Hong Kong Day 2

After looking through my pictures I realise this day was actually one of the most boring day throughout the trip, but it also had the most problems. The places we went were boring and uninteresting, the schedule was screwed, and it was so damn hot!

The day started at 8am with dim sum breakfast. Dim sum was one of the many things I was wanting to try in HK. The taste was good but unfortunately we didn't get to 'choose' what we wanted to eat. Everything was preselected before our arrival in the restaurant so we could only eat what was served. We could order other dishes but of course, that would be at our own expenses. 

Again, no pictures cos we were eating with the other people in our tour group. But I remember their Loh Bak Gou (Chinese Radish Cake) was really good, very different from the ones in Malaysia, in a good way. 

After breakfast the first place we stopped at was the Golden Bauhinia Square. Didn't take much pictures because it was super damn hot and sunny, and it's not picture-worthy anyway. Bauhinia is a flower species, also called the Hong Kong Orchid because it originated in HK. This flower is the symbol used in HK's flag itself. This square is sort of like our Merdeka Square, it is where the official handover of HK from UK to China took place.

 Dunno why I smile as though I'm constipated... wtf

We went to Repulse Bay after that. Nothing much there, a Chinese temple, a beach, some nice beach side housings. Then we went to Aberdeen Harbour, took a boat (not free of course) to see the floating village and Jumbo Floating Restaurant.

 Lots of cabin cruisers stationed around, I wonder if they belong to people or they're there for rental.

 With the fancy looking Jumbo Floating Restaurant. Cheh, can take picture only. Not that we get to eat there also.

 In the Aberdeen Floating Village, the 'boat people' are people who live in boats, fishing for a living.

 Drying Ham Yu (Salted Fish)

Then we were brought to a jewelry shop -.- I don't even remember the name of the place because I have no interest in jewelry, let alone purchasing jewelry in HK. This was obviously one of the places the tour guide HAD to bring us, in hopes that he could earn some commission. 

Apart from this, there was also a dodgy-looking duty free shop which sold cosmetics and fragrances. I didn't have the chance to shop around myself so I wasn't sure if the duty free shop was really selling things cheap so I didn't get anything. And besides the stocks they had were limited anyway, most of them looked like excess stocks, most probably expiring too.

Lastly he sent us to this Chinese medicine and herbs shop. After this it was already 2.30 and we have not had lunch. Super late, I know. People were getting really hungry and quite restless but we had one more stop before we could head for lunch, which was the Avenue of Stars. Seeing this, the tour guide actually had the cheeks to ask us if we would still like to go there, if not we could cancel it and head for lunch straight!

HOW UNACCEPTABLE! Firstly we weren't properly brought to Lui Yan Kai, now he's thinking of taking Avenue of Stars off the list?!? How bout he took that stupid jewelry shop or that herb shop off the list at the beginning??

And he decided to base the decision on votes. Obviously we HAD to go to Avenue of Stars! And fortunately there were more votes saying to go. I understand there were kids and pregnant lady in the trip and they needed to eat and wanting to go to the Avenue of Stars was going to further delay our lunch. Hey, it's not MY problem, it's the tour guide's problem!

Again not much pictures because it was super hot. Avenue of Stars is basically a little bit like the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It's a walkway along the Victoria Harbour waterfront with plaques on the floor honouring HK celebrities. Some have hand prints and autographs.

Right after that, it was already 3.30-4ish. Our next stop was the Ngong Ping 360, a cable car which connects Tung Chung to the Ngong Ping area. Our lunch was supposed to be at the Po Lin Monastery.

Initially, according to the tour guide, we were supposed to have lunch at NORMAL lunch hours which means we were supposed to BE at Ngong Ping by 1-2ish pm. And after our vegetarian lunch we were supposed to have our free and easy time till 5pm. The tour guide also mentioned that there's a Tung Chung Citygate Outlet which is a shopping mall, and if we're interested we can have a look because it's right opposite the cable car terminal at the base of the hill. At 5pm, we were all supposed to meet at the Citygate entrance because the coach will be parked there waiting for us.

Now because everything was so horribly delayed, the tour guide decided to change the gathering time to 6pm. Free and easy time? Kiss it goodbye la.

The cable car ride took 25 minutes. Fortunately we didn't have to queue to take it because there was a special lane for tourists. Once the cable car touched down, it was already almost 4.30pm and we still have not had lunch. I quickly took a peek at the queue for the cable car to go down. It was pretty massive. Seeing this I was already a little worried.

