We had alot of sadistic fun eating mickey mouse waffles
We also had to solve the problem of Catechol's hole-ly shoe, and I came up with the ingenious idea of Scotch tape. And as ingenious as it is, we can't figure out what's Scotch tape in chinese. Actually, we don't even know what Scotch tape is called inEnglish in Hk. We called room service and I tried 'scotch tape', 'sticky tape', 'double-sided tape', 'plastic sticky tape' and so on but to no avail. Then, we hunted down a very friendly cleaning lady who caught us peering into her cleaning trolley. And i tried 'jiao dai' and 'nian dai' and kept miming the 'pull out scotch tape and sticking it on paper' action and she would let out an excited “oh! Is it this?” after every attempt and pull out items like plastic bags and rubber bands and alot of other odds and ends. Then, at the check out counter, we did the same thing, and I kept leaning over the counter to peer at their table. And then out of desperation I asked them for qiang li jiao (super glue), and the guy very helpfully said, “we don't have that. We only have this” and he pulled out from under the table, a scotch tape dispenser with a big roll of scotch tape in it. -_-” In our joy and surprise, we forgot to ask him the Chinese name for it, and thus, when we reached our new hotel, we had to repeat the procedure. Even more -_-”
Our new hotel is YMCA hotel, and it's at quite a good location. At the MRT station, we saw a young ang mo couple who like us are carrying huge bags, so I had a hunch they're going to our hotel too, and wanted to just follow them (haha.. like those losers on Amazing Race), but Catechol insisted that he knows the way and after consulting his map for a long time at the road junction, we finally reached the hotel and saw a very long queue at the check-in counter and lo and behold, the couple I saw just now were a few people ahead of us in the queue.
This was when things start to deviate from my carefully planned itinerary, because due to the crowd, we were unable to check in till 2pm (even though i specifically requested for early check-in during reservation). It was only 1pm when we reached, so we sort of hung around and shopped in the area nearby and debated if we should just leave our bags at the lobby and proceed with the itinerary. However, our old age and tiredness (ok, fine. MY old age and tiredness and weak limbs) decided against that, so I just slacked at the hotel lobby and rested my poor limbs while Catechol hounded the counter people.
So we were rather behind schedule when we finally managed to set off from our hotel room.
Our first stop was the Star ferry terminal to take the Star ferry to Hong Kong Island from Kowloon. I was very impressed with the convenience and efficiency of the ferry system, and also the fact that the ferry terminal is just a bigger replica of the ferries themselves, quite cute.
Ferry
Terminal
I must say, that the Singapore CBD skyline has nothing on the HongKong skyline from the ferry. It just gives one the impression of prosperity and wealth, and Catechol had a good time pointing out names of banks and firms he recognised and marvelling at the height and grandeur of their respective buildings.
A Chinese Junk
At the main island, I insisted on taking the tram, and from my research I know that it's at the HSBC bank, but strangely, no one seemed to know where the tram stop is. So we spent alot of time peering up at the tall buildings to spot the (rather short) HSBC bank, then walking blindly in that direction.
I think the trams look rather silly and cute.
My itinerary was to take a round loop of tram that will lead us around the main tourist attractions including the race course, and then return to our original stop to take a tram going to Stanley Market. But, due to time constraints, we decided to just go directly to Stanley Market, but can't find the tram that would take us there, I think the route got cancelled or smth, so we just hopped on any tram, and luckily, Catechol managed to orientate us, and I figured out that the tram will bring us to another shopping area, with a market i had read about during my research. And because it was 4pm and we haven't had lunch, we popped into a shopping centre to look for food.
And because we entered via a overhead bridge and the interior of the shopping centre looked very confusing, we asked the security uncle beside us “which floor” and he answered very kindly in perfect Chinese too.
We went to a nice cafe with a traditional teahouse look and had an interesting lunch there and *cough* again my cantonese tide us thru. I was simply amazed that most of the cafes there are filled with people, i guess the Cantonese really like to 'yum cha'.
After that, we wanted to head to Jardine Bazaar and decided to ask the nice security uncle for directions, so while I went to the toilet, Catechol went to ask him first, but when I went to find them, I found Catechol looking helpless and the uncle trying very hard and drawing on the map. Apparently, according to Catechol, the uncle said one sentence in Chinese, and then lapsed into Cantonese all the way.
So again, *cough* my Cantonese saved the day!
I was very amused on my way to the bazaar because, for one moment, I thought I was in NDP or Chinese New Year Eve or smth, there were people, people everywhere! Until, there was a jam and we had to slowly shuffle our way thru, but no one else seemed surprised, so I guess this was common occurence.
Anyway, I had intended to reach our next destination, which is the Peak, by 6.45pm, cos I wanted to catch the sunset there (I even checked the weather report and sunset time loh, Sm has taught me well) but we spent so much time getting lost that by the time we reached the Peak, it was already 8pm and pitch dark.
But the Peak Tower is really cool, and Catechol kept repeating over and over again how ridiculous it is that they have such a tall shopping centre on top of a hill that is so out of the way, and who would come use the arcade here, or watch movie here and yada yada yada....
But he was very excited when we reached the rooftop with all the clouds whipping around us at a 100miles per hour, I took a video of it, but am too lazy to upload a video of clouds hahaha.....
Also, I was quite pissed that it was so cloudy we couldn't see a single thing at all.
What we're supposed to see
What we saw
Which explains why I look so sian
We did manage to see the Symphony of Lights though, where all the tall big-shot buildings take part in a light and fireworks show which I thought kind of make them look clownish.
After taking the Peak Tram down, we took the MTR back to Kowloon and went for dinner at this cool concept Chinese fast food chain where they actually show movies at tiny tv screens in front of you. How cool is that!
After dinner, we went to Ladies' Night Market, which reminded me again of the markets in Bangkok.
Also, bought some snacks there, including smelly tofu, which I expected to be smellier than the Taiwan one, but i think Taiwan's nicer.
And we saw Krispy Kreme!!!!!!!!! I was almost hyperventilating when I saw the lovely green sign and after shouting, "OMG!! THEY HAVE KRISPY KREME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I just dashed toward the shop, leaving a very bewildered Catechol behind.
In fact, Catechol said that he had never seen me more excited in the whole of this trip.
The donuts are sooo sooooo sooooooooo good, and they have so many many many varieties (close to 30 i think), i was supposed to buy one box back for my mum, but they were just so good that we can't help but eat more and more, so my poor mum was only left with 3 pieces.
And naturally I was too greedy to take a photo of the donuts themselves. In the photo, you see me eating the smelly tofu which wasn't very good.
And the wonderful donuts marked the end of a wonderful trip....
It has really been fun, but I dun think I'll go back again.. I never believe in visiting the same country and doing the same things twice... Although I make exceptions for Japan and Europe....
Next up, Vietnam!
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