Taiwan-HK : Christmas in Furry Friendly Land

Taiwan (19-23 December 2008)
Hong Kong (23-27 December 2008)


Taiwan (19-23 December 2008)

If it’s not been hubby’s office and family trip, we probably lost touch with city/civilization trip.
Anyway, this could be the last hopeful year for a while, with the recession is here, there might not be anymore opportunity for his office trip again.

Taiwan is the originally scheduled trip, while Hong Kong is our own extension because the plane transit there from and to Singapore. At first, we were hesitated to extent, since we only went there in September. But after discussing it with the friends, we were more looking forward towards it than Taiwan.

For Taiwan, as usual, the office use group tour and this time it accumulated into two big buses. I saw a quite a number of new faces, but most of all, there were all familiar faces that I know from previous trips or outside office outings, those who I can consider my own friends also.

Since internet is reporting cool windy weather, around 9-17 for both country, we packed big jacket and sweater, scarf and wool head wear. We didn’t pack any glove or anything beyond though.

The summary of the trip before hand. I must say that Taiwan is not one of my preferred destination at all, since whoever that I asked, always gave testimonial about food, food. I’m not really a food traveler.
Anyway, the trip was not fantastic at all because of the group tour. I have been with many group tours before, but this one felt a bit intimidating and worse, on the last two days, we felt bored.

1. Mandarin speaking tour guide.
One of the key of interest when we go to the new place is to hear the historical stories and background behind the places. If you know a guy keep talking about interesting things but you don’t understand, it was just like background noise…
With quantity like ours, we should be able to pull English speaking guide. Even in Thailand back then, they provide bilingual tour guides.
We did have English tour guide who followed us from Singapore and she tried to explain (privately) to us, but it was really uncomfortable because she repeated things that we actually understand while missed out a lot, it was also not in the right time as she translated when it’s about time to get down, chatting with friends or sleep. And, don’t know why, since we are not speaking mandarin, she kind of thought that we don’t really understand English also, she tried to find a Thesaurus meaning or synonym for almost everything. It’s so kind of her, but I would rather be left alone.

2. Ridiculously short time for place of interests.
15 minutes, 20 minutes and 30 minutes? Come on! We didn’t even reach the other end of Lover’s Bridge in 20 minutes, and we kept walking, even when we took pictures, we compromised with the pace. Yes, they didn’t penalize or left us if anybody is late, but we couldn’t really enjoy everything with that sort of deadline in our mind. Not to mention time spend queuing for toilet for almost every stops, since it was always quite a distance away.

3. Long and often…for commercial breaks.
Tour group, one of the main pain in the ass things is the commercial breaks. They like to bring you somewhere where you have to listen to sales presentation and expect you to buy. That, they give unlimited amount of time. Sure yes, they got commission, but this is not what I pay my money for, right…?
Anyway, the commercial breaks they brought us are ridiculously expensive, unnecessary and sorry, ridiculous. Only those who are really believers and bulging pocket can afford the herbal stuff, tea or gem that suppose to do magic. Ridiculous because I practically don’t believe that a stone can change your life and how the name’s mathematical explanation yadda yadda yadda…sorry for believers, but I really don’t buy it. Chinese, my own race, so no one can call me racist heh, always find explanation for every cause, regardless how unrelated it is. And they can make it convincing for those who want to believe. Come on, it’s a piece of rock! And you are supposed to pay a leg and limb because your name lack of some element and your life is miserable without…!

Okay..enough for the rant. It’s not normal that I start with the rant, but I do so now so that the happy part come later. Now happy parts. Yay.

We had to wake up around 4.30, took shower and buzz off to airport. Meeting time was 6.15 but we were way too early. After all the check in ho ha…we got..surprise…upgraded to Business Class. What a pleasant surprise. The plus is of course, the seat, the entertainment, the priority boarding and alighting, the food, and the cabin crew actually address you by name. We had nice breakfast in the flight, I admit there were only two times that I really enjoy flight food. Once, was flying long hours with Emirats long time ago, economy class but food were plentiful and nice. And the other was this one.

We transited for about an hour in Hong Kong but didn’t make any stop for sho[ing or sight seeing because the time was too short.

Reaching Taiwan, the weather felt alright, it was pleasantly cool, but at to the point until we felt the need to don jacket, it was 17 degree on the day of arrival.