The walk to the monastery where we were supposed to have lunch was pretty long. My sisters and I were literally speed walking (almost running) because we both really wanted to go to that mall. Not that we really need to shop but since we're here and we haven't really gotten much time to do some shopping, why waste the time and opportunity eating and not make use of our supposed free and easy time?

Once we arrived at the restaurant we took only 15 minutes to eat (we looked like we haven't eaten for 10 days lol). It's just boring vegetarian food (again, random vegetarian restaurant in Klang makes better vegetarian food) so we weren't bothered and besides in a few hours time we were supposed to be eating seafood dinner already so might as well save the space for that. 

Before leaving to take the cable car, I specifically asked the tour guide if i would have to queue together with everyone else or if there was a special lane, just like when we first came. And he told me there's no special lane for cable cars which are going down, only 1. And he even assured me the queue usually wouldn't be long so it'll be ok. Haha...

We quickly walked back to take the cable car downhill. When we arrived at the terminal, there was a massive queue, even more massive than when I first saw it. While queueing and seeing no signs of the tour guide and the other tourists from our group, I sent a message confirming if we were all still meeting at 6pm at the Citygate entrance, telling him by the looks of the queue it's impossible to meet at 6. My sisters and I were the first to leave the restaurant to catch the cable car and we can't make it at 6, it's impossible for them to even make it at 7pm!

While I was in the cable car, I receive the tour guide's reply saying "I'm waiting with other tourists too, please don't go to Citygate, just wait at the exit of the cable car"

Both my sisters and I went FTS WE'RE GOING TO CITYGATE.

Honestly!?! I can't believe he told us not to go to Citygate! We queued till our feet were on the verge of breaking apart and he's telling us that we'll have to wait for all of them which could most probably take another fucking hour, having NOTHING to do?

We took a little more than an hour to get into a cable car, plus 25 minutes ride down. When we're down it was already 6.20pm. We quickly went to the mall, very quickly and briefly browsed through, before exitting to look for our coach. At 7pm we were already in the coach and nobody was there except for the driver who was waiting there for more than an hour without any notice from the tour guide. Poor guy.

At about 7.30ish, finally everyone started to appear looking exhausted and frustrated.

Randomly took a picture while we were bored waiting for the rest.

After that we were sent to a pier in I forgot where to take a boat to Lamma Island for dinner. More HK night views from the pier.

Approaching the restaurant where we had our seafood dinner.

The end wtf.

Seafood dinner was alright, not great but not terrible. Once again, I've had better seafood in Klang. I'm not saying nice things about Klang just because I'm from Klang, but it's a fact that the restaurants this tour has been bringing us weren't impressive. I'm not really complaining since I was mentally prepared for it anyway; tour groups hardly bring you to nice food places.

If you've been reading from top to bottom, I applaud you haha. Day 3 is HK Disneyland, fret not, no more complaints. Oh maybe a little bit about Chinese tourists. Seriously most of them drive me up the walls. But Day 3 onwards it got better, thank goodness.

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.

33 degrees

I am home!!!

In a new home some more hehe. My family shifted early this year before CNY. Coming back to a new place felt a little awkward at the beginning... I didn't know where the plates or cutleries were kept, didn't know how to turn on the TV, there seems to be a million switches and I had to try a million times to be able to switch on freaking fan -.- 

The moment I stepped onto Malaysian ground, there's only 2 words to describe my feelings. SIBEH HOT! Wtf.

I don't know if it's just a transition from winter to a tropical weather, or the weather has just been super hot lately. Hazy too! I feel sweaty, oily and sticky all the time ughh.

Doing nothing much but watching AOD (Astro On Demand). This is a long awaited break for me, obviously I have to be doing nothing ;) Went to this new mall about a week ago!

Not bad lor quite big, got cinema and some nice shops too. My sister wanted to meet up with her friends there so we (other sister, grandma and I) tagged along. Wanted to try the dessert place Tong Pak Fu but it was so packed. Not bothered. But I tried Gong Cha! And I loved it!

It was my first time trying so I didn't want to be adventurous. I tried their milk tea with pearls, very nice! I can even say it's nicer than the Chatime in Melbourne, don't know about the Chatime here, haven't tried yet. I can't wait to go back for my 2nd time :D

While waiting for my sister we shopped around. Ok more like I shopped around hehe. I haven't been properly shopping for more than a year already ok! I'm so shopping-deprived lol.

