Travel Blog: Hong Kong Trip 2014 Day 1, 香港之旅第一天, 26 Jul 14

Hong Kong Trip Day 1: 26th Jul 2014, Saturday
香港之旅第一天：7月26日2014年, 星期六

Attractions for the day:
Super Star Seafood Restaurant 鸿星海鲜酒楼 [Google Maps Link]
Langham Place Shopping Mall 朗豪坊 [Google Maps Link]
Chuen Kee Seafood Restaurant 全记海鲜酒家 [Google Maps Link]

Accommodation for the trip:
Royal Plaza Hotel 帝京酒店 [Google Maps Link]

We were on a 3D2N packaged tour to Hong Kong this time round with JTB. It was the second time Momorange was going to Hong Kong!

And as usual, our first pic on a trip almost always starts with a wefie on the plane.

Some islands near Hong Kong. Not sure which country they belong to.

Upon landing in Hong Kong, we were fetched by coach to Royal Plaza Hotel. Yes, we stayed there once again. Had a good experience staying there in our last trip so it was really pleasant to stay there for the second time. By the time we reached the hotel, it was already 3pm.

A spacious room. Even comes with a platform area for one to relax at.

A huge bathtub. Nice!

Exquisite design.

Nice toilet and bathing area too.

Here's what the corridor looks like.

We unloaded our luggage into our rooms, then gathered to be brought to a restaurant nearby called "Super Star Seafood Restaurant" within the same Grand Century Place building. We had mostly dim sum. The real seafood meal was to be at dinner. Can't wait!

A special dessert made to look like bunnies. How cute!

Did not see any superstars in the restaurant.

After the meal, it was free and easy until dinner time. Dear and I then ventured around the area. It's always nice to wander around aimlessly when you're on a trip. You never know what you're gonna find.

The usual Hong Kong scene you'll see in all shows.

We then visited Langham Place and its many floors of shops, restaurants and various other kinds of interesting things. There was even a My Melody and Kuromi Pop-up Cafe.

My Melody and Kuromi Pop-up Cafe.

Another usual scene of Hong Kong. Dilapidated buildings among other newer buildings.

And Langham Place Hotel is just across the road and also connected by a link bridge.

Interesting interiors of Langham Place.

View from the bottom of the extremely long escalator.

After our window-shopping, we returned to the hotel where we gathered with the others in the tour group to be fetched to our seafood dinner place. It was called "Chuen Kee Seafood Restaurant".

Chuen Kee Seafood Restaurant 全记海鲜酒家
Address: 87-93 Man Nin Street, Sai Kung, Hong Kong

Look at the stacks of tanks of fresh seafood outside the restaurant and you can tell how particular they are in ensuring customers get the freshest seafood daily. The amount and variety of seafood displayed was stunning. When we first arrived at the restaurant, most of us took pictures with these creatures still in their tanks. But sadly, some of them were gonna be inside our stomachs pretty soon. Oops!

You can see this very striking neon signboard from a distance.

Just look at the amount of live seafood they have here!

It looks almost like a seafood market.

After the eye-opener, we were then led to our table, where our dishes were served one after the other. Let the pictures do the talking. And yes, pretty much all of them ended up in our stomachs.

Deep-fried fish.

That's lobster.

Prawns.

There's chicken too.

Some garlic scallops.

Of course some veggies to balance it up.

Abalones. They were pretty tough though...

Steamed fish.

Some rice in thick gravy.

As shown, we did not finish the tons of food in front of us. It was way too much.

Pretty decent and fresh seafood. The only thing we didn't like was the abalone which was too tough to handle. The rest of the dishes were quite okay.

After dinner, the coach then fetched us back to our hotels. It's Disneyland tomorrow! Looking forward to it.

Royal Plaza Hotel

Address: 193 Prince Edward Rd W, Mong Kok, Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2928 8822
Website: https://www.royalplaza.com.hk/en/

For a list of the hotels available for booking in Hong Kong via Agoda.com, click here.
To make a hotel booking at Royal Plaza Hotel, click here.