First stop was to visit an office project, a mall. The mall was big, but dang, we only had 20 minutes, so we went around, look for food and necessary forgotten toiletries. I always remember the smell and the taste of French fries last year on the first day of Perth trip. But here, no French fries! We didn’t even find food at all! Where is Taiwan food? What we got is the packed food from 7-11 and Watsons. Turned out food court was in the 4th story. Damn, we only reached 3rd story as we spent time in basement looking at go-kart, roller blade circuit, basketball, squash, bowling, yes, they have it all.

We went directly to the hotel and reached there around 6, the sun had already at the edge of setting, the night falls early here.
Before that, we stopped for dinner. The dinner was quite disappointing, the fish was not fresh, soup was salty but most of all, I encountered the famous reputable of Taiwan’s toilet, it wasn’t a beautiful sight, worse when I saw it prior to dinner. Ouchh…

We got a tiny whiny room, double bed, half a meter walkway on the front and one side, wardrobe, tiny end table with teve, makeup table, the only place we could put the luggage and tiny bathroom with the floor that I swear could freeze your toes. The ceiling was so low that I whacked it so hard when I took off my shirt. There was no window, we suspect it was a converted store room..ha…in the floor plan it was supposed to be bigger than other room but no, the rests are much bigger.
Anyway, it’s small but comfortable, sort of homy even though we hit every side of the wall or buttock kept knocking against the glass partition for the bathroom.

After shower we went for Ximen market, only a few minutes walk from there the fun started. The long stretch of road was full of various stalls and hawkers.
We stormed to the crowd, five minutes into it, everyone of us had already hogging to the food stalls. We bought dumpling & mochi during that period of time.

We found some unique munchies like tomato with plum (the crunchy sweet tomato, sliced and inserted with black plum), chicken with cucumber snack (marinated white chicken and fresh cut cucumber with ingredient loaded formula), ham and cheese roadside pancake, and also the infamous misua. Everyone was willing to eat standing up in front of the misua stall, after defeating the long queue. It was okay, not fantastic, although the taste was quite unique. It was just a funny sight that the road were full of people eating misua, the cold weather probably made it more tasty than usual.

I tried BBQ corn from hell, the corn was alright, but the sauce tasted terrible for my tongue and they put it really generously. We also tried our first Taiwan sausage, red fat sausage crunchy skin. They have a lot of type, like the one with XO sauce, but mostly we found plain one. Plain one tasted better but each stall might have different taste than the other. We also tried their cone ice cream, which was towering high and not too sweet, you can choose vanilla or chocolate or mix. They also have another type of ice cream which they wrap like crepes, with some peanut and sliced honey.

We stumbled upon Taiwan cinema and decided to watch Bolt in 3-d. It wasn’t cheaper than Singapore though. After buying the ticket, we went back to hotel first took a shower before walked back to the cinema.

I don’t know whether i was very tired or the move was boring, despite trying very hard to stay awake, I slept 5/6 part of the movie, perfectly disguised under the 3D glass. I felt guilty the whole movie though, but yet, I couldn’t seem to stay awake, and I’ve never sleep in cinema since Godfather III, and that was because I was only 10 years old trying to understand the complicated movie. Apparently, hubby and Alan also slept at least half of the movie, while Dor was the only one awake. I think it’s the movie? Since all of us were very fresh before the movie and even after, when we walked down the street again. Seemed like, upon midnight, it was more happening than usual, although most of the shop were already closed.

That was the end of our first day.
Second and three days after, we visited a few interesting locations and attractions in Taiwan.


20-23 December 2008








People on strike.
This photo was taken in somewhere like Taiwan Liberation Center (it's not the name..I'm confident that I got cock-up translation), citizen are free to express their views and opinions here, you can stage a demonstration as long as it's peaceful.



Yeliou, a place in Taiwan full of natural rocks created by years of erosion and water force. It has many different rock formations, Queen’s head, elephant, fairy shoes, although you have to use your imagination. It was nice open area, but there were too little time to enjoy it. We were given only short time to explore the place. Basically we walked to the other end, spent few minutes and had to walk back already. Ah well…
Another scenic trip was the Taroko National park where we could see valley, cliff and waterfall with the myth that if a fish can swim upward and reach the top, it would become dragon. Should spread the news to the salmons don’t you think? Again, time was limited.
We also went to the lover bridge but we didn’t even reach the end before we had to turn back. Crap @#(*^#..we did take some nice pictures but I hate being chased in the butt like that.

