hokay!

finally, i am ready to blog about HK. yes, after like a full month probably of being back, finally, u get to enjoy the pics. muahahaha. since it was a week long trip and i got a lot to talk abt, i'll be doing it in installments, so check back to see updates, and update ur ie explorer so u can see my blog in its entirety!


DAY 1 - HONG KONG (Lantau Island & Temple Street)

we left on 11 may, at 6.40am on a jetstar flight. yes, 6 freakin 40 am, yet, we still managed to bump into a few other girls from marketing who were also holidaying in HK. oh how small the world.

anyhoo, there were 5 of us, inez (xy), shaozhen (sz), kate (xr), huiting (ht) and urs truly (ain). here we are before departure, and right before boarding. yes, at 6+ am.




XR, HT and XY


me and SZ

Touched down at Chep Lak Kok airport at Lantau Island (all this sound like cuss words to me, i swear) at 1025 am and were shocked when the pilot announced that the temp was 22 deg cels. "shit!" i thought out loud, "isn't it supposed to be summer here?" but i was thankful actuali coz at least i got to get away from the humid and blisteringly hot local weather.

it was cool that we got to travel on the airport runway in a bus (coz the airplane landed quite a fair bit away from the terminal). HK is pretty easy to describe.. its like Singapore but with more neon lights, "mountains", fog, super tall and skinny buildings and well-dressed women. but i'll talk about that later i guess.

anyhoo, prior to the trip we had done quite a lot of research and planned our itinerary, so we pretty much sticked to it, safe for a few changes (for eg, we omitted a seafood dinner to safe money so that we could shop more). we proved once and for all that women are fantastic with directions coz the only time we got lost was when we followed xr's fren, who's a guy. other than that, we took public transport all thru the trip. in fact, we took all forms of transport - bus, airport express, star ferry, peak tram, MTR (which is their MRT), cab, cable car... and we walked. we walked a whole freaking lot. we walked everyday. we walked til we had blisters and flat feet. the hongkongers can realli walk i tell u. there's no jiggle in their legs, and they do it in high heels and tight pencil skirts.

but, i digress. being the smart, kiasu, everything-also-want-to-see travellers, we didn check into the hotel straight away. we left our baggage at the airport and went to see the sights on lantau island. here's us figuring our way from the airport to ngong ping 360 to go see the big big buddha.




the bus got seatbelt can.. safety first.

it was a sunday, and the day before buddha's birthday, so the place was reali crowded. i would imagine that it wouldnt have been so crowded any other day. we just sorta landed on a wrong day. hee3. it was fun nonetheless.. and a preview of how cold HK could be. fyi, the statue is the biggest outdoor bronze sitting buddha statue in the world. now say that 5 times just for kicks. to get there, we had to sit in the cable car for abt 30 mins. and its not like the sentosa one, mind u. its damn high and damn long. and i have a phobia of heights. so the pics were taken before i got scared. hee2.







we finally reached ngong ping village, and we proceeded to the Poh Lin monastery first because we were starvingggg! the vegetarian meal was super duper delicious can! i din noe vegetables can taste that good. and since its a monastery, it didn even have those mock meat stuff, it was just vege dishes but it was vegy vegy good!! tt was abt 100HKD per person.. probably the most expensive meal we had thruout the trip. but it was so sedap i tell u. beancurd skin with lemon paste dish.. i still see u in my dreams... yam paste.. springroll.. slurpssss.....

k. after the food, we went to meet and greet the buddha. but to reach enlightenment have to climb staircase can... burnt pretty much all of the calories from the lunch.


view from the bottom to the top




view from the top to the bottom






i know i wasnt supposed to "touch" the buddha.. but i couldnt help giving it a hi5! n he looks like he's glad i did!

after the buddha, we went back via the cable car, and proceeded to our first shopping destination, Citygate outlet mall! as the name suggests, it is a mall, full of outlet stores, from Adidas to Puma to Timberland to Esprit to Calvin Klein etc. of course i went a bit mad.. but i controlled myself, knowing that there would be more shopping in time to come. i managed to buy stuff for my loved ones at home tho. but them the more expensive things so i can shop for cheaper things for myself!

once we were done shopping, we headed back to the airport to collect our left baggage. and oh, we bought HK's Octopus Card for our stay there. its like an ezlink but u can tap it in a lot of places, like restaurants, bus, trains, trams, even ferries! our card included a one way travel pass on the Airport Express, which is a special "posh" train that transports people from the airport in Lantau Island to the main HK Island. Our hotel was in Kowloon, however, so we had to switch to the MTR line. but overall, its damn easy to get around and the locals are very helpful to foreigners.


so posh.. got plasma tv can..

once we arrived at the hotel, it was abt 8pm.. our hotel is quite a posh YMCA, located like a minute away from the YauMaTei MTR station. for the price we paid, it was a damn good deal. like.. less than S$40 a night.. in HK.. for a 4 star hotel. fuuh. and since it was walking distance from Temple Street, 4 of us decided to head there while XR went to a bar with her friends.

Dinner that night was at McDonalds. haha. i had a crawfish and mango sandwich from Mc Cafe. it was nice, the food and the 4 of us talking cock, feeling familiar in a foreign place.



Stay tuned for Day 2, where we went to Central to shop at H&M, to the Peak and Madame Tussauds!

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