Links to our Hong Kong Trip 2014

Day 2
Day 2 - Hong Kong Disneyland
Day 2 - Hong Kong Avenue of Comic Stars
Day 3
Souvenirs

Read More

Travel Blog: Hong Kong Macau Trip Day 3, 香港澳门之旅第三天, 4 Aug 11

Hong Kong Macau Trip Day 3: 4th August 2011, Thursday
香港澳门之旅第三天：8月4日2011年, 星期四

Good morning! 早晨! (good morning in Cantonese).
We only realized this clock can put iPhone/iPod Touch on our last day of stay hahaha.

It's the third day already! How fast? We have to check out of the hotel by that day. It was a damn tiring day on the previous day at Disneyland, but of course equally rewarding and exciting experience. Therefore we slept until almost 11. Packed our luggage and got ready to check-out and move on to the next hotel.

One final picture at the hotel lobby.


Welcome to Hong Kong! I mean, Hong Kong station.

Had a very hard time looking for the next hotel, Hotel De Edge By Rhombus. I seemed to have missed out a very good map of the area. In the end spent almost half an hour looking for the place. Did not expect the hotel to be THAT far from the MTR station of Sheung Wan, the western most station on Hong Kong island. Walked past several streets which were super ultra old and difficult to pull our luggage on. The streets had many old shops selling all kinds of 海味 etc. Some of the shops sold rice or other 干粮. Indeed quite an old area of Hong Kong. But this hotel was erected right in the middle of several other tall buildings. It's definitely not in the most eye-catching of places. Its small lobby amongst the other old shopfronts made it even harder to spot.

The reception area was a petty little space with only about 4m in length at most and 1m in width lol. However the rooms were a stark contrast to its outer appearance. The window shades were even mechanically drawn up or down by the flip of a switch next to the bed.

Small room but comes with everything you need.
Bar fridge is hidden in the little cabinet on the left of the bed.


Nice decor rite?


The flatscreen tv was mounted on the wall and could be pulled out to face the bed.

It was rather late after we settled down. Momo contacted Nut Nut to ask her to recommend nice places to visit for meals. She suggested 鱼米家 near Central station. It is a restaurant just at the corner of a building and next to a flight of stairs containing many souvenir shops on each side.

We entered the restaurant at about 4pm, therefore the place was rather empty. We ordered the house specialty of course, the fish bee hoon. Super ultra big bowl. Stupid us should have just ordered one but we ordered one each. We also ordered some 炸奶 and bubble tea. Not really the best meal of our trip. And not really satisfying...

Barley and some yuan yang bubble tea.


Fried milk.


鱼肉米线.


Hmm won't recommend the specialty dish, but maybe others are better.

We then walked up the staircase right outside and Momo got a pink sling bag. Helped to slash the price until HK$100. But I think the cost price could be much less than half of it lol. The whole slope was full of weird souvenir shops. Some of them sold Halloween costumes and other weird stuff.

Nothing much worth looking at lol.

So the next place we're headed to was The Peak. It was within walking distance from Central station, therefore we walked to the Peak Tram Terminus. Quite a long walk actually. And it was upslope. We even walked past one Citibank building.

The iconic Bank of China Tower.


Citibank building.

Over at the tram terminus. Holy cow. Super ultra long queue. We were very late. It was already 7pm when we reached the terminus. Luckily I saw one guy wearing the Madam Tussaud's shirt holding onto some price list for combo package of a 2-way tram ride + entry to Madam Tussaud + entry to The Peak Sky Terrace for only HK$210. Therefore we almost skipped past the whole length of the queue to go right up in front. It's a priority queue for those who purchased the combo tickets.

Just look at the crowd! This is madness! This is SPARTA Hong Kong!


A better view of the tram track.


The funicular, or cliff railway, actually goes up to 35-40 degrees incline, I believe. OMGness!

And we reached the peak in a jiffy! The only painful wait was for our turn to get onto the tram. The whole place was flooded with PRCs and Koreans mainly. But it's the PRCs who were pushing and shoving their way like there's free gold bars on the trams. Then suddenly a PRC guy shouted something like "why must you all push? will die is it?" and then everyone stopped pushing and there was a dead silence. Kudos to that guy, otherwise people might have been pushed onto the tracks.