Yeliou National Park






Taroko National Park






TamShui Fisherman Wharf Lover's Bridge




Mostly the time that we enjoyed them ost was when we were on our own at night time. There was not so many of such free time though, because the tour always ended at least at late evening, and we needed to change hotel every night. Check-in process, etc etc took up our free time as well.

There was one night where we spent in hot spring hotel According to the itinerary, from what we understand of course, we have hot spring facilities in every room overlooking beautiful scenery outside. Well, that is how they put it. Our hope grew bigger especially when the guide told us that the hotel is located outskirt of the Taipei city. However, the hotel was just usual hotel, overlooking to roofs. It was indeed located in hot spring area, and there was a hot spring facility in the hotel, but public. Since we had time constrain to enjoy ourselves, and of course, nude public spring and spa is still not in my list to do, especially with hubby’s office friends, although the hot spring is divided by gender. I skipped the whole facility. Urgh.. according to my friends who have been to Japan, everyone should be able to do it, enjoy yourself, no problem, unleash…huhahahha…what is there to unleash…self conscious..well maybe yes, but maybe the problem is not only be seen, but to see!
Except the hot spring facility, there was public hot spring, I mean really public around the hotel, from those spring pond in the park where you could dip your leg until the nude hot spring which I’m not sure whether genders are divided.

Anyway, we roamed round the hotel and found, again, yeah, food. We went to the famous 85 degree coffee shop and they had very good tiramisu to my surprise. I have had two of the bests tiramisu in Taiwan, one was in the Taroko National Park coffee shop and one was here. And, and, one vendor nearby 85 degree sold kacang rebus! My favorite boiled peanut, and this one actually tasted very good, especially in cold weather, it was yummy! After stuff our stomach we went further to look for the night market.

We found a very small night market and it was their closing time, but we found another gem, chow toufu in the van! Chow toufu is a delicacy I’m not sure whether it’s origin from Taiwan (sorry I can’t find English word for this) It emits unpleasant smell that actually smell like shit. The worse the smell, supposedly the better the taste. The uncle set up small portable seating near road ride. How we found him, by the smell of course! So when we strolled along the edge of the public spring, I smelt it, and as a instinct of normal human, I blamed the dog that happened to sit in my line of sight. I was wrong; it was the taufu, for the glorious smelly taufu, and it was a good one. The plus thing was the weather was great and the uncle was super friendly. We ordered one plate of taufu, to be shared by four (it’s not that we were hungry. If anything, we were more like overfed from all the things we put inside our mouth. The uncle then gave us a free bowl of soup, I don’t know what, one of Taiwan unique delicacy. We ordered another plate of toufu, he brought us another bowl of misua. We were so phaiseh, but he insisted, so we gabled up everything. Hubby and Alan only stopped because they no longer had space in the tummy. Me and Dor didn’t eat much, I’m not a fan of taufu, but I admit they have valid reason of calling this one good.

We packed back some taufu, because the uncle was packing also. If not, these two guys would sure sneak out again to get more.

They were so excited they wanted to share the toufu with their office friend, so we went into people hunting. We went to the street, hotel corridor and did some random name shouting and to the hotel hot spring. Dor went inside the hot spring to look for a female friend, I almost followed closely behind, then realized that that might not the sight I wanted to see. Ugh…..naked woman is not my cup of tea. Huhahahhaha….
Before I ventured away, Taiwan has two things I love and hate.

First, I love the way they treat dogs. Maybe unbeknownst to me, they have their fair share in animal abuses and dumping, but as far as I could see, they treat dogs like their child. Bring them everywhere because everywhere is dog friendly, even restaurant. And dogs are wearing clothes, shirt, sweater etc. I don’t like people who ‘clothe’ their dogs because I think it’s indog (read: inhuman), but in Taiwan during winter, it probably helps the dogs. It would be nice to live in dog friendly country, I imagine, when you can particularly bring you dogs everywhere and got Made In Taiwan dog products!

