Day 2 (17 Jan)
I decided to boil hot water using the flask. Thankfully, the state of the hot water flask wasn’t like what I’d seen in China. I rinsed it and boiled hot water and enjoyed tea. =D I’d gotten up pretty early and noticed Summer’s sneezing so I poured a cup of hot water for her. =) She said it helped with her blocked nose. yay.

We got up and waited for boss to come down. Then we seperated for breakfast again (Faizal had to eat fast food because the rest of the stuff weren’t halal; boss and eddie accompanied him). Summer, Ainee, Valerine and I went to this small place for breakfast. I had coffee with noodles Char Siew (BBQ pork). And yeah, they give you Maggi noodles at most places.

Took the MTR again and went to this cable car station that will bring us to Ngong Ping 360. Basically, the cable car was pretty exciting coz it was wayyy high up, and all. The main point of being up there was to see a big Buddha statue.

Summer treat us to some jelly and desserts there.

My mango tofu ice dessert

Ai Nee’s Mango Pudding

Then it was a whole day of shopping again. Ai Nee and I went to KFC to rest at one point and I tried their Pop Corn Fish. Haha. It was kinda like fish fillet just that in small size.

We had dinner at a Malaysian restaurant (though run by Fillippinos I believe from their accent). The food was told to cook specially.

Then Eddie, Faizal and I went shopping and I bought a pair of sunglasses for SGD$10. 😀

Back to the hotel and watched Discovery Channel with Ai Nee and Summer till late.

I slept on the sitting room’s couch that day. 🙂 It feels like my bed.

Day 3 (18 Jan)
I woke up pretty early (7am), watched Mr Deeds on AXN (Adam Sandler leh, how not to resist?) then went back to sleep. Woke up again at 8+ and watched Discovery Channel again.

Faizal knocked on the door pretty early. Then afterwards, he and Eddie came by and I invited them in the sitting room to watch Discovery Channel with Ai Nee and I. Summer was packing.

Had Yun Tun Noodles and tried a bit of Chee Cheong Fun for breakfast. The Yun Tun is HUGE!! And I counted 6 prawns in one of them. How about that? In SG, they are so small that sometimes you don’t really eat anything except the meaat.

Oh and I had a blueberry cheese cake while waiting for the rest to return to the hotel after more shopping.

A cab fetched us back.

Did shopping at the airport after we checked in. 🙂

I was lucky to get the window seat on the plane. So got to see all the lights from the islands that we passed by and even the ships!! Singapore is pretty at night. No wonder there aren’t any stars. Haha. It’s like super bright at night.

Lights from ships wayyy down below. Haha the pictures don’t make much sense I know.

Thanks to Mr Quek for asking me along for the trip!

This made Hong Kong the 3rd country I’ve visited (the other 2 being Malaysia and China).

To view all the pictures (not in chronological order though), click here: http://photobucket.com/elveslabhktrip09

Day 1 and Day 2

Cool eh? I took this pic and came up with the idea.
L to R: Eddie, Summer, Faizal and Ai Nee – My fellow colleagues at Elves Lab

Before I start posting about what happened on the 3 days of my trip with Mr Quek, Valerine, Faizal, Eddie, Summer & Ai Nee, let me recall some stuff that I’ve learnt in general through observation when I was in Hong Kong.

1. Majority of the Hong Kongers wear black coats/jacket.
2. Ask for the price of things only after you’ve decided that you want to buy. Otherwise, don’t ask anything.
3. Speak in English whenever you can as the Chinese that we speak can be mistaken as Mainland Chinese.
4. Many in Hong Kong eat and then leave after they’ve finish their food immediately. They don’t sit on the table and linger.
5. Because of point number 4, it is pretty easy to find a place at any eateries as you can share a table with others.
6. The MTR system is kinda like a cross of Singapore’s old magnetic card system (their one trip card) and ez-link card (their Octopus card).
7. To be honest, the cost of their food and travel is expensive than in Singapore.
8. Visit any stores with the word “outlet” on it and you’ll find that the prices there are lower than what we get in the same brand of store in Hong Kong and Singapore.
9. You’ll find 7-Eleven stores everywhere.
10. “Mm Goi” is used everywhere and at any sort of situation. It means “Excuse me” and/or “Thank you”

16 Jan 09 (Day 1)
Dad fetched me to the airport rather early. I reached there at 3.30am even though the flight was due to leave only at 6.40am. Smsed Eddie and he said he was on his way. So I went to sit at one of the benches when Faizal appeared. Haha Turns out I didn’t notice him sitting at another set of benches. When Eddie arrived, the 3 of us went to the Kiliney Kopitiam stall where I had a cup of coffee and they had their breakfast. Then boss and his gf arrived and we went to look for them.