I spotted this small nude patent leather shoulder bag with chain straps (not seen) and detachable studded straps. I was contemplating for a really long time whether or not to buy it cos the pricetag was rm100 which I personally thought was expensive for such a small bag. BUT I REALLY LIKED IT! It was originally rm140, with rm40 of the price it's still quite pricey. There were many black ones of the same design, but there was only ONE left of this nude colour. After thinking for almost 20 minutes, I decided to get it. When the cashier scanned it, she said "rm70", which of course surprised me. When she saw my surprised face she asked me "rm70 kan?" and I stupidly asked her back "bukan rm100 ke?" which she then looked at the pricetag and decided to ask her colleague to check. At that point I seriously felt like a complete idiot and I should have kept my mouth shut. But thank goodness, her colleague came back and confirmed that it's rm70.

SCORE! :D

Also went to Daiso and bought some random stuffs. Julienne peeler! I can't wait to try it. If it works well, Imma make some Thai papaya/mango salad. Julienne means to cut food/vegetables into small strips. Bought a skimmer cos the skimmer I have at home in Melbourne is hopeless.

Apart from AOD I've also been helping my grandma with cooking dinner. My mom bought some tin gai, paddy frogs, the other day so I decided to give it a try. Made Gong Bou Tin Gai. Paddy frogs are similar to chicken, except that frog has less fats, is smaller in size and so cooks a lot quicker.

That's all as far as my Instagram pictures go. The sisters and I are going to Hong Kong this weekend/raya! I don't really like crowded places so not looking forward to that but definitely looking forward to the food! Egg tart, polo bao, dim sum... I'm too old for Disneyland but it's my first time so maybe I should be looking forward to that too? I don't know.

Market finds

Yesterday we went out for dinner with Michelle and Alvin. We wanted a place that is cheap so we picked this Korean place that looks pretty shabby from the outside lol. Michelle said it's not bad so we decided to give it a go. When we looked at the "Mains" which comes with a rice and a side dish, it was priced at around $12-16, which we thought wasn't that cheap actually. We went on and ordered a main each anyway. Honestly, I thought it was a single-serving dish and so did everyone. Wk's plate of Chicken Bulgogi with Cheese was the first to be served and when we saw it... our eyes bulged and our jaws all dropped.

IT WAS MAAASSIVE OK!

Look at the abundance of cheese! And X 4 for the four of us wtf. We ordered different stuff but they were all equally humongous! They tasted pretty good too. The place is called CJ Lunchbar if anyone's interested. Cheap but generously portioned, tasty stuff. I had the Spicy Beef Ribs (Galbijjim) and I loved it.

The other weekend when we were at the market in Footscray we spotted these pomfrets! I grew up with pomfrets. The sight and taste of it instantly reminded me of home. Unfortunately we couldn't find the big ones, these were small pomfrets which are usually better off fried. But it was still good to have since I haven't had it in a while now. Super easy; clean the fish (intestines), season it, simply steam it with some spring onion and ginger, pour the sauce over, crisp up some chopped garlic and then drizzle the hot oil with garlic over the top. This step is extremely important, I find that doing this pushes the sauce and the chopped spring onion to a whole new level.

That same day in the market, we were looking for some fish fillet when we spotted this tray of fish steaks going at only $5. I think these were baby mackarels, not sure but whatever. They were actually quite fresh for only $5. I panfried them after seasoning them with salt and pepper and coating them with a little bit of cornflour. Then quickly stir up some sauce and chopped spring onion and drizzled over it. The amount as a main served with rice was enough to serve 4!

Omg did I sound like an aunty talking about buying cheap fishes in market??? Lol.

Lastly, what else but a dessert.

This is my 3rd attempt at lemon meringue tart(lets) now and I'm still not happy with the way they turn out. The first time I made it, the pastry was as hard as rock, the curd was spongy?! The second time, everything was good, good curd, good flaky pastry but I oversalted the pastry it was disgustingly salty. This time, I decided to be lazy and entrust the pastry bit to premade frozen shortcrust pastry. I followed the cooking time in the instructions behind the packet, but the freaking pastry didn't cook enough. -.- AAAAAGH. 

I think the next time I do this I shall do it with limes since I prefer the taste of limes anyway. And originally this was supposed to be in a pie or a big tart shape but I only have little tartlet tins so have to go with that hahaha.

Ok time to finish up my assignment and clean my makeup brushes because I am supposed to do a photography makeup unit tomorrow! Yay can't wait :)

This is what we've been up to.

An ordinarily special day.

