Hong Kong 2013, once again

So, we went Hong Kong TWICE. 

Within the same year.

Some people might think us crazy. And in a way, maybe it wasn't the most logical of choices (story behind btw) in choosing our holiday destination. Nevertheless, a holiday is a holiday. And no matter where we choose to go, a holiday is a time of togetherness, happiness and enjoyment. Join us on our trip as we journey through Hong Kong streets last week.

That's the kids posing at a huge christmas tree at the airport right after we checked in. 

And here's L. Posing with (or rather, behind) her Spongebob Squarepants character.

Changi was having a 'promotion' - spend more than $100 to get these 'cute' characters at $3/-. We're not fans of Spongebob Squarepants, but somehow it was so easy to spend over a hundred in DFS. So the kiasu-ness in me thought "Aiya, why not?", and asked L to choose the one she liked. 

Of all the funny and weird characters on display, I don't know why she chose this round (read: very 'zhor deng' & bulky to carry around) crab. We couldn't even use this as a pillow for the kids on the plane. I wondered why she couldn't choose something flatter and less bulky, like Spongebob instead? 

Approximately 5hrs later, we were relaxing in our hotel room @ 279 Chi Residence.

Evidence here as you can see, L having her milk like a boss on the very comfy bed.

This has been our third stay here, (big thank you to my cousin V for introducing this place to us) and the reason why we keep coming back is because this apartment has a great location. Within a 5 minute radius, there are shops, a convenience store, cinemas, MTR (YMT stop), nice coffeehouses (茶餐厅), temple street with all its variety of food stalls (so far we only tried the famous claypot rice and stewed beef - DELICIOUS) and a police station! How safe can we get while walking around late at night? 

The apartment is spacious (kitchenette, living room & a bedroom), modernly furnished and with very friendly and helpful staff! Our stays to date were always pleasant. And so we always came back because lazy me was lazy to look for another place.

After a short rest and recharge, we spent the day wandering around our hotel, enjoying the cool weather and basically getting a feel of Hong Kong sights and sounds. I forgot to mention that the weather was FANTASTIC during this period! Cool and dry. The kind that was aircon-comfortably-nice kind of cool. Coming from sunny hot Singapore, just walking around the lovely weather was already such a joy. ^^ 

And then, come dinner, trust the adventurous hubby to go looking for ulu places to eat. He wanted seafood, but didn't want to go back Sai Kung. So we went to another fishing village called Po Tai-O (布袋噢) instead. (Somewhere that I didn't know existed before this.)

Some trivia about Po Tai-O village:
● Tomb Raider (Cradle of Life) shot some scenes here with Angelina Jolie.
● Everyone in the village supposedly shares the same surname - 'Po'.

Thinking we'd take our leisurely time to get there, then enjoy the seaside sights while dinner, we took a mtr at about 5-ish to Po Lam where we would change to the green bus no. 16. When we reached the bus terminal however, we didn't know where to go. The bus terminal was big, but somehow devoid of people. We didn't know where to board the bus as there weren't any big signages around to indicate. After asking one of the rare passerby who directed us to a spot further up, we made our way towards that direction.

And ended up waiting here.

At this point, although it was only 6pm, the sky was already as dark as if it were 9pm. Our hopes for a lovely seaside scenery dinner were dashed. A green minibus arrived after quite a wait and we boarded quickly. As the night progressed, the air was also starting to get chillier. 

I forgot to take pictures but the bus looked just the same as those you'd see in HK dramas. What the dramas didn't depict however, were the reckless speed the drivers were going about. The bus that we were on, accelerated and stopped abruptly. If it was the same scenario back home, I'm sure SBS or Transit would have received multiple complaints along the way. But not here. Everone in the bus was quiet. No complaints or grumbles were heard so I took it as the norm for the minibus drivers to drive so. 

So I sat there trying to enjoy the exciting bus ride. Except that it was pretty hard trying to balance with L lounging lazily on me and while the bus was swerving and stopping so abruptly, I was slip sliding all over the seat. After about 20 exhilarating mins later, we finally reach the quaint little village of Po Tai-o.

Small clusters of people were smoking here and there, and we walked down narrow village and road paths, passing little stalls selling dried fish and squid.

And then we arrived here. 

Hub did the choosing while I looked after the kids. Again, no pictures were taken of the inside of the restaurant because at this point, it was already starting to get real chilly. And I guess my brains kind of froze. We had tai-tais with their hair all coifed neatly, wearing leather jackets with fur lining. 

And then we had us. 

Garbed in our thin pathetic Addidas jackets, and hubby with Just. One. T-Shirt. How underdressed we were! Such a dead giveaway that we werent locals. Haha.

Anyway, our meal was as such:

Clam soup that was hot and delicious with generous amounts of clams.

盐稣赖尿虾 (literal translation), big bamboo clams (which were huge! About 30cm long each!) & fried rice. 

And here was Hub's highlight of the day - Squid sashimi in all its gross glory. 

Needless to say, it wasn't my cup of tea. I don't even like sashimi! But I was duped into trying one because even my mom said it was good! So I put one into my mouth and started chewing as fast as I could, hoping to quickly swallow it down. But I simply couldn't take the slimy and flaccid texture and promptly spit it out much to Hub's dismay. "Walao eh, very wasteful leh" he said. But I will take credit for even trying. 

After dinner, it was already really, REALLY cold. So much that my fingers became numb. Lucky for us, we managed to catch a waiting bus and thus saved us half an hour of waiting out in frosty winds. It took awhile for me to be able to feel my fingertips again. 

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This was what we had for breakfast the next morning.

豆浆油条 at one of the local coffeeshops downstairs our hotel. The hot soya bean came unsweetened and you need to add sugar in to taste. The rest of the fritters were quite oily but not too bad. Not much different from those we find back home. We also ordered porridge (not pictured, unfortunately) which was pretty good as well. 

After that we visited 花园街 where we bought these pretty shoes for the kids.

And here is my Mom with her spunky new pink shoes!

The next few days we visited Disneyland and the Big Buddha. 

Here was L doing her rendition of 'Do you hear something coming' while the train was approaching.

We hopped onto the signature cute train with Mickey shaped windows and stuffs, and compared to our previous trip here, spent a pretty fruitful day at Disneyland.

S posing with a gigantic toy soldier at Toy Story land.

And with Buzzlight year.

And here was us, enjoying the Small World ride, when in truth all Hub and me wanted was a 15 minutes rest on the boatride.

The kids somehow associate eating popcorns with Disneyland now. Every trip is never complete without devouring an overpriced box of popcorn. Here, they were having a conversation over who ate the bigger cluster.

And these are the pictures from our trip to 大佛. It was my first time there and although it was very commercialised and touristy, I thought the Ngong Ping village was a beautiful, scenic place with old village glamour.

Village + glazed donuts = commercialised

The streets with the Big Buddha far away on a hill.

We climbed the steps up! A total of 288 steps, and Hubby carried lazy L all the way up! He said his back felt like breaking after that.

So proud of this little guy who climbed all the way up without a word of complaint.

We ended the day with a trip to Tai Ping Koon restaurant for their fushion chinese/western food and this humongous souffle for dessert! The last time i tried these were a good 8 years ago!

Au revoir Hong Kong! Till the next time we meet again.

When we finally reached home at night, S suddenly blurted out that "it's good to be home!"

How astute, my son.

It has been a fun and tiring 5 days where I enjoyed all the together time we had. 

But nothing beats going back Home