Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Hong Kong - Day 2

31 October 2010 - Sunday
Day 2 itinery was also full of walking. Muscles hurt and whole body tired from Day 1 walking, we were still fully charged up in the morning. We were going to Central, Hong Kong Island.

From Tsim Sha Tsui MTR Station, we alighted at Central Station, Exit B. We walked along Des Voeux Road Central into Pottinger Street.
Pottinger Street is a unique street with stone slab steps leading uphill just like a staircase and is only accessible to pedestrian. There were shops lining the street.

As it was Halloween Day (31 Oct 2010), most shops were selling Halloween stuff.

Pottinger Street
We then made a right turn into Lyndhurst Terrace to get to the famous Tai Cheong Bakery. This place is famous for its Egg Tarts so of course we went hunting for this place.
We tried all the recommended pastry in this shop.

The Egg Tarts (HK$5/each) - we find it good, but not to say superbly good. In fact, most of the egg tarts we tried in Hong Kong are good.

Sha Yung, which is actually Fried Egg Balls. A little ball of dough is dipped into oil and deep-fried. The outside is crispy and inside is soft. It is then dipped into granulated sugar.
I find the taste a little too egg-y for me, but then it is quite good.

Thousand-year-old Egg Pastry / Century Egg Pastry
I am not a fan of 'pei dan' so I don't like its smell. The paste has a strong ginger smell. I guess it is to counter the ammonia aftertaste of the century egg.
Tai Cheong Bakery
35, Lyndhurst Terrace
Central, Hong Kong
Tel: 25443475

Just a stone away is the lively Gage Street, a place where the locals shop for fresh seafood and vegetables.

This street is also where the recommended Lan Fong Yuen is located.

The place is packed. And it is a normal thing to share tables with strangers while having your food.

This is a place where we ordered the Hong Kong-style 'Ximut Cha' milk tea. We ordered both hot and iced.

We ordered the famous Pork Chop Bun - this is real good. Oily pork chop in a toasted bun slabbed with mayonnaise. I love this!

We ordered a 'Chicken Steak Noodle with Prestige Onion Sauce 'Lo-Ting' - I like this dish also. Just like some flavourful maggi mee. hehe

The whole bill comes up to only HK$ 65, very reasonable. Definitely a recommended place!
Lan Fong Yuen
G/F No.2, Gage Street

Central, Hong Kong
Tel: 25443895

We then walked around the place and explore all the small little streets there. There were stalls selling pretty lanterns and also a fruit stall.
And even an old, antique shop selling sauces.

Then we read the map and saw that there is a temple nearby so we decided to have a look. We reached Man Mo Temple after a few minutes walking. The temple outside has nothing to shout about but the inside is really nice and peaceful looking.
There is these bronze hands which were holding pens - and if you touch them, it is supposed to give you wisdom in your studies/work. Right hand for the right-handed and left for the left-handed.

While walking, we saw this property shop. Wow....3.35Million for 500 square feet. Gosh...i'm real glad I'm living in Penang!

Even the schools/colleges are not in a landed compound like Malaysia. Their school is in a flat-like building. Look at these 2 schools.

While walking along the Sun Yat Sen Heritage Trail which we stumbled upon, we saw this bench underneath this huge tree. We just sat there for awhile, hubby reading the newspaper and Min & I took some photos. It was nice and breezy.
It is so nice being able to do this, just sitting there enjoying, because we have no tour guide to hurry us to our next destination!

We reached the Sun Yat Sen Museum at last. A big place. We did not go in because 3 of us are not interested in museums in Hong Kong! hehe

So we just left the place, searching for food as it was already lunch hour.
Stumbled upon this Dumpling Yuan franchise while walking along Wellington Street.
So we just stepped in and ordered some food.

Ordered their Sour and Hot Soup (HK$12) - tasted a bit like Szechuan soup. hot and spicy.

Ordered their famous Pork and Leek Dumplings (HK$33) - it tasted quite alright initially, but after eating a few of them, I felt a bit jelak. Their portion is big too. One plate is 8 big-sized dumplings.

Did not quite like this shop because they charged us for the Chinese Tea (HK$1/each). Most shops served us free Chinese Tea. Food-wise also so-so nya. So this place is not recommended. Blueks!

We continued walking the small streets and saw more and more Halloween stuff.

They even have bloodied hands and legs....ewwww....

After that, we walked back to the main road to get to The Peak. Upon walking, we saw a flood of Indonesian maids gathered underneath this HSBC building. There were like thousands of them. All of them sitting down on their mats - some gossiping, some playing cards, some painting their nails, etc.
I guess since it was Sunday, it must be their day off and they just got together and this was their meeting place.
I was looking at them in awe....I'v never seen so many Indonesian maids at one place!