10 years ago, who knew what's going to happen today? No one. Starting off as lovebirds in high school, we went separate ways after school, we were thrown the long distance challenge for 4 years. We embraced it, we learned from it and grew with it... 10 years later, look where we are now! It's like a test which we've passed with flying colours. It's been a year and 4 months since we reunited, it's like a roller coaster ride but it's a good ride :)

Happy anniversary to the both of us. *virtual champagne toast*

Dear readers, friends and family, please stop asking "When are you guys getting married?". Being together for so long doesn't define "just get married". Marriage doesn't only need commitment, it needs money. $$$. Cold hard cash. In case you didn't know, you need to work hard to earn that shit. Unless I grow a money tree, that's a different story. Until that shit piles up, I'll say wait patiently :)

I have no idea what title to put.

Day 4 of flu and I'm finally feeling much better. Finally able to eat without having to throw up hours later, which is the worst feeling ever. Yesterday I threw up the cereal I ate in the morning which I ate dry because I wasn't bothered to mix it with milk. Wk thinks it needed some 'lubricant' to help with the digestion that's why I threw up hahaha. Ok TMI...

This is the 2nd time getting influenza this year and the last I had was in what? March? Wtf, that's less than 2 months ago! I don't remember myself falling sick so often in Malaysia except when I'm extremely stressed or exhausted which of course, doesn't happen all the time. Seriously need to consider getting one of those flu jabs but then again, I hate jabs or any sort of needles, with a passion. Aaaagh. 

You know what completely sucks when you're sick? It's when you feel so headache-y or exhausted that all you can do is lie down otherwise you'll feel like crap. And when you lie down too much, you get a backache. And despite having those fantastic time off work or school, you can't enjoy or do anything productive because you're so bed-ridden.

Ok enough of the whinging.

I made Chai Kueh 菜粿 around last week. My mom used to buy Chai Kueh on Sunday mornings when she goes to the morning market to get groceries. My favourite, favourite part of eating Chai Kueh is dipping it into the sweet, garlic chilli sauce which usually comes with it. I couldn't find a recipe to the chilli sauce so I dipped it into a regular garlic chilli sauce and it tasted perfectly fine. As you can see, my skin is on the thicker side. The thinner the skin, the more translucent it'll be. I guess I need to practice my wrapping skills then because I couldn't roll it any thinner without puncturing the skin while wrapping it. Please ignore my hideous wrapping lol. The skin didn't taste like what I remember them to be... it tasted more like.. Har Gau skin? Which isn't bad but just different. Maybe it's because of the thickness, I don't know. 

This stupid cake was supposed to be a Purple Sweet Potato White Sesame Marble Pound Cake. I know that's a mouthful, and I know cakes have no inteligence for me to call it stupid but so many things went wrong with it... aaaagh. So frustrating. The cake may look good as a whole here but only I know what's wrong with it and I wish I can just pick it up and slam it onto a wall until it breaks into a million pathetic pieces, just to show how frustrated I am with it.

We were at Prahran and I discovered this Japanese supply store which made me really happy =D I love walking in specialised food supply store. There're so many things there that I wish I could buy everything! Decided to give this Daifuku a try since I've seen many recipes of it but never tried one. It's basically glutinous rice cake with adzuki bean paste as filling inside. Tastes pretty interesting. It's soft, sweet... and freaking powdery. As I was eating it the corn/potato starch coating was flying everywhere. My mouth, my jeans, Wk's jeans... goodness.

Awesome, awesome drink from PappaRich. Don't remember what it's called, Ribena something. Basically it's Ribena, with either watermelon pulp or blended ice, and then there's watermelon spheres in it, Nata de Coco, and canned lychee. YUM! So refreshing that I didn't even bother about it being a cold drink eventhough it was so cold outside that day. This reminds me so much of those crazy, funky drinks you can get at SS2 Murni.

 

This however, was a complete disappointment. It's their Roti Telur Bawang with Curry Chicken. I was craving for roti that day and I was sooooo looking forward to this and all I got was some sloppy, soggy roti. How outrageous! Just looking at this picture can already tell you how 'soft' it looks, how it's lacking some serious colour which depicts the crispy texture a roti should have. Aaaagh disappointing. Come on PappaRich, I've had good roti from you in the past. What's with the inconsistency in quality! I can easily get a perfect Roti Telur Bawang from Modern (mamak in Klang)!

What's best for a sick person and it's freezing cold outside? Congee takeaway of course! =) Congee with the classic pork and century egg.

Alright time to start on some assignments. Waiting for Wk to come home with my lunch. Can't wait, I've been food deprived for daysssss.