The other thing that I hate., well, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore are probably the three worst countries in ‘miscellaneous' consumption, where you can easily find shark’s fin, tiger testicle where those trade are popular and the dishes are highly sought after. As the matter of fact, in these countries, it refers to how high social status is one person has. While I don’t know whether it’s right that I thought Taiwan is the mother of all shark’s fin culture, we bumped into a more nasty sight.

On one of the stop nearby the Harbour area, I don’t know which harbor, along the road we already saw the sign of mola-mola, lights shape as mola-mola, signage, shop name etc. It did occur to us that mola-mola probably exists in Taiwan. The famous location to see mola-mola is definitely Bali, but it has also been known to some other area and Taiwan could be one of them. This mola-mola/sunfish is family of pufferfish, with round flat body shape, one dorsal and pectoral fins (gee I hope I’m right) and tail, it’s ‘cute’. Mola-mola has size of 1,8 meter up to 4,2 meter with average weight of 1 ton. They can dive up to 600 meter deep, but they also enjoy basking near the surface.

Anyway, along the harbor, there are shosp, typical to the harbor area that sell sea produce. Dried cuttlefish, ikan bilis, and we stumbed to mola-mola. This is a species I have yet to see underwater. Yet there were there for display, in bucket of ice, in the shop. Even the eye was a kind of delicacy because it was displayed differently. Heart broken to see the first one, about 80 cm size, we saw second one, which was merely a baby, maybe around 30 cm. Darn! Crap.

It kind of spoil my day...Hiks...

Ican't remember exacly all the places that we went. I remember the road side nut seller. They sell this nut that is so-called can keep drivers awake. The further the shops from town, the sexier the seller. Some even only wore something like bra top in that kind of weather.

I also remember Ciu Fen, a village used to be inhabitated by only nine families and abandoned. It got popular again after being used as drama setting. It's quite a peaceful and unique place, where we could still find traditional house with traditional kitchen etc.

Taipei 101, it was rainy that day, and because of too many unnecessary sales stop, we only reached Taipei 101 when the sun just set, not night time yet, but not day. It was raining hard, and the wind was really chilling. We had to alight from the bus a distance away, so got to run to the building. Since weather is not good, and we had to pay extra money, most of us didn’t go up to the eighty something story. Ah well, I complain quite a lot about the tour, and this is still one of the arrangements that I don’t like. We have been asking them to go to 101 earlier in the day, yet here we are at night time. I also realize it well now that almost all the activities that a tour operator has are available for free, for the extra thing, you have to pay again.

Last day in Taiwan, we only walked around the hotel and it was only a while because we were enjoying our later wake up, we had been deprived of sleep for few days. It’s supposed to be the day we went back Singapore, but exhausted from the tour that left a lot of people feel constrained, we were excited to depart to Hong Kong.

Taipei International airport was in good condition, but they have limited duty free shop. At first we were hunting cigarette for Alan, the other Alan, our Hongki friend, who was really helpful to us in our previous trip (in one of the posts before this), we felt like we still owe him some gratitude and thought of bringing him a carton of cigarette, since that is what he likes. Not the healthiest gift, yes.

However, according to Taiwan duty free sales girl, visitors are only allowed to bring in max 3 packs of cigarette to Hong Kong. We could ask many of our friends who went to HongKong with us, but then again, it would be tedious and not presentable, so we decided to check it later at the Hong Kong airport.

Our group to Hong Kong consists of 13 people, 7 others went but not in the same group and the rest went back to Singapore.


HONG KONG (23-27 December 2008)

In Hong Kong airport, we didn’t find duty freeon the way out of the airport.
So we decided to forget about the cigarette. We took direct bus from airport to out motel in Jordan area. Previous trip, we stayed only a few buildings away from this motel, so we are quite familiar with the area, and this airport bus was very convenient, it cost us 33 HKD. The bus is specialized for airport transportation, so only few stops and large space for luggages. Our luggages stayed the same, but for some it had grown.

We went to our motel, I was expecting for the worst. First night was quite chaotic because they had given up our rooms to another tenant since they couldn’t contact us. From our 13 people group, one is the boss who stayed in other place, proper hotel and the other one is Hongki who would go back to her house. We all gathered together in this Hongki friend to celebrate her birthday, first by eating cake at her aunt house next to the motel, then continued with dinner at a very crowded restaurant.

