344th entry
Night before I depart (17 Nov 2005)
I was waked for the whole night. I couldn’t sleep at all, I was still playing maple at 3.30am in the morning, and perhaps this is could be our last family holiday trip before a new family member is joining our family line.
Day 1 Changi Airport, HK Int’l Airport and Ladies Street (18 Nov 2005)
I woke up giddy and vomiting. Of course I was like that as I only catch a nap for two hours. I was waked up early to go eat my breakfast and bath before I departed to Changi airport.
We were early for check in and we went to have our early lunch at Crystal Jade Restaurant as I want to eat congee as I was not well. We did shop around in the duty free shops after we checked our luggage.
Shop shop shop… My mum bought stuffs before we arrived to HK! I did spot something in one of the duty free shops but didn’t buy.
The flight was 3 hour and 45 min. I managed to watch a movie “Initial D”. Hee... I want to to watch this but I couldn’t rent this as it was too popular. I waited for our serving lunch until 4.15pm. The crews are super slow due to mass of children on board. Mum and dad were hungry and further more the international cuisine was finished. Therefore we had to bear with the oriental cuisine instead.
Finally we had arrived at the HK international Airport. We waited for our clearance of custom and the rest of the travelers who were taking the same transport to hotel. We landed there at 5.20pm and we reached our hotel room at 8pm.
It is cold… 20 degree.
The reception was also slow. However he gave me a good floor and room. We got the top floor of the hotel and we are facing the most expensive hotel, the Peninsula hotel.
The rooms were very clean, high tech but the only problem is that the room was darn small. It was the smallest hotel room that I had stayed. I should booked Lang ham Place Hotel earlier as the hotel was 6 stars and the rooms were bigger and nearer to Mongkok area where many night markets were located there.
Immediately, we rushed to Mongkok for the ladies market. Surprisingly, we went to eat our late dinner at one of the local street hawkers. It was like those HK TV drama where actors or actress were eating the street side. We had to share tables with other strangers. I was not able to adapt as the ordering was totaling different. There was no menu, no signboard to indicate what kind of food they are serving. We saw other people what they are eating or listening to my brother what they have as he had eaten this stall before. Also the way of ordering the name of the food is different. We call Fish ball noodle in Singapore but it is called “fish egg noodle” over there. After that, we went to shop around those stalls and went to the next street to see the sportswear. Before returning to hotel, we went to have my supper dessert @ Xu Liu Shan. There are more variety compare to Singapore branch. We share and ate 3 different desserts; one of them is cold bird nest with snow ha, warm coconut with bird nest and mango ice-cream with mango fruit and coconut. Outside the weather was 20 degree below and I am still eating ice cream! Mad right?
Day 2 Star of Avenue, Causeway Bay, the tram ride and the Peak. (19 Nov 2005)
I had no sleep. Bro was snoring non stop until I carried my pillow and walk out of my room. It was 5 am. Before I went out, I still bath, brush teeth and make up. I knocked mum’s room and realized she was sick. She vomit and stomachache non stop since 2am plus. Dad hadn’t slept at all since he was taking care of mum. I coaxed both adults to sleep while I act as a nurse in my mum room. Both slept awhile until a stupid morning call rang. I realized later that the local travel agency thought we are following his half day city tour while I already told them I dun want to join when I arrived at the airport.
I am an iron lady. I had not slept more than 5 hours for two days.
Near 8am, we went around the area to search for a place for our breakfast. We planned to go Mac but later we realized there is a local restaurant which has breakfast value set. Those breakfasts were their local morning food and it was quite reasonable rate in downtown area. Each set cost nearly S$7 and cheaper than Mac next door. Each set consist of two main dishes and a cup of tea/ coffee. It was a full breakfast and we can’t finish them.
Next we went to Star of Avenue. It was quite a nice scenery view to see the famous scenery “Central” or known as “Zhong Huan”. Beside that, there are many hand prints of different generation of actors and actresses. I found Andy Lau’s on behalf of colleen.
Next we went to Causeway bay to shop. We mainly window shopping around those large departments and shops as those prices are darn expensive than Singapore. We mainly took photos and eat those local eatery stalls. We went to an antique local eatery stall and ate their delicious wanton noodle. Finally I drank an old bottle type coke which Singapore had already stop producing. I miss coke badly as I have been drinking plain water for past two days! Again, we went to another branch of the dessert store. I had another mango fruit ice cream, turtle herbal jelly and strawberry fruit ice again! Mum and bro went to buy two bakeries (one is at Tsim Sha Tsui station beforehand) to buy Chinese biscuits such as almond biscuits and wife biscuits later. We returned back hotel to unload those biscuits and let them to have a short rest before we went to the Peak.
Near evening, we depart to Central station to walk to the nearby peak tram. Lucky we arrived early as it was rather a long queue. We waited 30 min as there is only one tram operating. While we traveled upward, it was super steep. We can see the building local near the tram area and it is about 45 degree steep. As we went higher, we can see the whole central view. It is the same view as what you can see in those HK dramas. However it is darn cool. The weather was around 18 degree and it will be lower as we are at the peak top.
