Thursday, November 3, 2011

Travelogue #3: Complimentary Half Day Tour to Hong Kong Island

My apologies for the long hiatus, let's continue with our third part of HK travelogue! Just a few hours of nap sleep, woke up and our tour guide is waiting for us already. 6am in the morning and the sun is waving! Down side of travelling in tour group -> Restless & not enough of sleep! Luckily it was only a complimentary half day tour!

Apparently, most of the tour groups will always bring their tourist to some famous tourist area and "lepak" around, take some pictures and meet up and continue....... The usual boring rushie thing, but NEVERMIND, as long as everyone enjoy it! So, where is our first destination? We went through the Victoria Harbour crossings (Cross-Harbour Tunnel) from Kowloon, entering into HK Island! Tour guide hinted us on flowers, Malaysia-> Hibiscus, HK-> forgot Bauhinia.

First MUST Stop :
Golden Bauhinia @ Golden Bauhinia Square, Wan Chai North, HK Island. So it's a huge golden flower sculpture located outside the HK Convention & Exhibition Centre. Since it's a SUMMER in HK,it is freaking HOT even it's only 9am in the morning! Burning me from head-to-toe! Not into taking photo mood but took it since we're there. Asked the tour guide why is it so HOT, only to find out HK's ozone's layer got "lubang", so it's over-polluted. 

Look at my hair and you'll know. VERY windy and total burning sun too! 



Sooooo sunnie aight?

After quick snap in front of the giant Bauhinia/ HK's symbol flower, we ran to some place with shades while waiting for others. 
View over the harbour

It will be nicer if it's at night. 

Really very sunny and hot!

The ladies in front of the waterfront walkway

Done with morning tanning, hopping up to the bus! Hungry till speechless so we went for brekkie! Our first breakfast in HK Island -> placing high hope to have some awesome-yummy-salivating DIM SUM!

Feeding Station : 
Dim Sum at New Star Restaurant, Jaffe Road

New Star Seafood Restaurant

Dim Sum was prepared upon our arrival.

Char Siew Pau (叉烧包) / Cantonese Bun with Barbecued Pork filling. Missed Ipoh's dim sum when eating this. The bun itself was so thick and not much of filling. 

Turnip Cake (萝卜糕). Cakes are made from mashed radish with bits of dried shrimps that are steamed and pan-fried later. This tasted much better but nothing to shout about. 

Congee/ Duck Egg and Pork Porridge (皮蛋瘦肉粥). -> Tasteless. Their soy sauce/kicap is weird. 

Spring Roll (春卷). A thin flour skin consisting various types of veges and deep fried. It is very crispy but TOO OILY!

Shrimp Dumpling (虾饺). Steamed dumpling with a whole shrimp as filling rather than chopped. Now, this is good! 

Rice Noodle Rolls (肠粉). Steamed rice noodles rolled and filled with barbecued pork or shrimp, topped with sesame seeds and served with sweetened soy sauce. This was not bad but I still prefer Malaysia's version of HK CCF!

Siu Mai (烧卖). Steamed dumplings with fillings such as pork or shrimps, topped with crab roe. Tasted cold when we eat them. 

Next visit : Repulse Bay 浅水湾 & Guan Yin Temple 观音庙

It's my second visit to this temple, it is just another temple where people believe with touching the god/godness, they will get rich with strikes of lottery, etc etc etc. 
Believe it or not, the tree behind us looks as if it's made of paper because I can tear it out layer by layer!

Bungalows of the rich men! Andy Lau, Jackie Chan and other HK celebrities are staying there! Spotted the temple-like green roof top? It's Jackie Chan's car park with numbers of Mitsubishi(s)! 

Just take a moment and gaze at the ocean, watch and listen to the waves gently kissing hitting the shore. It is a mesmerizing and stress relieving experience. With clear blue water along the long stretch of beach, sound of waves lapping the seashore, breezy air and soft golden sand...oh-so-relax!

The only "ang mo" sun bathing under the freaking hot burning sun! Oh did I mention this is a man-made beach? *wink wink* Oh wait, there's shark around! That's why there's shark prevention net and lifeguards on duty. 

Nice beach! Of cause la...it's man-made wad! LOL

10AM's scenery. It's clean but air was polluted so don't in-hale too hard! 

Oh-so-smelly-> The sea water.




Candid chot by bro! Nice one. 

The meh-meh -> Goat

They force me touch it. So-called stone that once touched it, you'll get a BF! O.o


Group pic with the loved ones!


 Done with Repulse Bay and Guan Yin Temple, I got rewarded with tanned skin! Our tour guide told me I got darker in 30mins! >.< Grumpy!

Notti GR barked at me :(


Next stop: Aberdeen 香港仔水上人家

The last tourist spot of the day was Aberdeen. Visited the floating village located at Aberdeen Harbour, get to know there are still fishermen staying on their boat with fish catching. Even though Aberdeen has transformed to a semi-commercial district, the lifestyle of fishing village still well maintained. Well, Stanley Ho bought and own this harbour.

Hopped on "Sighseeing Sampans". Just pay HK$50 per person for a 20-30minutes ride. The fishermen aka tour guides will bring you around for sightseeing but actually you see nothing interesting besides knowing they still maintain the culture of living on the boat. 



All you can see are boats and high rise building or construction site.


Behind us was the Jumbo Floating Restaurant. According to the tour guide, besides the environment and atmosphere inside the restaurant, food wasn't that nice so not worth paying for the meal on boat. 


Boat People gain extra income by driving tourist around for sightseeing. 


Some famous star's boat. There are Leon Lai, Andy Lau, Jacky Chan and Lee Kar Seng & son's boat. 

These boats are well maintained everyday even they were just placed there for people's viewing only. 

Pick a guess who own this?

Time for lunchie fix so we headed back to Tsim Tsa Tsui, Kowloon for some yummy Teo Chew lunch!

Forgotten the restaurant name but dishes was not bad tho. 

Corn soup with beaten egg whites. I realized that Hongkies love to cook corn soup and corn congee.

Mixed vegetables with bean sprout. Still, Ipoh's bean sprout -> the unbeatable (fat and juicy)! HK bean sprout-> skinny & juiceless!

Steamed minced pork cake

Vegetarian version of Barbecued Pork and Roast Goose

No idea what is the name of this fish but thumbs up!

Burrrp! 

Dogs also have their own pee-poo junction yo!


That's all for the half day tour, stay tune for the up coming post!

Sneak Peek: 
Hi, my name is OBAMA (white version). I might look huge in size but I'm friendly you know. 


With Love,
Elaine

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