It took us almost one hour to wait for seats, even though we had already made reservation. We walked around in Mongkok area, split up, so I could go to my favorite complex, Toy Mart. It sells all types of miniature but the prices are not cheap and normally unegotiable. I tried to look for 7X7 Rubix which I saw last time I was here, but to no avail. After drooling at the mini figurines, we went out. We went to the 7-11 to look for drink and found that they have this promo for New Year Doraemon. Damn..we had to collect stickers, after complete can exchange with doraemon surprise box and see what you got inside. Argh… I hate this kind of gimmick especially when I like the stuff!

But I got the Doraemon!!!!!! :))


Mongkok was still the same, even though now Hong Kong is in recession, like Singapore, we didn’t really see the symptom. Shoppers were still crowd the shopping area, queues were still formed in the paying line.
I would vote HongKong as the bussiest and most happening town for the places I’ve been. The ambience is just there, we were fascinated by the crowd, yet it was still comfortable and not so suffocating, maybe contributed by the fact we were tourists, we were there for fun, so our moods were not easily broken by some busy streets. Indeed, the flickering lights, low-rised buildings and busy street made us feel alive. The low rise building might be one big factor that makes it much more friendly and happening than the tall cold buildings in Orchard area.

Things we learn in Hong Kong, never ever remember a place or direction by certain billboard or shops, because they are literally everywhere, similar shops. Seven-eleven at almost every corner. It would work if the signboards you are choosing are distinct, but other than that, find another landmark or you can easily go around the same place. A tourist map would come in handy, especially when we were roaming around the similar street cluster of shops that can stretch long few MTR stations.
MTR station, is somewhat a reverse from MRT in Singapore. In Singapore for standing still in escalator, take left. For those in rush, take right side because it’s moving line. MTR is the other way around. Stand on the right, take over and rushing on the left. And they walk very fast, especially during peak hour.

Hong Kong prepaid phone card is worth to purchase if you stay for few days or if you need to. For 100 HKD, you can get the number with quite long expired date. First trip we were there, hubby called Singapore for few long chats discussing camera gear with friend, he also made local calls and international sms-es. It only costed us less than 30 HKD. This time we did the same thing, and when we were back, it still had 40 HKD in its balance.

So first night, four of us were cramped in the small room. Although it was very basic, it was better than what I thought. The lift going up was a challenge, it looks like it determinated to trap people on its door. The apartment motel looks very similar with old government housing here. The outside was very run down, but the inside of apartments were well renovated. On second day, we had the right room and this one was more spacious. However, we found another gimmick. Ouch, the toilet door was transparent! It has frosted glass door with stripes near the waist, but the frosted part was not frosted enough, especially when it’s wet. There was no way we didn’t get it wet as it was very cramp. And there is no way we could hide, because it was sliding door, and the door took the whole length of the bathroom.

What we could do was hanging a lot of coats and towels but I tell you, it was almost like my nightmare comes true. I was uncomfortable with it until the last day. Lucky we shared the room with Alan and Dor, we respect each other privacy of course.


24 December 2008

Second day in Hong Kong, one day before Christmas, we were heading for Disneyland. At first we wanted to go but we couldn’t get the ticket earlier, so we thought it was a dead plan. Apparently we got the ticket in the airport. So Disneyland, here we come.

This is me and hubby first time I Disneyland, according to the people I have talked with, first time, then it worth to go. Hong Kong Disneyland doesn’t have too good reputation and recommendation, so first timers would be more appreciative. September we went there to take a look, but the weather was horribly hot and it was not the right place to go with our parents.

It was not as crowded as I thought, although we still had to queue for everything. When we entered the park, we could catch the ambience, the ‘magical’, Disney music, props, balloon, characters on the street etc. When we looked around, suddenly hubby and Alan has already in the queue of taking picture with Goofy and Pluto. ;p
We went for the Lion King show, the figures on the stage were quite impressive, but the human characters were not.

Human dress as animal character, especially lion, would end up plain ugly with big hair, and this is the exact case.
Golden Mickey show, we had to queue for quite a long time, but it was worth it. It was the recap of all the Disney works, and man, I can relate to almost every one of it especially the older 2D animation that decorated my younger years. Uh, I sound like grandma in rocking chair, but suddenly I realize that Disney has a heavy mission on its shoulder, to become part of every kid childhood, which is by default should be the happy years. It is an achievement itself and that might be what makes the brand survive until now, long after the creator is had gone. That is precisely the cause why we were willing to queue to take picture with some fellow hidden in furry suit and interact with them as if there were the real duck or dog in Disney world.

