Reliving Hong Kong

I took some time last night to work on this webby and yes… the travel blogs were finally completed though the event happened quite some while back... as given by the french title of my blog site, "remembrance of things past"! It really suits me well! Pardon me for I do not have the habit of blogging yet though I do still write in my little notebook when there are exceptional sentiments, thoughts and inspirations!

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read my blogs and reliving the memories of my travel with me!

P.S. To my HK travel mates: feel free to comment on the blogs as I would love to hear from you about what you love/hate and remember most of our trips!

I'll be back

26 Nov 2005



Saying that we woke up really early in the morning was an understatement; I didn’t even went to sleep the night before! A group of us met for breakfast at the hotel and this was another divine treat for our stomachs! Sinful indulgences… with personalised omelettes as requested! Needless to say, I had lots of cheese! I had sausages; a more western breakfast after all those oriental banquet style meals! I still remembered they had a charming restaurant manager! We shared our shopping crazes with our lecturers over breakfast. Thereafter we took the MTR to Tsim Sha Tsui to hunt for a famous shop selling wife biscuits. We also shopped at the local 7-11 and bought chewing gum which again came with freebies!

We had to pack our bags before lunch. This time we had a more HK style lunch as we ordered dim sum and had some crystal buns. As like my trip have been filled with unfulfilled desires, I didn't get to savour my crystal bun! Some mishap occurred and my bun just rolled and went missing under someone else's table! Oops!

Then the final moment to say goodbye... we dragged our bags and proceeded for check-in at the airport! And with a request for final pic with our guide!! In the airport, we continued shopping for local delights, souvenirs at the Disney shop… spent every single cent of my Hk currency…. Finally the flight home!

Lost In Hong Kong

25 Nov 2005

Shortly after we reached our hotel in Hong Kong, Eaton Hotel, we gathered a group of shopaholics for night shopping! 9.P.M. We took the MTR to Mongkok for our shopping spree! As the saying goes, "the night is still young"! Not for us though, we were on a last-minute mad rush on our first and only night in Hong Kong!

When we arrived at the shopping mall, we acted like an operation team; set our time to meet 1 hour later at the same spot. We separated in pairs which began the story of my own maze later. The mall was crammed with shops, stalls and the weekend crowd! My friend and I were stuck at a souvenir shop which specialised in personalised gifts. Then I was shopping gleefully as I found great bargains. So do my partner as we both wandered off on our own! When I began to realise I have lost her, it was another nightmare! We couldn't contact by phone so I began panicking and started looking for her, floor by floor. After much desperation, I headed for the lobby where the group was supposed to meet but I was lost on my own. By the rule back home, lobby is always on the first level and logically I went down every escalator to get to the first floor. Anxiety peaked when I found myself nowhere... with no exits (door leading to carpark, only a huge arcade in front of me and no escalators leading back)! At last, I took the cargo lift and was ended back to where I got lost initially. I tried searching every floor and discovered that only the linkway on one level could connect to the lobby! Relief at last! However, I was already late than the meeting time and noone was there. When there's a will, there's a way... true enough, I met one of my friends and we went back to look for my partner. I was really horrible with directions! I couldn't even find my way back to the souvenir shop but luckily I was with a friend then.

That was certainly some kind of shopping experience abroad!

The night didn't just end like that. We arrived at the ladies night market, which resembled our night flea market but with added variety, better quality and value for money, plus great bargains! It was filled with stalls from accessories, bags to apparels! As the sky grew darker and the stalls were packing up, we didn't have a choice but to walk back to our hotel. Not before some supper at the local KFC! It was already past 1 A.M. I was fortunate to be with my friends who knew the way back just by navigating the roads with a map! We did some more shopping at a convenience store which gave away free gift for purchase!

Back at our hotel, some girl indulgence - facial mask! Really need that for all the tension I had at the mall! For a last night in a shopping paradise, all of us could not bear to sleep the night away! We even planned for a meeting at the lounge but well, it didn't happen (can't remember why). The part I did remember was we went to each other rooms and created quite a nuisance! A friend even started eating four egg tarts all in one go! Some more night supper craving!

Finally in Hong Kong!

25 Nov 2005

All of us were filled with anticipation as we set off for our next stop - Hong Kong! We broke our breakfast routine and had to forego the delicious spread. (P.S. : just in case history repeats itself like our first ferry trip to Macau.) I grabbed some buns, eggs, sausages and was off to our trip to HK on a light stomach.

Kudos to our Macau tour guide and we could all vouch for her as the best guide we could have in Macau! There were hugs exchanged before we all left... we couldn't possibly forget someone like her!

Let's just say women are crazy creatures when it comes to shopping, any time and any where! I even got amused by the small bottles of wine sold at the ferry terminal that I was tempted just by the packaging to get one home! And did someone just told me that these wines were meant for people who travelled here to gamble? Fortunately, the weather was favourable for travel by sea and we didn't experience the nightmare like the day we arrived. It was all smooth-sailing but most of my mates had quickly settled into their slumber when they got into the boat... just in case.

Long queues at the terminal back in HK, lots of waiting with chewing gums (not something we could do back here, ain't it?)... Then finally we caught sight of that familiar face, our HK guide! er hmm! We went to the Hong Kong Polytechnic University for more educational programme...

Our first lunch in HK - another chinese banquet with our usual eggplant dish plugged into every of our meal! The restaurant was like the chinese restaurants we had been in Macau but have separated dining rooms. The only fascinating thing - the toilet with automatic sensor to turn over the toilet seat paper, that's some high tech hygiene!


The highlight - we all looked forward to visiting the ocean park... amusement park and pandas were all we had thought of (except for the pandas part; it was probably just the panda-crazy me!) We had a behind-the scenes tour of the park where we saw the dolphins, owls, parrots and pandas! I felt like being back on a kids excursion! I want to see pandas! I got my wish granted... but it was merely gazing at a sleeping panda... totally motionless! Quite a disappointment! We spent most of the time in the meeting room for educational lecture... leaving us rushing for last-minute shopping at souvenir shop and no time for the fun rides at all!

Leaving the Ocean Park with unfulfilled joy except for my new-found buddy, panda! We set off for dinner at the famous Jumbo Restaurant. What's special? The restaurant was not located on ground but in the middle of the sea! We took a boat to the restaurant and it was a splendid and grand entrance just as its reputation suggests. The food was nothing really spectacular... we had fish balls and like wise the chinese courses! Perhaps I got really tired of the banquet food! The service, though, was something to remember (let's just leave it as that :P). And yes an interesting thing about the restaurant is the imperial setting in which you can pay to dress up as an emperor or empress and get a picture of that!