Hong Kong Day 1

Internet!!! 

After 1 whole week finally the internet at home has been fixed. Surprisingly, it wasn't that tough living life without internet, but discovering free wifi outside is like discovering money on the streets. Or discovering civilisation, as Esther would call it lol.

So last week during Raya the sisters and I (the 3 of us) went to Hong Kong with a tour group. I know some people might ask why we didn't do free and easy since HK is not that big and we can speak Cantonese yadda yadda yadda... 

First of all, it was a very last minute plan to go to Hong Kong. Second, our 12YO sister was coming with us, it definitely was not a good idea to do free and easy with only the 3 of us girls, whatmore one is so young. I wouldn't say going with a tour group is bad, it's summer in HK so moving around in an air-conditioned coach was definitely a big plus. It was so hot it's not even funny ok. But I would say our itinerary was a little on the poorly planned side. Long story short, the tour leader was quite shit. Aaaaaand, some of the tourists from our group super 'hak yan zhang' (annoying to the max wtf).

Anyway, we were told that we had to be at the airprot by 4am, we had to wake up at 2am to get ready and drive to the airport. Which means I didn't get enough to sleep, which also means I was super kao cranky. And plus I hate(x129831) flying. When the tour assistant gave us our boarding pass, we realised that the 3 of us were seated separately! How fucking ridiculous is that?? Never mind, the best was about to come. The flight was 4 hours. Upon arrival, there was a LOOOOOOOOOONG queue at the immigration. It took us more than 1 hour just to get through. Never mind...

Once we met our tour guide, we were quickly brought into the coach. We were told that the tour of the day would start at 5pm. It was around 12-1ish. We will first be sent to our hotel and checked into our rooms. Lunch was not covered so we were supposed to look for it ourselves. I was looking forward to checking into the hotel already because I was super tired, all I wanted was at least 10 minutes of being idle.

When we were at the hotel, guess what? Everyone else in our tour had a room, but OUR ROOM WAS NOT READY.

In our tour, there were 2 families which needed a 3 bedded room, and one of them was us. But only 1 room was ready, the other would only be ready at 4pm! To be fair, the tour guide suggested that we (other family and us) leave all of our luggage in the room, go out and grab lunch, and then come back and decide who takes which room when the other room is ready. In other words, nobody takes the room yet.

I thought that was alright, but of course the other family didn't. I don't even remember how it happened, in the end the room was given to the other family.

At that point, I was seriously, seriously pissed. My level of tulan was way over the bar already. But I was too tired to even say anything. My expression told it all though. Even the tour guide got scared when he saw my face hahahaha. Seriously, we paid for everything already. At 1pm how can they  not have a fucking room ready?? But all he could do was apologize. So whatever lah.

We stayed at Happy Valley or Pau Ma Tei, literally means horse-racing ground. We walked around and quickly looked for a place to eat and decided on this random Yu Dan Meen (fish ball noodle) place.

First thing I wanted to try in HK was of course their Nai Cha (milk tea).

It was very very different from all the milk tea I've tried, both HK (Kim Gary, Wong Kok and Pacific House in Melbourne) and Malaysian (teh tarik) styles. There's something about the milk they used, or the tea, I wasn't even sure.

Little did I know at that time that the first Nai Cha I tried in HK that day, was also the BEST Nai Cha I've tried throughout the trip in HK itself. During that trip I've been to other places and tried other Nai cha only to realise nothing compared to this! My only regret was not having the chance to drink it one more time before we left HK.

Noodle and soup was nothing to shout about. The soup was white, which made us wonder what it was made of. The Yu Dan and Yu Peng (fish cake) was quite nice.

I'm not really a fan of fishballs and noodle soup but I would recommend this place for their Nai Cha.

維港魚蛋麵小廚
11 Shing Wo Road, Happy Valley

Btw, there's no English words in their menu. Not even in the shop sign. And this is the same in almost ALL eating places. We were struggling to make our order because except for my youngest sister who had only 5 years of Chinese language education, my other sister can't read at all. I can read a little but most of the time I guess.

After lunch, we walked around the area since our stupid hotel room was still not ready. It was damn hot and sunny.

Mannings is like the HK Guardian.

The density of buildings is so high it's crazy.

The hotel we were living in which didn't manage to get a room ready for us, does not provide free wifi, and charges HKD130/day for it.

The Central-Mid-levels escalators, the longest escalator system in the world.

Dinner wasn't that good which was why I didn't bother taking a picture. And besides we were eating with the other tourists, a bit paiseh to take picture also. Not that some people didn't do it though... haha. But really, it was not fantastic. Some random restaurant in Klang serves better food lor. It was supposedly a Siu Ngo (Roasted Goose) dinner. Honestly, I prefer the taste of duck than goose. Or maybe the restaurant suck at preparing the goose, I dunno.

After that we headed to Victoria Peak, or The Peak, or Tai Ping Shan for a night view of HK.

Gotta say the view was breathtaking.

But it was SUPER PACKED WITH PEOPLE. There's no way you can take a picture with no Tom, Dick and Harry around. Actually got, but must pay wan.

After that we went to Madame Tussauds. If you don't know what Madame Tussaud is, it's a wax museums with wax figures of famous people.

With Pablo Picasso!

Teaching Mozart the violin... :P

After Madame Tussauds according to the itinerary given to us, we were supposed to go to Lui Yan Kai (Ladies' Market). Guess what the tour guide told us this time?

He said if there was any of us who would like to return to the hotel, the driver would send us there. If we would like to go to Lui Yan Kai, he and driver would DROP us there but we would have to go back at our own expense!

WHAT BULLSHIT IS THIS.

If they're not going to send us back why put Lui Yan Kai as part of the stupid itinerary?!? Who's gonna feel like going there after one long day and knowing we'll have to figure out our way home ourselves in the middle of a foreign country late at night?!? CHISIN.

In the end only a couple decided to go to Lui Yan Kai, the rest of us decided to head back to hotel. Especially because the tour guide mentioned that the next day is gonna be a long long day, starting early and finishing late.