There were not so much ride in the park, we could count it with finger. In total, we actually spend almost ten hours in the park but still we didn’t visit Tomorrow Land where all the thrill rides are located. We took River Cruise with those animatronics, ‘It’s a Small World’ boat ride which is basically like Istana Boneka in Jakarta but I had better memory in Jakarta. We took train ride and that’s about it?? What have we done…that’s all? That’s all! We spent more time taking pictures, queuing, eating, waiting for fireworks, watching shows and watching parade. Oh ya, they had special Christmas parade “Let It Snow”, it was okay, but he setback was all the basic characters were hidden inside the double decker bus. They were visible, of course, waving and all, but they should went out and parade on the street for us to get better pictures? Yah.











































Eventhough by finger counting it seemed like we didn’t do much, we actually cover almost three quarter of the park. That’s why people are complaining about Hong Kong Disneyland. Well, not me, it was my first magical experience in this infamous trademark. Anyway, watching Golden Mickey itself had made me go back time and it was quite enough to make me happy Next time somewhere else I’d be a critical bitch, maybe, but I have promised myself to be nicer, and I always nice when I’m on holiday. Hoo..

Well, quite highlight of the day, since we spent almost two hours sitting in the open plaza, we watched the Christmas Eve fire works. I’m sure but I heard they have firework every nights, but Christmas Eve could be more special.

We had 3d glass given on entry point, anytime we see lights, under the glass, we would see flickering angels, if we move it up and down, the wings would flap. It’s very nice especially for those tiny thousands of Christmas lights on the tree, because we could see thousand of angels.
















So, at least I can say Disney day was a satisfying day, we were dead tired when we left with the Mickey train to connect to train going to town. The other group was split into two, some stayed in hotel, some went to the city for count down. We declined the count down as we could imagine how crowded it would be and nah…we had our firework.













When we reached hotel area, the street was still busy as if it was not almost midnight. We went to the first restaurant near hotel we could find, the one that we knew has good price was already closed.

Anyway, I got to eat my luncheon meat instant noodle, my ‘must do’ food in Hong Kong. Ah well, Indomie tastes the best, but that was the closest I can get outside.
We left the restaurant five minutes to midnight, Alan almost couldn’t open his eyes, we dropped by 7-11 for some drink, the day turned 25 December, Happy Birthday Jesus!
We went back to hotel, shower like exhibitionist and dropped dead at one plus.


25 December 2008

Christmas day.., we started the day with traditional original Hongki breakfast inside the wet market behind motel. We had to go through clusters of market and it reminds me of how I always like to visit wet market with my mom. It’s fun for me, I got to see all the fresh vegetable, the red patch on village people cheek that is shaped by years of years of hardworking and facing the day before the rest of the world open their eyes. Ha…aunties bargaining, seller promoting their item. It’s just a simple part of everyday life that most people don’t get the chance to see nowadays in modern city.

Soooo…we split up after breakfast..four of us would go by foot starting from Prince Edward to Tsim Tsa Tshui, which covers five MTR station. We would see fish, flowers, birds, camera stuffs, ladies markets, toy shops, remote control shops and then going to the bay to watch the light show.

Alan (Hong Kong one) showed us the best spot to see the light the last time and we couldn’t find it, anyway, there was a big crowd that night. We met up with all the group and saw the light show from some rooftop, too bad there was not fireworks.
After that we found a couple and a grandma selling hot sweet potato and salted quail eggs. The sweet potato was warm and yummy-marvelous, magnificent-fabulous, splendid and lovely!! -in the cold weather.

Another tired day, but satisfying, we went around Tsim Tsa Tsui for awhile. It was crowded and tiring and damn, we couldn’t find anywhere to sit, although we finally found Starbuck, it was time for our legs to give away after walking the whole day and running the whole afternoon. We had good chat in Starbuck for one hour or more, hanging on the hot chocolate.

Went back to hotel, we roamed around the wet market area (which magically disappeared) and found a desert stall looked similar with what Alan HK brought us previous trip. The durian pancakes sold out, so we don’t know whether it has the same quality, but the fruit platter was definitely different. The stall in…ehm…I can’t even remember the place was gigantic and had all kind of fruits, this one was quite small, not fantastic but fresh.

