HK : After a decade in HK island. (day 3) [x]

we all had a late start, headed over the East TST for flight confirmation, went to Wing On department store to browse,walked over from Mody drive to look for just...well nothing special, but the baby g's caught my eye. I never thought I'd get a new watch here. (but more of that later). My dad, sister and I also bought bread from a nearby bake shop (Pork bun, slice of cake, coconut bread with cream + 2 sugarcane juice).


Anyway. after the confirmation, we took the MTR line to Fotress Hill (near North point) for lunch. Why we went there,I don't really know, so Here was the route (easy enough to remember as it is)

Go down TsimShaTsui MTR -> Get off at Admirality -> Transit over to MTR HK line and drop off wherever you wish.


I absolutely LOVE the train system. It pwns owning a car. They also have the neat octopus card you can use for eating, commuting and even wiping your ass off (right). I was craving for an authentic HK dimsum. but my dreams were thwarted once again and guess where we ended up...

OMGz YOSHINOYA of all places. I had to wryly wonder of all the irony I had for today. So out of curiousity I ordered the usual beef gyudon meal.


they had a beef/chicken combo as well what was different from the menu is the grilled fish, no tempura, they have a student meal *which you can only avail if you have a complete student uniform on or a student ID, and classier furniture than Yoshinoya Manila.

The gyudon was leaner, the candied ginger was free and is not the usual pink color, the chicken bowl had a side of vegetables that include brocolli, cauliflower, string beans and carrots and the gyudon/chicken bowls all come with either A) Miso soup b) Japanese Tea c) softdrink/juice ranging from HK$23-33.

After that we walked at fortress hill to find a watch store on sale and this is where i found a little beauty. It was a pretty, white addidas watch with accent of what is becoming my favorite color (green). it was a sleek and classic design. plus it had a 10% off. from HK$245 -> HK$220 (PHP1300).

they had a stopover at wellcome to buy random stuff.

then we took the tram to causeway bay, looked around for various internet shops to book for disneyland online, asked the MTR causeway bay station if they sell tickets and went to the 12 floor mall called SOGO.



I ended up buying clothes for my DS LITE. Hence, here is my dark blue ds lite sock.
After that an MTR ride home and here we are back at the hotel waiting for our cousin to come over. charging my laptop for use to book tickets online. :D

HK: a side trip to Shen Zhen. (Day 2)

di-op ng yaya, kasama

Note: entries were written on the actual day of travel, I was just late in posting harhar...

HK: side trip to Tsim Tsun Shen Zhen.

Today, I abused my chucks and got all sweaty on my red mango sweater from a whole day trip to Shenzen (Tsim Tsun in Fookien).

But first, a breakfast treat in Cafe de Coral, 1-2 blocks away from our hotel was a little restaurant that serves international and local breakfast food.

from last night's...explosion...(i'll leave it at that). I settled for this sweet little combo : pork and century egg congee, a dimsum sampler of barbeque pork bun, xiumai, and a mushroom dumpling, + coffee(but it could be lemon tea, soda, juice, et.al) all for $18.50 (115 pesos). Food so much is considered cheap in my standards. considering the fact you're in the overseas and
a meal could at least be 200++ (like on our first day).


I'm more of a beef/meatball congee fan, but i seem to be getting old since i happened to like the pork/century egg combo. and the dimsum sampler is a perfect combination to add a kick of flavor to the congee. the xiumai was flavorful and meaty. and i ate bites in between spoonfuls of congee. the barbeque pork bun was AMAZING. I'm not a fan of barbeque pork buns because of my fear to have all those fat in it. But this totally changed my outlook. Not only was the bun soft, but the meat inside was tender and lean. you don't need those bun sauce like you drench on in Manila, this is the absolute real thing. The dumpling is also firm and tasty.

after that , a long walk from the MTR East Tsim Sha Tsui transit over to the KCR line on to Lou Hu in Shenzen. it was a fast 45 minute ride with a lot of mountain scenery, picturesque, jigsaw-puzzle worthy views and an uber modern train that has a TV telling the news and a digital sign indicating the next stop.


We got to Shenzen, filled up the usual arrival cards, went to immigration, had our passports stamped cross the neutral territory line (the gap between HK and Shenzen and arrived in China.


You know (or I know for that matter), that you are in china, there is this certain, "Chinese" smell in the air. The English words melts away slowly to form big gaudy Chinese signs emblazoned everywhere with 8 digit numbers. Plus when I went to the bathroom, Hello to the ground below. No more western toilets. everything is down there or you're outta here.

after the train ride was another train ride at the shenzen transit. traversing once again through all stations towards window of the world or shr tsie chr tsuan　世界之窓 (sekai shi mado ? LOL).

now, why is this called 'Window of the world'? well it's a park that houses little miniature wonders of the world. let's say, if you want to see all the famous places in the world but you're too cheap ass or ur just really poor that you can't go to places like these. go to shenzen and you could travel around the world in a day. or 3 hours.


At windows of the world, I could safely say that the most famous attraction is the Eiffel tower. which isn't miniature at all. it was a towering structure that everybody was hankering to take a picture of it with all its height while maintaining a familiarity to their
minuscule selves on the photo.



also, I would suggest since it's such a touristy but fun thing to do is to dress up and pose in some areas of the park. some ladies are renting international costumes ranging from china - thailand fo Y10 yuan (around 65 pesos) for the costumes.

My sister ended up Chinese, My other sister Japanese, and I went for Thai.

I bought a pretty cool personalized rubber(wooden) stamp together with a red clay stamp "pad" with it the stamp was Y20.

Why Thai? I mean, I always wanted to go japanese, but the thai costume was so pretty. the headdress was adorned with the fake pearls gold sequins was rounded on a used nike cap. the intricate design on the blouse and skirt was splashed on a deep red surface.

The family friend we went with ended up being a chinese emperor and a warrior, we ended up posing with all our family and friends.

After that, we went 3 stations befor Lou Ho which was THE shopping central. Throngs of people was walking around. the street stalls, and buildings and malls. Here also housed the first mcdonalds made in china which i went to eat a double cheeseburger and fries.

We walked around I bought socks for Y2.50(yuan) PHP16.50 i bought 8 pairs of socks. Mama bought a bag, my sister some t-shirt dresses, i bought gifts for ate weng but nothing much yet for me.

after that , we all trekked (walked really) to the Lou Ho restaurant in Tsim Tsun. There we met our family friend's in laws maybe? and treated us to a wonderful dinner of lobster with creamy noodles, vegetables, squid in spicy sauce, garlic clams with vermicelli noodles and other food that i cannot mention due to exoticness factor and authenticity


then a taxi ride back to the station where we got our passports stamped and we're back in HK for a bustling KCR train ride back to Tsim Sha Tsui. We all got there and just plopped to the bed exhausted and tired.

And onto day 3 of my HK waste of time excursion.