean Park, bus 629, in-bus free Wifi available!

HK Ocean Park!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

damn cute!

Cable car to the more thrillig rides :0

 

 

The penguins! Haha damn cute! :D

Haha, don't dare to take this ride. :X

Panda! So cute!!

Odd looking goldfish, with 2 fluffy lumps, aka cheerleader goldfish!

Haha, like this seal a lot! So funny :D

 

Took the bus back to the mtr station and settled down for dinner. This is pork chop fried rice, I think. Taste not bad for the first few bites, but portion is too big for me, and you will get a little sick of the tomato sauce after some time. That's basically Day 2! Went back to hotel and chill~

 

Day 3 

 

We went to a cha can ting near our hotel for breakfast and I ordered Egg and Ham Sandwich. Nice :D

Their milk tea is really good too, taste a little different from SG's/ Msia's one.

Then we set off to the peak tram~

 

Saw the ding ding tram while walking to the peak tram station..

Hahaha, HK police spotted!

Took the peak tram to the peak (lol, obviously), can use your octupus card, i can't remember the price, but I think it is worth it to take the peak tram, than to take the bus or to climb up(?). Our purpose to the peak is to go to the wax museum actually. Quite a lot of stars there, though I can't recognise some of the ppl there.

Pei Yong Jun spotted in HK! Can see the wrinkles!

:D


There is this haunted house inside the wax museum, quite short and a little scary I think, haha but I expected it to be even more scary, like maybe there's some scary wax figures popping out. :0

The view from outside the wax museum. I think there is this observation deck (?) for better view of the scenery.

Then we took the peak tram down and find our way to the mid-levels escalator!

This mid-levels escalator is the longest outdoor covered escalator in the world (Wikipedia). 6-10am the escalator will run down slope, haha so if you don't want to climb up, avoid this time. There are quite a lot of shops along the escalator, so can shop around for food. My friend went there at night and she said that the bar there is quite good. Anyway, it was quite tiring because after reaching to the top, we had to climb down and the slope is quite steep actually, I wonder how people can climb up effortlessly >.<

To fill our grumbling stomach, we walked into a random shop...

Beef Wanton Noodle! It looks very normal, but it taste quite nice! And the tea is free (+free refill)! Heheheh!

Miu Gai! Temple Street Night Market!  It is suppose to be a night market, but we went there too early, most of the shops were not open yet. The stuff they sell is almost similar to those in ladies' street market, I think, but i'm not sure of the price.

Ji Dan Zai! We were all damn tired so we went back to the hotel early and planned for next day's itenary.

 

Day 4 Tim Ho Wan for Dim Sum Breakfast!
  Then, we took the cab to Argyle Centre for another shopping spree! The shops there open quite late, because when we reached there, quite a lot of shops are closed. Ohya, it is really less crowded during weekdays in Argyle Centre as compared to during weekends. We bought quite a lot of stuff, because it is really quite cheap. We wanted to go to Victoria Harbour to see the Rubber duck but unfortunately the rubber duck was deflated D: Haha, the news said that the rubber duck became like a sunny side-up, hahaha. So we decided to go to Argyle Centre once more for round 2! HAHAHA!
Legs sore from all the shopping, we bought curry yu dan before resting our legs in this dessert shop, 许留山!

Curry Fish Ball at a shop in Argyle Centre! Damn nice!!!

Mango Pudding! at 许留山

 

Then we bought lao po bing, almond cookies and other snacks at Kee Wah near our hotel and this other shop (I can't remember the name) at Olympic MTR. Apparently, there is Kee Wah at the airport too, so can just buy from there before departure, anyway Kee Wah's Lao Po Bing is quite nice!

Last Day, we just slowly pack our stuff before we check out and say bye bye to HK :/
One last picture to end this post (find this quite meaningful, taken at the Olympian City Mall's toilet):

HK's Tim Ho Wan

Address: Shop 72, Ground Floor (Outside), Olympian City 2
Olympian City Mall, Hong Kong, China (Mong Kok)

Take MTR to Olympic, exit at Exit D (i think?), can just follow the sign board to Olympian City 2.

We went on a weekday morning for breakfast and there is no queue at all, food was served very fast, friendly staff and nice ambience. Most importantly good food! and not very expensive!

酥皮焗叉烧包， Baked bun with BBQ Pork! This is damn nice! I'm not sure if that's because this is the first dish so I'm hungry, but I really think that this is the best 叉烧包 I've ever eaten. Nice Nice Nice! 好吃！Must try! :D

Juicy Char Siew~



香煎萝卜糕！ Pan fried turnip cake!

杂菜虾春卷！Vege+ Prawn Spring Roll! I like this a lot!

凤爪！Chicken's feet! Collagen-filled!

晶莹鲜虾饺！Har Gao!

马拉糕! Steamed Egg Cake! Soft and spongy cake!

蜜汁叉烧肠粉! Vermicelli Roll with Char Siew!

烧卖！ Siew Mai! Doesn't look very nice, but it taste really nice!

 

Don't order too much because dim sum can be very filling too, haha order a lot of different dishes and share!