Travel Adventure: Hong Kong

Here’s the Hong Kong post I’ve promised! : ) Though I don’t know if I’ll be back here, my 6 days journey in Hong Kong was nothing short of amazing. This will be a photo and words-heavy post, but if you are going to travel to HK, this will be helpful. I took close to ~500 pictures throughout the trip excluding those on my phone, needless to say, it was really hard to pick which to add!

Day 1:

Arrival date! My friend and I arrived and met each other at the arrival hall of HK international airport. It was really easy as we both managed to get connected on the airport’s free wifi and communicated through what’sapp. We then spent 33HKD (~4USD, ~5SGD) on bus# A21, which took us straight from the airport to our hostel in Tsim Sha Tsui.

• New Tokyo Hostel Review:
  Our hostel was located in Chung King Mansion, somewhere I definitely will not recommend. This complex is located right on the famous Nathan Road and is walking distance to harbor city, the MTR and the bus stops. However, soon after, I found out that this place is famous for it’s crime – rape, drugs, you name it. The moment my friend and I stepped off the bus, there were people coming to us ‘offering’ to bring us to our hostel. It was sort of sketch and I really felt unsafe. The complex itself was also pretty scary and confusing. It had many different blocks, with many floors and each floor was a different hostel. Our hostel was on the 16^th floor, meaning that we had to line up (yes, line up) to get into a stuffy 8-person-max elevator. Our hostel was alright. I didn’t felt it was safe as there wasn’t a real lock and there was always a group of guys throughout the day right outside our room. The room itself consisted of 2 double bed, a shared side-table in between and an en-suite shower/toilet. I didn’t take any pictures of the hostel as… I didn’t really want to remember it.  In all honestly, the only thing wrong with this location would really be the safety aspect. The cleanliness and all is really what you expect a hostel to be. Each of us paid 1150 HKD (148USD & 189 SGD) for 6 Nights, which was really cheap. 

After dropping off our belongings at the hostel, we met 2 other friends and headed off to the famous Tim Ho Wan, which is a Michelin-starred dim sum restaurant! There’s a couple of outlets around Hong Kong, we went to the one near Prince Edward MTR station. It was so yummy and really affordable, I wouldn’t be able to tell you the price per pax, but amongst the 6 of us (4girls, 2 guys) we ate about 300HKD worth, which converted to 39USD, and 50SGD! Here’s a picture of their famous baked char siew buns. OMG. Delicious won’t even describe how amazing it tasted. It was crusty and sweet on the outside, & warm, sweet, and salty in the inside. I can totally taste it as I describe this.

After all that eating, we burned it off by walking to MongKok instead of taking the MTR. It was shopping heaven! We pretty much just explored around Mongkok for the rest of the day.

Hello Kitty Exhibition at Langham Place shopping centre. 

Sign-filled streets in Mongkok

The famous Ladies Market

Day 2: Victoria’s Peak

This was a walk-intensive day. We literally walked from 8am-11pm. The first thing we did was head out to Victoria’s peak, by taking the MTR to Central and walking to the bottom of the peak. En-route we walked into an urban park and the view was beautiful. Greenery with loads of high-rise buildings in the background. I just love the contrast!

At the bottom of the peak, we had to take the tram up. OH BOY, no one told me about the steepness of the route! It was so thrilling. At a certain point, I was so sure we were inclining at a 60 degrees angle to the ground. When we arrived at the peak, we decided to wait a while before heading to the view deck as the level 3-typhoon weather brought on a bit of a fog. When we did head to the top, the fog has died down a little. The view was incredible!

View from the Peak

We then headed to try out the famous Mak’s Noodle. I’ll just say that the quantity and quality food they served was not worth our money. We had better tasting wanton noodles the day before for a fraction of the price.

After leaving the peak, we took a walk around SoHo, Lan Kwai Fong (partying district), and central before heading out to Harbour city for another Cantonese, dim sum dinner and dessert.

Day 3: Macau!

In order to go to Macau, you can either take a 1hour ferry or a 15min helicopter ride… I think it is pretty obvious that we went for the ferry :P To get to the ferry terminal, we literally had to cross a road and walk 2-blocks to Harbour City. There are many ferry companies, so we went to the one with the reasonably cheap price. There were guys coming up to us selling us ferry tickets for almost half the price, but we thought it was too good to be true. In the end, we bought one-way ticket each way, and spent a total of about 300HKD (39USD & 50SGD) on the round trip. **I suggest buying one-way tickets so that you won’t feel rushed to head back to the terminal to catch your ferry, also, remember to bring your passport!**

The ferry trip wasn’t very exciting. Due to the typhoon, we had to battle against the waves due to the strong winds. I got a little seasick, but it subsided about an hour after we left the ferry. Since Macau is known to be the Las Vegas of Asia; we thought we had to check out a casino. From the ferry terminal, there are free coach buses you can catch to many different casinos. We decided to go to the famous Venetian. If you have been to the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas, you’ll find this very similar. I definitely prefer the one in Last Vegas, for its grandeur.

