Hong Kong Trip (Jan 2016) - Day 1

And here it is, the long awaited post on my trip to Hong Kong in January:)

Woke up super super early at 5.20am on the day of departure to prepare and all before heading to the airport. Part of the reason is to avoid my brother preparing to go school, and also to avoid the morning hour jam when taking a cab. This timing is seriously earlier than waking up for work and since when have I woke up this early before since after school days? Can't really recall so means that I must not have woken up this early very often. haha. But of course, this time it's for holiday so at least there's some motivation there to drag myself out of bed no matter how unwilling I was to leave the super comfortable bed:P

A mandatory shot at the airport with my luggage! Not sure why this time round my luggage is so heavy for just a 4 days 3 nights trip! And not as if I am bringing those winter clothing along... Until now, I still don't get it. But wells~ don't bother figuring out anyway. As long as I don't exceed the baggage limit. Lucky my luggage weight is just nice, within the limit. LOLOL.

Shot taken with my friend at boarding area. No sign of my colleague yet:P Do you know that my colleague actually took the same flight as me? Such a coincidence!! And we book at different occasions also. Yet still same flight to and fro! I only saw my colleague when we touched down in Hong Kong airport and gushing about how cold it is with the strong wind.

And ta-dah~ here we arrive at Hong Kong Airport - Arrival Hall at 2.25pm! 

After collection of our SIM card, we then proceeded to take the Airport Transfer to Kowloon Station. Pretty accessible from Hong Kong Airport to Kowloon Station - the train ride is just around 20 mins. And from there, we proceeded to take the Airport Express Shuttle Bus.

Depending on your destination, there's various shuttle bus services available. 

Our destination is to Cityview Hotel. Hence we took shuttle bus service - K5 and it's just one stop away! Cheaper and convenient as compared to taking cab. 

After checking in to our hotel and gearing up for the cold weather since it's really cold with the strong wind and slight drizzling, we headed out for our first destination of the day - visiting Wong Tai Sin Temple!

Octopus Card - similar like our Ez-link card in Singapore.
It cost HK150 (with a deposit of HK50 which they will return to you when you do a refund).

Wong Tai Sin Temple

Nearest MTR Station: Wong Tai Sin Station (Exit B2)

I don't usually visit the temple especially overseas, unless it's with my parents. Since I do not know how to go about doing it. I always just tag along with my dad and follow whatever he's doing. LOL. But since my friend wanted to go, I guess I was okay with it as well. So my first time trying to figure out how to go about by my own. 

However, we did face a problem when we are there since we do not know which is which, being it's our first time there. We did ask around though (trying our best to understand since we don't speak cantonese) and also "people watch" and in the end we roughly figure out how to. 

After that it's finally time for our meal! Hungry people we are. Our only meal is Macdonalds breakfast at the Airport in the morning before flying off! And we did not have anything to eat in between. So you have no idea how glad we were when finally we get to head for our first meal in Hong Kong!  

One Dim Sum

Shop 1 & 2, G/F, Kenwood Mansion, 15 Playing Field Road, Prince Edward, Hong Kong

Nearest MTR Station: Prince Edward Station (Exit A)

Their Menu

Deep Fried Dumpling in Sweet & Sour Sauce - HK $16
Nice combination with the sauce! Great for whetting your appetite.

Sticky Rice W/Lotus Leaf - HK $26
I like this the most of all the things we ordered! The sticky rice is very flavorsome and fragrant!
If I have a chance to be back to One Dim Sum, this is definitely something I will be ordering! And as I am drafting out this blog post, I am already missing it :(

Steam Shrimp Dumpling W/Vegetable Shoots - HK $20
Not a vegetable fan myself. But even so, I find that it's not that bad. The skin is rather thin with generous scoops of shrimps and vegetables. 

Barbecued Pork Bun - HK $14
What's Dim Sum without this? :P A definitely must order! At least it applies to me. Not sure if everyone is feeling the same way too. Hah!

Steam Cake in Mala Style - HK $16
My friend mentioned that other bloggers have recommended to try this. It's very soft and fluffy! 