On the Peak, we climbed the building to reach Madame Tussauds Hong Kong Wax Museum. There was a wax figurine of Bruce Lee at the entrance for all to take pix with. There's also one of Jackie Chan, but you have to pay to take pix with him. WTH!? Decided not to. So boliao. We just entered the place to take pix with the other wax figurines.

Here's a more realistic Bruce Lee. Hai-ya!


This Lin Zhiling looks very fake.


Nicole Kidman and Nafimuya.


Hey it's Brangelina!


Momo and Jay Chou.
I think Jay Zhou sure thinks his wax figure is more handsome than him LOL.


Cecilia Cheung looks great here.


Leo Ku looks damn cool.


Barbie Hsu? Nolah not her lah...


Louis Koo. So handsome.


Andy Lau! Heavenly King!


And here's another Heavenly King. 春成. Not 富城.


Girls will scream at this wax figure. Not in horror but in ecstasy.


Madame Tussauds herself.


If only Princess Diana is still alive...


Osama. Obama. 傻傻分不清楚.


Hu Jintao and I are best buddies.


Mr Lee Kuan Yew. Really super lifelike.


Astrogirl to the rescue!


Spidey and Nafi.


Master Yip Mun sure lose to me in 永春.


Momo 甜蜜蜜 with Leon Lai. Hmph!


Captain Jack Sparrow said got treasure in Hong Kong.
How I wish I could go search for it with him.


Couldn't upload the animated gif version of me jumping.
Can only show this pic of me in mid-air, trying to reject Yao Ming's shot.


Holy cow Beckham looks so REAL.


Give that man a Tiger!


I'm Madonna's backup dancer.


The Beatles actually had a fifth member. Nolah not me. I'm not that old -_-'''.


There's a new artiste in town called Gaga Lady.


Wacko Jacko in his younger days. Don't you just miss his dance moves?


The Twins, or are they The Fake Twins?.


Teresa Teng sure looks real.


Miriam Yeung looks as fake as the dollar note she's wearing.

The whole wax museum spans three storeys and contains more than 100 wax figurines. Quite cool. Can't imagine having a replica of myself standing at some place. Kage bunshin no jutsu!

We then saw a cute promo for Hong Kong Disneyland with Mickey Mouse statue and Momo can't resist but to take a pic with it.

Why is Mickey standing next to a wax figure of Momo dear?

Next, we climbed to the top floor where there was a queue to enter the Sky Terrace. This was the highlight of the day, I believe. You can actually see the whole of the cityscape of Hong Kong. A very magnificent view. It was getting cold too cos of the height and late at night. Probably 23 degrees or so.

City lights and buildings of Hong Kong.


I'm the king of the world!


This must be the tallest point of Hong Kong Island.
Momo says those rich artistes like Jackie Cheung could be staying there.


Back down to the shopping area of the Peak.
The 7-Eleven stores are pretty innovative in their shop design.

We went to have dinner/supper at one of the few remaining restaurants still open at 10+pm. Had a bit of fishball bee hoon and some pear drink. There was a long queue to take the tram down to city, therefore we decided to get something to eat and wait for the queue to shrink first.

Not too bad for a short meal.
The warm bee hoon and drink certainly complements the cold weather.

It was already 11+ by the time we reached the bottom. Took the train back to Sheung Wan and then walked all the way back to our hotel. But decided to grab some food from the nearby 7-Eleven. Sandwiches were awesome when you're hungry lol. But the road back to the hotel was infested with cockroaches, one of dear's deadliest enemies. They all came out at night and sprawled all over the sidewalks. Certainly not the best place to build a hotel.

For a list of the hotels available for booking in Hong Kong via Agoda.com, click here.
To make a hotel booking at Royal Plaza Hotel, click here.
To make a hotel booking at Hotel de Edge by Rhombus, click here.

Links to our Hong Kong Macau Trip 2011
Day 1
Day 2
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Souvenirs

Read More