Reaching midnight, it has become a norm for us to sleep only at one or more after all the queue to take shower. We were expecting our laundry to be ready. Here is the good thing about this motel. With 30 HK bucks, we could have one load of washing machine, which was extremely helpful. ( 9 days trip had accommodate bags and bags of laundry especially jacket, so it’s good that when we reached Singapore, our burden of laundry had been reduced greatly). Laundry wasn’t ready yet, but should be on time.


26 December 2008

The last full day, why everything is so fast in Hong Kong? Since Alan Sgp was planning to go Macau today, we decided this as our day. We still had breakfast together at the famous local Chee Cheong Fan., whoho…I can spell, correct or incorrect, I don’t care. Anyway, the CCF was really goooood, it’s still around the same wet market area. Why didn’t we know..

HK, we never had difficulty to find roadside eating places, although it was not the case with Tung Chung area. Since it kind of my day, I specifically wanted to come back here to hunt for attire, he he he…however the food court, Food Republic, it’s same brand with one of Singapore foodcourts, doesn’t provide good food, and too full. So we brought some bread to stuff our tummy first. The post office nearbywas closed on Boxing Day, so I had to forget about sending postcard to my friend. At that moment then I realized, I actually never saw any postcard this visit in HK. Usually I would saw it somewhere and remember the ‘obligation’ to send my friend, but not this time.

After Tung Chung, we went to UML, I can’t remember what it stands for, but it’s my favorite shop. It sells all kind of miniature toys that made me want to cry because I want to buy it all! It’s actually not toys, but collectible miniatures, everyday life, fantasy stuff, even traditional food cart etc. Hell…this time they happened to have promotion but the stuffs were limited as they hold the import after China poisonous lead paints found in toys. Anyway..

We had appointment with Alan HK tonight, and appointment with him means hectic night. Since it was the last night, I asked hubby to go back to his remote control complex so he could do some more spare parts shopping. I got feeling that he still have more things he might want and I was right. : )

I also ended up buying two die-cast Volkswagons, Samba Van and 1967 Squareback while waiting for him. Nooooo I don’t want to start collecting this stuff, as my miniature collection is quite a handful to buy and to display. But I couldn’t resist the VW…

We made it just time to put all the stuff that we bought, change some extra money because we wanted to treat Alan HK for dinner and we didn’t know where he was going to bring us. Alan HK is a very prompt person, he was already circling around motel area waiting for our call, that’s why we always think that we never able to repay this guy for his genuinety toward his friends, even for band new friends. We insisted to buy him dinner beforehand, otherwise it would be another disastrous night because he had ways and will to pay the dinner.
He reluctantly agreed, and brought us to this Thai restaurant with wawwy…very very nice food.

We tried the chicken feet salad, it’s cooked with some kind of vinegar that gave it fresh taste and crunchy. The sashimi prawn, of all our lives there were only two times that we ate prawns raw, both with him, and it was never disappointing, The prawn were sweet and nice without any fishy indication. We had another basil minced meat something something, we were using lettuce to wrap the mince meat and it was another favorite of mine. The rest kept coming, lumpia, fresh salad, coconut, there were one two dishes that I can’t remember now, I remember it as equally tasty, the only thing that wasn’t fantastic was the lumpia, as I’ve never liked lumpia at all (eits, expect the tukang goring cepe-an in front of my campus).

Alan HK told us that he went Disneyland yesterday, on Christmas, as annual program with his daughter and wife, it was more hectic than working, he said, even though he works through the day and most of the time at night too. Turned out he also had special fare for Disneyland, we actually knew but didn’t want to bother him since he is so sincere, We didn’t want him to buy the ticket and brings it for us as that is most likely what he is going to do. As usual, he has at least two bottles of beer but since we know his style, I was not worried, he is more sober than many people that I know. We talked about cameras, hubby, him and Alan Sgp, thereof them are using the same cameras and they have equal share of passions, which involve hunting and setting up, trick to get good pictures etc.

It’s not Alan if we can predict where we are going or what we’ll be doing. After dinner, he brought us to the central where the big Christmas tree was standing. We wrote our wish onto the cards and hung it to the tree. We hung one set and I keep one set.