Fried Egg Stick W/Honey - HK $17
Beware: Consumption may result in messy aftermath! Don't say you have not been warned.
Reason due to the sprinkles on top and the honey.
But I would not recommend this personally. Nothing fantastic there~

DO YOU KNOW~
Initially our plan in our itinerary is to go for Dim Sum supper in the late night. But then after the extremely full meal we had, we decided that we have enough dim sum for the day and therefore decide to remove that dim sum supper plan from our itinerary. 

After dinner, we then randomly walk around exploring the area between Prince Edward MTR Station to Yau Ma Tei MTR Station. And used google maps to find our way to places we want to go very much. Walking down the streets, it's like I am back in Taiwan. Like those night market kind of concept:P 

And it's really windy and cold, with some drizzle! I am literally hopping around trying to keep myself warm! I even bought scarf for myself hoping that it would help to bring some warmth. Even bought a hot green tea which did some help to warm my freezing cold hands. 

It's a fight against the cold! :P

百味食品 @ Argle Centre

Located at Street Level.

Nearest MTR Station: Mongkok Station (Exit D2)

We do not know what to mix with, so we ask the person for recommendations instead:) I can't remember what she added for us already. She spoke in Chinese and it sounds chim. LOLOL. Think there's Squid, Octopus, Jelly Fish etc? hahaha. But anyway, I only tried the a little bit only:P It taste special and unique. Can give this a try when you are in Hong Kong:)

An incident we encountered at Ladies Market is the aggressiveness! We actually got a scare by one of the sellers. Not a major or negative incident but rather, it allows us to learn. Haha. Learn how to go about tackling such incidents~ Learning point for us:P

Since there's still time, we decided to head for the Temple Street Night Market which is further down from our hotel at Yau Ma Tei MTR Station. Since we had no idea where it is located at, we used google map instead. Hahaha. The power and usefulness of google map! But of course sometimes it bring us to our destination via the longer route. A few times actually... 

And turns out that we took the longer route while making our way there. And somemore walking along the dark and quiet streets that resulted in us having second thoughts if we were on the right track. We did asked a passerby who happened to be walking towards us and the response was that we just have to continue walking. Haha. But we learnt to be smart when making our way back to hotel - by walking another route with more people and more light up. :P

Back to Hotel to call it a night

Shivering cold that when we are back to hotel, we switched off the air-con. However it's still extremely cold. Too cold till we actually can't fall asleep at all. And we don't even want to get out of bed cuz it's just too cold when you get out from underneath the blankets. I don't even want to get out to use my phone which is charging near the dressing table! 

CNY Yearly Affair @ Chinatown

So with the nearing of Chinese New Year, to be exact in just 5 more days, how's the preparation and spring cleaning coming along? Is it a yearly affair for you to visit Chinatown to grab some goodies for the new year? 

Previous years, I will head down with my family the night nearing Chinese New Year either on the eve itself or a few days before. That's when there's lots of cheap deals coming along as the store owners compete over low price offerings to customers in order to clear as much of their remaining stocks. Maybe that's why our parents like heading down on the last weekend/ day before Chinese New Year? Cheaper deals! hahaha. 


For me, I don't usually like going to Chinatown during this period because of the crowd. It's like the weather in Singapore is already very warm and humid. And with the crowd, it just makes everything worst. And it's hard to shop when there's a crowd. But this year... this year is the first time I actually experience going down early in the evening around 5pm and it was not that bad as compared to late at night! 

Initially it's raining. Lucky it stopped when we reached.

Other than 瓜子 (Nuts), another common stall you see would be the the jellies/ mochi.
There's actually a lane full of such stalls selling goodies for new year! And that's the lane I most want to avoid. To me, it's the lane of stickiness with all the rubbish and jelly syrup all over! LOLOL

My favourite!!! <3

Anyone fancy a plate of Char Kway Teow? :P

Overall, I did enjoy my trip to Chinatown this year! Most of the things you get to see might be the same every year, but there's also some other things you can get to find there:)