Needless to say, HK is a place of great shopping and marvelous food, especially for lovers of dim sum like me. I’m seriously considering moving to HK for a few years just for the food. Further, being a HK drama addict, being there, all the run-down places of HK like Tsim Sha Tsui and Mongkok appeared really quaint to me instead, and I absolutely adored the thriving crowds around us.
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| All the lovely familar brands! |
The traffic was a bit of a killer though. Quite literally. We took a night rider that sent us from the airport to our hotel in Mongkok, and it was a Too Fast Too Furious experience. I didn’t know that buses could race like a sports car till I took the rollercoaster of a bus ride. At first we just joked that maybe the bus driver was in a rush to get home, but soon we realized that all the vehicles behaved the same across HK. The minute the traffic lights turned green, they would speed off. Even at sharp bends, they could curve in so neatly and swiftly we could barely tell what kind of vehicle that zoomed past us. No wonder so many people seem to die from traffic accidents in HK dramas. We behaved like good pedestrians that we are not in SG, not even daring to rush to cross the roads when the green man is flashing.
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| I applaud the two amazingly brave souls who still dared to stroll along the side of the road! |
Tiger Airways was late, so we arrived in HK later than expected, unfortunately, and most shops were already closed. Our stomachs led us to a nice shop that specialized in beef brisket noodles, and I noted instantly that it is a relatively famous shop, since the owners took many photos with mini starlets that only a HK dramaholic like me would know.
The noodles were really good, from beef brisket to wanton. Dazzling selection, and each noodle had its own unique great taste.
After that we went to have dessert at a dessert place that is supposed to have many branches throughout HK. I forgot to take a picture of the shop front. I liked the mango dessert, but it was a little too mango-ey and heaty.
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| Waving our spoons joyfully over a sweet array of rainbow. |
The next morning we had dim sum for breakfast! The dim sum restaurant was interesting. There wasn’t any menu to choose from; instead trolleys containing dim sum went round the restaurant. Apparently this is the style of a traditional yum cha house. So we just snatched whatever delicious-looking dim sum there is from the dim sum trolleys that aunties were pushing around. It was quite a risk as half the time we didn’t know what we put into our mouths. But the dim sum was really good. Pity I didn’t take good note of the restaurant, silly me.
We did most of our shopping in H&M, I am ashamed to say, but the 3 level H&M was totally a wonder for us. We spent like 3 hours inside and came out armed with many bags. H&M’s fashion seems to be localized across the world; I have been to H&M in UK and in Japan, and I wasn’t at all impressed by it. But the H&M in HK blew our socks off. Not that we wore any in the first place. On a side note, I was really excited when H&M was going to come to SG after this trip to HK, but the H&M in SG was such a disappointment. All the styles on display are just mundane, and on the pricey side, unlike in HK.
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Satisfied shoppers |
We visited The Peak after our shopping spree. It wasn’t that impressive, but was terribly cold at the top.
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| Tram to the Peak. |
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| Our freezing expressions. |
After visiting The Peak, we had dinner at a Michelin standard restaurant, Yung Kee. It is famed for their roast goose, and so we tried the roast goose, on top of other dishes. I had wanted suckling pig actually, but it was all sold out. So I had roast goose with barbequed pork instead, a wonderful fattening combination. Look at the glossy shine over the roast goose skin~
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| Yung Kee @ 32-40 Wellington Street, Central, Hong Kong |
After our heavy dinner, we had some light dessert – pudding! Egg pudding was rather odd. Tasted really like egg. But the milk pudding was so smooth and sweet. Very refreshing.
The next day, we had breakfast at a shop near our hotel. My breakfast consisted of buttered toasted bread, which was oozing with condensed milk goodness.
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| Yummy! |
After our breakfast, we visited the Avenue of Stars along Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront promenade which was modeled after the Hollywood Walk of Fame with all the famous HK stars’ handprints on the ground.
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| Charmed by Chow Yun Fat's handprints. |
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| Posing as celebs works well with sunglasses. |
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| Lights! Sound! Action! |
When night fell we went to a Tim Ho Wan – Another Michelin star dim sum shop and waited for hours just to get a seat inside the tiny cramped shop. But the food was worth it. Really awesome dim sum at low prices.
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| Shop 8, 2-20 Kwong Wa Street, Mong Kok, Kowloon |
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| <3 the juicy vegetable dumplings at the top and crispy beancurd skin prawn dumplings on the left! |
After that we had dessert once again, and the desserts were awesome as expected. I had mango pudding topped with soy bean ice cream which tasted rather like Mr Bean’s ice cream.
On the final day we just had a few hours before going to the airport to do some last minute shopping at Ladies’ Market and some random HK shopping malls which we found pretty good bargain buys. Just before our shopping, we had to charge our energy with breakfast, of course. We had instant noodles! At a random shop again, but it was so good. I was fortunate to order the best, chili satay sauce noodles with luncheon meat.Yum.
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| Instant smiley noodles on the right! |
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| Oily yummy side dish - crispy crunchy you tiao wrapped in thin strips of chee cheong fun! Why don't they sell this in SG!? |
Lastly, because I forgot to mention, our Cityview hotel room. It was so tiny that we could barely squeeze pass the bed to get to the desk , but still looked pretty elegant, and also boasted a large flat screen TV. The attached bathroom had a bath too, which we totally made use of to pamper our tired legs by drawing a foot bath! Complete with tea, it was total luxury.
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| Our luxurious footbath. |