We then proceed toward Lan Kwai Fong, the famous street with all the bars and pubs where Hong Kong artists like to show up and create scandal, just like the one still fresh in the news, some actor kiss another girl in the pub while his fiancée, one famous actress stayed at home. Tsk tsk.. Man.

He insisted of treating us this time, but we could only gobble up orange juice because we don’t drink. The area is located in a very steep road and secluded with various bars. This was the place while the rest of the group came down on Christmas day.

As the night crawled deeper, we saw more people and more angmohs. Alan refers to Ang Moh as ghost. Haha…interesting, I have collected various term : bule, Mat Soleh, Ang Moh, and now ghost.

It was around ten, I thought, safe. Nite was going to over soon. I felt quiet relieved because we never know when we were going to reach hotel to rest. Again, we’d never know.

We walked back to the car when he decided that we still had time and he wanted to show us the interesting escalator. Sometimes I didn’t really get what he was saying, so I thought it’s really just escalator, or travelator, anyway, along the way the road was quite interesting and unique. We walked up two-three escalators and he said more, more. Apparently we were climbing half the peak, the Hong Kong highest point. He brought us up there with car previously, now we climbed up half of it with escalator…and walked down by foot.

It was night time in Hong Kong winter, we don up our jacket as this night was cooler than usual. But when going down half the peak, even down, we started to sweat. It was long and crazy walk, but we enjoyed the night. Nice view. We can click with this guy well I think because three of us appreciate this kind of thing. Something unique, something unusual and most important, something not commercialized.
At the end of the walk down, three of us were desperately looking for toilet. We still had to walk horizontally as the building where he parked the car was looong way from the sight. That’s the thing with parking near the tallest building; we actually knew how far we had to walk.

He then drove us nearby the highest tower in Hong Kong, near Norman Foster Standard Chartered Bank (?!?) and Hong Kong bank, both are famous buildings in my architecture past conversation that I despise…mhahaha..

The nite was over? Nooo…he brought us to experience the topless bus that went up and down Hong Kong city, this bus can take passengers up to the peak. It’s quite a famous tourist ‘must do’ activities. A group of youngsters from Japan were enjoying it so much then took the trip front and back. Front and back. Front and back again.
That was our crazy night, he still wanted to bring us for dessert. But even though I was craving for the yummy durian cold pancake, I was relieved we could talk him out of it. He still needed to go to his night work, although he insisted he was not tired, we felt very phaiseh, and we were tired.

Thanks to him, again, he promised he would visit us here if everything goes well with his job, he would bring his daughter and wife. We will try to do what he does and bring him to interesting places as much as we can. It would be difficult, but we swear we will try hard. Even my parents were so touch with his sincerity they also committed to do the same. This kind of friends are very hard to come by.
When we reached motel, everyone was gathered around our Hk colleague aunt’s house. We greeted them and went straight to the room, we had important thing to do. Packing!
Just like the other time, we add one extra box where we could dump many things in, this time we were better prepared, we had plastic wrap and all the necessary tape etc, everything was neat and intact. Everything remained the same, except this big box, which came from our fruitful hobby shopping.

Everybody else was also busy with packing, our room was the noisiest.


27 December 2008

We woke up a bit later, had our last breakfast in the market and went to airport.
We got different airport than last time. Fair enough, this one is much more convenient, well, because this one was not budget airline. Back then we needed to take sky train whatever to reach the designated boarding gate.

We found another Disney shop here, but didn’t buy anything because it was so crowded and there was nothing else that we wanted. We had lunch, wander around a bit, and everybody, from the other group who split up with us, had gathered there.
Less than an hour prior to departure, there was an announcement that the plane was going to be delayed for unknown period of time because there was supporting land crew strike. End of year, bonus problem, I heard it’s quite usual there. Every passenger got food voucher for 40 HKD.

Our flight was only delayed about one hour plus, with some of the passenger baggage not flying in the same plane, lucky, for ours who did early checking, we all had our bags with us. Reaching Singapore around ten plus, we grabbed taxi home and caught our much needed sleep,

Well, almost a month has gone since the trip, my all miniature has been displayed, hubby’s spare part had even been used in the race, I’ve worn all the shirts that I bought and ate all the food that we brought but yet, yet I haven’t gone through the picture and finish with the journal. Ah well… I hope by the time this is up, it’s still January!