We walked along Garden Road for about 15 minutes where the Lower Peak Tram Terminal is. When we reached there, there was already a long queue for the tickets.


In the end, we bought the Fast Pass tickets which we don't have to queue to get the tickets and include the Tram Fares for Round Trip, Sky Terrace and also Madame Tussaud for HKD$200/person. I think we saved about 10% of the total ticket fares.

Even so, we still need to queue to get into the Tram. The tram frequency is short, I think 1 tram every 5-10 minutes or so. Way much better than Penang Hill's tram.

We managed to get a seat inside the tram. Remember to sit on the RIGHT side of the tram up to get a much better view.

View was good even being inside the tram. Weather was nice and sunny and clear.


First stop was Madame Tussaud.
We got to play golf with Tiger Woods.

Min managed to dance and pose together with Madonna. And hubby got to smell Beyonce's armpits! Hahahaha

Then since it was Halloween. Madame Tussaud have this Scream Horror House which we went inside. It was scary. There were 'ghosts' popping out at every corner. Scary!
We spent almost 2 hours inside Madame Tussaud taking photos with almost every celebrity.

Next, time to go up to the Sky Terrace because we want to see the sunset from there. We want the best of both worlds. Photos of the view during daylight and also during nightfall.

This is the photo of the highest peak - the shape of a ship. It;s too big so we only managed to take a photo with a part of it.

We went up there to get to the Sky Terrace - the highest and full 270 degree view of Hong Kong.


The view was breathtaking. I really, really love Hong Kong's view. So full of life and colour.
After the sunset, the view was still as breathtaking. We could not wait until 8pm if not we should be able to see the Symphony of Lights show from here. Too bad...because our stomachs were growling by then.

After we got down from the peak, we took the MTR to Sheung Wan Station to go to this famous Mak's Noodle shop just outside the MTR Exit B. But we could not find the place even according to the address. Sigh. It must be closed down already.

We were so pissed off because we were hungry at that time and we took the MTR to Sheung Wan for nothing. And we walked around the place to look for other shops to eat but we found none, surprisingly. In the end, we got fed up and took the MTR back to Central to find dinner.

Upon reaching Central, we just got into the first restaurant we saw. Turned out to be the Queen's Place @ Des Voeux Road Central.

We ordered their signature Rice Noodle with Shun De Fish Ball (HK$33) and also the Prince Fried Rice (sun-dried scallop, scallop, shrimp & Egg White) (HK$ 59).
Both were delicious. Maybe because we were very hungry by then. :P

And when we got out from the restaurant, we saw that the whole place was being blocked by policemen everywhere managing traffic. The funny part is that the policemen are not managing vehicle traffic, but HUMAN TRAFFIC!
Yes.....there were more people than cars!!!!

It seems like there is this huge Halloween Party at Lan Kwai Fong and to get there, policemen are diverting traffic all to one-way-street. Everyone must follow the road signs to get there. Since we had nothing to do, we decided to follow the crowd and see what Halloween is all about!!!

Look at all the people. We were at the opposite side in the same manner. Also going our way to reach the opposite road.
There were like easily 200,000 people. Every streets are full with people.

Along the way, we saw 'ghosts', 'vampires', Heroes such as Iron Man and Batman, Gingerbread Man and even a person dressed up as a Sperm.

Then there was thig guy who went topless and asked people to pen down their signature on his body (see right photo). Hey, it was quite a cool night to go topless!


This is the 'Chai San Yeh' - God of Prosperity


Chinese Vanpires and English Draculas!
Look....can you spot Ronald McDonald?
And Johnny Depp with the Pirates of the Carribean crew....!
Upon reaching Lan Kwai Fong, the whole place was decorated with Halloween stuff. And many people were there. We just got out after that and followed the sign that reads 'To MTR'. It was almost 11pm by then. We did not want to miss the last MTR home and to cramp with all these thousands of people in the MTR at midnight.
Oh...this is Hubby's favourite stall in the MTR subbasement. Coco Frans. He has tried a few things from this shop.

This Crispy Mango (HK$18) is our supper for that night!
Great Day. Our first taste of what Halloween is like!
End of Day 2. Good night!


Hong Kong - Day 1
Hong Kong - Day 2
Hong Kong - Day 3
Hong Kong - Day 4
Hong Kong - Day 5
Hong Kong - Day 6
Hong Kong - Day 7 (Part 1)
Hong Kong - Day 7 (Part 2)

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