We went to have our Mac dinner (as it is the cheapest food over the peak mall) and waited until sunset. HK Mac is so good. They still served Sausages Muffin and Egg Muffin even after the breakfast time. My brother was super happy as these are his favorite. We approached one of the professional photographers who set their stalls at the peak to take whole family photo. It worth the value as it is super nice. Since it is getting colder, we queue to take the tram down. It was a longer queue and we waited longer while taking pictures to max our time and resources. We are dead beat as we need to walk the slope from the tram station to the nearest MTR station. At that moment, I wish I have a bf to piggyback me down instead. My feet were swollen when I reach my hotel room and I was super tired since I had 5 hours of sleep for past two days. However I am the last one to sleep as I watch the local tv program till midnight.
Day 3 - Disney Hollywood Hotel, Disneyland. My Daddy birthday! (20 Nov 2005)
Since the local travel agent will fetch us as early as 8.30am at our hotel lobby, we woke up earlier for our breakfast. We as usual return to the same restaurant for our value local breakfast. We order lesser set meals since it was too much for a family of 4 to finish. However we tried different varieties and share them.
We tried to explore surrounding and discovered that there is no traffic crossing for some roads, esp. the way back to the hotel. Since we were rushing for time, therefore we cross the road illegally with cabs and cars honing at us.
I went to check out our rooms and the reception manager greeted me Happy birthday! I told him it was my dad’s instead of me.
The agent arrived on time. I liked their style as it will not delay our travel time since I had experienced same route travelers could let us wait for 2 hours previously. We did wait for some other hotel travelers as they are the same route to Disneyland or hotel. Throughout the journey, the agent passed me a letter. It was addressed to a person in Thai name. He thought my father and I are Thai travelers. Mum and brother, who seated behind us were laughing non stop…
At 9.40am, we had arrived our hotel.
Since it cannot check in early and we went to visit Disneyland. The staff hotel reception was very kind enough to let me jump the queue of check out and processed my park tickets. Therefore I got my tickets faster than those people behind me. Later we went to take an internal shuffle bus that will reach the Disneyland interchange. It only took us 5 min though it passed by another Disney resort hotel.
Finally we had reached the HK Disneyland! It looked the same as what my brother took the photos before it open. It got tons of visitors as we were walking from the park promenade to the entrance.
We visited the fantasyland and adventure land. We did try to catch the animated Mickey show, the street parole and the musical lion king show. Wow… it worth the tickets. We thought the area is small but we tried to cover as much areas and it seemed to fail to complete Tomorrow land. I had failed to visit Tomorrow land twice including Tokyo and HK Disneyland. However I told myself that there will be a next time to visit it… Ha-ha...
Near 3pm, we returned to our hotel to check in our room as I dun want later a big of crowds fighting for rooms. We checked in and got a connecting room. Again, we got the top floor. I realized that the agent I book in Singapore did have priority for better room level. However I discovered that one of the rooms is messy and was not clean up yet. I went to complaint about the mess and my current room had lost TV remote. In the end, they upgraded me a sea view connecting room for FREE!
We later went to the chef mickey restaurant for buffet to treat my dad’s birthday. It was darn except as it cost us S$300 for that meal. I felt it worth for dad’s treat though it is very expensive.
After that, we went to Disneyland again to see the fireworks. This is my 1st fireworks that I watched and it was beautiful though I am too short to view the sleeping beauty castle lighting. Ok, I cried that moment when it played my fav song during the fireworks. Luckily it was pitch black and no one saw me wiping my tears.
That night, the temp fell until 17 degree and lower. We went for the last min photo shooting at Disney street.
I am darn tired after the fireworks. I only slept 11hours in total for 3 days only…
Day 4 MTR Disneyland train ride, Park promenade and HK airport. (21 Nov 2005)
We had our instant noodles for breakfast to finish our food that we brought along. We dun want to bring those back so we ate them up. We took the shuffle bus to Disneyland Park Promenade to have morning photo taking. Since it was early and there was playing Disney songs loud. I was practically near dancing mode while I was taking pictures. I loved the environment and the mood. It was so wonderful…
We went for the MTR ride that the station and the train were deco with Mickey design. The station is also playing out loud songs which are different from the local train stations. Beside the deco has many x’mas trees and made us the mood of x’mas is coming.
When I saw the train, I went wild. It was totally different from a local train. The window is a mickey shape. The seats are sofas and the handles are mickey shapes. Beside they displaced the small expensive Disney characters copper status inside. I was wild throughout the train ride. Yes, darn wild and everyone is staring me like an idiot.
The time is near for the travel agent to fetch us back to hotel. Therefore we rushed back to pack our luggage. We bought 3 bags and returned with 6 bags. Mostly were the Chinese biscuits they bought. I only bought a Pluto kid sweater, a pair of shoes, a box of butter cookie and a trigger beanie pillow but I spent all my money that I brought. The expenses are very high esp. food and transportation.
We arrived the HK Airport on time and check in. The ground staff was surprised as we two persons check the entire luggage while our parents went to restroom. Luckily our total weights didn’t exceed the max. The male ground staff is so helpful and friendly to me until he bumped his ankle. Bless him.
We went for ramen for our lunch and went to the duty free shops for window shopping. The airport duty free shops are larger than Singapore. They got two levels of shopping areas and food courts. However we haven’t got the time to finish all and we need to depart since our boarding time had arrived.
We flew nearly 4 hour flight to reach home and took an limousine Maxi cab back home as our luggage are too much for a normal cab to fit in. The trip cost us $35 per destination.
For the next few days, my house became laundry drying area as the weather is as cold as HK. Darn messy…
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