We checked in, walked around somemore, and they ate somemore. Valerine talked to me about hair stuff. lol.

Okay. We took JetStar flight 3K 691. The plane size was just like the Silkair one I took when I went to and from Chengdu. Budget airlines are just cheaper by about SGD$100 this season and because of that $100, they don’t have:
– blankets
– hot food
– drinks
– poker cards

Not that I’m complaining. I’m more like comparing 😛 I bought a drink at about the 2nd half of the journey as I was dying of thirst. Cost me $3 for a can drink. =S

Actually I took this picture to check if my eyes are bloodshot coz it felt weird

Basically, Faizal, Summer, Ai Nee and Eddie slept throughout the whole journey so i had no one to talk to =/ Read Heroes: Saving Charlie book that I borrowed from the library (Hiro became someone else so different from who he was by the end of the book seriously – but more about that in another post).

Hong Kong airport’s by the sea!! Quite interesting. I didn’t know anything much about HK before I flew there. I didn’t know how big/small it was, how many people lived there, etc. Unlike Chengdu where Ms Lam made us do researches on it before we went. Haha. And even though I’m of a Cantonese dialect, i can only say 3 sentences in Cantonese. But I do understand a bit of Cantonese.

There was a bus that Summer booked through the hotel (forgot the term called) that picked us up. Journey to the hotel was super long though. About 20mins?

We stayed in a hotel called City View hotel. Had to wait for the previous occupants to check out first so we camped and left our stuff in Eddie and Faizal’s room. Oh ya, the temperature was rather cool. Like around 18 degrees. Pretty interesting how I forgot how nice the breeze feels like even though I’ve experienced real spring in China about 1 year ago.

We went to this eatery for our lunch. It was almost 9 hours since I ate something so I didn’t really care where we ate and what. But I had this really delicious noodle with seafood and black beans and the portion was HUGE! I forgot how big food servings were already. =)

We then took the MTR from Yau Ma Tei to Lai Chee Kok where there is this whole building selling clothes at a super low price.

Some shops only cater to wholesalers though. I got a belt at HK$7 (~SGD$1.40) for my mum. And the quality isn’t those lousy sort too. In fact, it was better than the SGD$4 belt I bought in Aries the other day. Also bought 2 necklaces (my sis and I could share or she can take one).

Basically we shopped and went to Time Square for more shopping for a few more hours, then took the MTR again (can’t remember the stop name though) and took a bus to The Peak.

When we walked out of the MTR station, it was dark outside and I didn’t notice the time until I was on the bus. I expected the watch to show 8pm but it was oly 6.45pm! Look at SG now. It’s 7.30pm as I’m typing this and it’s still bright outside.

The Peak, is at the top of a mountain. Quite high, and you have to buy a ticket to take a tram that brings you all the way up. My boss bought tickets for Madame Tussaud’s and because the queue was shorter than the queue for the entrance ticket, we got in quite quickly.

The tram was an interesting experience. Because the pathway to the tram up was built in 1888, so it was I guessed built in the easiest way possible – Up. So the whole tram tilts at around 25 degrees and some parts was almost 45 degrees. It made everything outside look tilted when in fact it was us that were tilting.

I did not tilt the camera

We then went to Madame Tussauds. It was my 2nd time at Madame Tussauds. The first time it was in Singapore when they came for a few months. I think I was only 9 then? I’ll let the pictures do the talking (some pics are in either Summer or boss’s camera so I can’t put them up yet).

Me with MM Lee

We also went into this Scream thing where the staff actually told you that the staff inside will run around you but not touch you. It makes things less scarier but I screamed anyway coz it was fun. hahaha. You don’t get the chance to scream anyway you like anytime you know.

After that, we went up to the Peak’s Tower!! And man, it was cold up there but the view was fantastic!! I wished I had a good SLR or something to capture the view. You could see almost the whole of Hong Kong Island! 🙂

Went to Mong Kok, had dinner with Summer and Ainee and then we shopped till about 12mn then walked back to our hotel.

Char Siew with noodles. YUMMY

I shared a big room with Summer and Ainee and we had a sitting room with 2 rooms and a bath room. And because one of the rooms were quite far from the other, we decided not to use that room and so I took the cushions from the sofa in the sitting room to the bedroom with the double bed and slept on the floor. =)

It was cold though. So I sneezed the whole night. Summer too. Lol. 2 sick persons. =/

Day 2