In the Venetian, we found Lord Stow’s Bakery!!! They specialize in making Portuguese egg tarts. It was so so so TASTY, I could easily have ate 10 of those egg tarts! Fresh from the oven, it was served warm, and flakey on the outside and so creamy and NOT too sweet in the inside. It was incredible. We then walked out of the casino and headed out to explore the rest of Macau! En-route to the tourist famous Rua Do Cunha, we went into a park to take some pictures!

EGG TARTS!!

My first impression of Rua Do Cunha? There’s SO much to EAT! There were about 2 large outlets of Koi Kei Bakery, famous of their peanut cookie made in Macau. I got my grandparents some of the Almond cookies, and they were so happy, the cookies ran out in less than week! We head to Seng Cheong to try their famous crab porridge. The porridge was alright and the crab was fresh, it wasn’t something I was really into to be honest, but glad I tried it! After all that eating, we headed off to the old and famous A-Ma temple followed by the Ruins of St. Paul. Til this day, it the ruins was my favorite landmark of the trip. I suppose it was the unexpectedness of how we found and that really made it memorable.

Entrance to the A-Ma Temple

Ruin of St. Paul 

After all that walking, we had a little street food and head over to the ferry terminal to head back to HK! Once at HK, we headed to Mongkok area to meet my local friend, which look us shopping! It was CRAZY. We went to a building with 5 floors selling nothing but women’s clothes. It was the type of shopping I wanted to do in HK, but due to being a little overwhelmed and claustrophobic, I didn’t buy anything.

Day 4: LanTauIsland

We head out of Lan Tau Island, an island right off the coast of mainland HK. It took us a while and a couple of connections to get there (it was near the airport) via train followed by another 30mins or so of bus/ cable car. We wanted to take the cable car, but the line for it was about 1-2hour wait time, so we went with the bus instead, which drove us up the mountain to the peak where the Tian Tan Buddha Statue (big Buddha) and Po Lin Monastery is located. The main hall of the Po Lin Monastery was under renovation. I’ll let the pictures do the talking : )

steps leading to the Big Buddha

Incredible view from the peak

Signs leading to the Wisdom Path

At the end of the Wisdom path, we gain strength of practice... YOGA! :)

After everything, we head to the Ngong Ping Village to have a quick Taiwanese lunch and loads of dessert. One of my favorite places to have dessert was at Honeymoon Dessert. It was so so so yummy and not too sweet. We then took a bus from the village to Tai-O, which is a small fishing town within the island.

Salted fish drying under the sun

From Tai-O we met a friend who brought us to Cheung Chau, another island off mainland HK. It was pretty awesome as we got to see free roaming cows as we made our way towards the ferry terminal.

View from the Ferry Terminal

View of Cheung Chau from the ferry

Here, we got to enjoy a variety of fresh seafood dishes! For 5 girls, we spent a total of 440HKD (57USD / 73SGD), which wasn’t bad for all the food we had. We then rushed back to Mongkok to do some Polaroid film shopping!

View of some of the skyscrapers in HK at night. 

Day 5 & 6: Shop, Eat, Relax

These two days were the most relaxing days we had compared to the beginning of the trip. We did some last minute eating, shopping, and aimlessly walked around. We spent half of our 5^th day in Causeway bay. It is another shopping district, where you can find international brand outlets, and departmental stores. It wasn’t my cup of tea as I wanted something more uniquely HK. For the rest of the 1.5 days, we met up with some local friends and were brought on an eating spree. In those 2 days, we ate about 15 different times.

I suppose when you head back home with BOTH your suitcase and tummy full, you did one heck of a vacation! : ) #YOLO

I Hope you enjoyed my post.

Have you been to HK and which was your favorite part?  

A HK haul will be coming up soon!

Love,
Rachel

Disclaimer: The exchange rate I used was 7.76HKD for 1USD, and 6.1HKD for 1SGD. All prices listed above were estimated. Exchange rates changes all the time. The rate that I used for this trip may be different from now, so do check the rates before you make any plans. :)