Hong Kong Day 1; Taking a Stroll

My parents, and yours truly. Wearing two layers of jacket and I still could feel the chill. This is near Star Ferry, FYI.

With the family that I always travel with. Xoxo

Panorama view of the lights on buildings on Hong Kong Island. Click to Enlarge.

 

Having fun posing with the statues on Avenue of stars. We basically skipped all the stars because they were mostly HK stars that we are unfamiliar of, except for the likes of Jacky Chan, Sammy Yam and... some other names I just couldn't remember. This statue above reminded me sooo much of P. Ramlee's "Seniman Bujang Lapok", me and my family literally acted out the scene and had lots of laughter here. Remember the tagline "Tetapi Lubang hidungmu TETAP menjadi pujaan hatiku"? hahah yeap that's the scene we role-played. (:

Wanted to take a shot of the Bruce Lee statue but there were so many tourists there. So I gave it a pass.

at iSquare. finding a toilet is pretty hard in HK! iSquare was our last stop before calling it a day. 

 

What I came across on our random stroll along Tsim Sha Shui.

 

Hong Kong Trip Day 1; Halal Food

So prior to re-energizing our bodies, we decided to find the location of the Kowloon mosque & Islamic center. The reason why we chose the hotel (Imperial Hotel) is due to it's close location to the mosque, and it is with this presumption that as long as it is near a mosque, it would be relatively easy to find Halal food. It's particularly important as my parents are strict on what they eat.

So we found it!
We thus walked back and along the way, finding a halal food joint.

Whilst walking, I spotted this sign. "Ziafat". Saw this on the Halal food list provided in the PDF file at Discovery HK's website. So we KIV this place for another day. So... as we walked on ....

I spotted this banner "Al-Maidah Curry" just beside the bustop that was just outside the building that housed this food joint. Told my family and we checked this place out. We were quite disappointed at what the place has to offer but well, rather have some kebabs than having our stomachs denied of food right? We all ordered kebab since we don't really have the taste for briyani YET.

Whilst waiting for our food! Notice where I was seated at and where the man on my 1 O'clock was seated at. The food joint is seriously so SMALL! luckily, it can seat all the 7 of us though it felt really cramped! I was seated by the wall, mind you!

My beef kebab with no veggie and lemon juice. The kebab is nice! I loved the thousand island sauce, I assumed that it is specially made/mixed as it is very spicy. Even the beef has a significant spice taste. Definitely different from the ones sold at pasar malams in Singapore. Plus, the kebab is twice larger than what can be found in Singapore! definitely, definitely filling. Alhamdulillah!

Also, despite having to cramp and also share the small space with other diners, the store owner and worker was very friendly. A nice start to our first day in Hong Kong as well! We had a short conversation that sounded like a duck talking to a chicken because of the language barrier and the different accent that we had to try to decipher.

The menu. Not really cheap i guess.

Al-Maidah Kebab & Curry can be found at Tsim Sha Tsui Mansion, that is along Nathan Road. To easily find TST Mansion, you just have to find Hai Phong Road. Keep your eyes open and spot any of these standing banners along the road side. It's about less than 50m away from the "Ziafat" Restaurant signboard. Nearest MTR would definitely be Tsim Sha Tsui Station, lookout for the information signs that leads to Harilela Mansion/TST Mansion. Do NOT, i repeat DO NOT bother looking out for Nathan Road as it is a verry long stretch of main road.

Hong Kong Trip Day 1; The Touchdown

(Pardon my lousy picture positioning because i'm tooooo lazy to edit the HTML codes hahah)

So my second week of 2013 started off with my trip to Hong Kong with the family. It wasn't really pre-planned way in advance due to the busy schedules that me, my father and my cousin has, but luckily our leaves were approved. the only downside was, it was announced that the O levels results would be released on 10th January, which wasn't expected since we ALL thought the results would be released in early February but noooo, MOE has decided to release it earlier. So yea, my poor cousin had to endure the agony of anticipating his results whilst we are all enjoying ourselves. heh~

So we caught the 9.30am flight on Singapore Airlines. Yeap, we took SQ since there was some promotion going on. I initially planned to fly via Cathay Pacific, but thanks to dad's colleague, we were told that SQ has better rates, and he was right! To fly by CX will cost us SGD$1k more than flying via SQ.

In-flight entertainment is the thing that I loved most on SQ flights. The last SQ that I took was donkey years ago I guess. Ouh, and our Muslim Meal. The chicken is very bland. Took one bite and left it alone. Only ate the cake and prawn/squid salad? I don't even know what i was eating! Anyway, it was one heck of a "peaceful" journey. I was having a bad flu, the old man behind me keeps on yak and yak and yak-ing to his relative beside him, and mind you, he was very loud! Torturous much. Wished I had brought along my ear plugs, heh.

Helloooooo Hong Kong! I could already feel the chill when i reached the airport. After clearing immigrations, I remembered what my colleague told me, that is .... TO GET ALL THE MAPS AND BROCHURES AVAILABLE! 

On board the airport express! its only 4 stops (including the airport station) away but it's quite a long journey! By the way, it costs HKD100 per person per trip. I wasn't sure about any packages available though. So anyway, my dad bought all of us an "Octopus card", an ez-link counterpart just like in Singapore. No idea why they call it Octopus though. Perhaps because of the network of railway interchanges they have perhaps. Oh, and instead of MRT (like in Singapore), in Hong Kong it's called the MTR, which means "Mass Transit Railway".

Crossing between Lantau Island and Hong Kong Island

This view reminds me SOOO much of PSA Tanjong Pagar / PSA Pasir Panjang.

Hong Kong / Central MTR Station cum interchange. The interchange is SOOO Huge. SOOOO huge they have travellators and even have shops, just like at Citylink Mall/Raffles Xchange/Dhoby Ghout Xchange, only that these shops are located WITHIN the train station itself. Means you have to tap in to gain access to the shops.

Directions to the many, many lines/stations on different types of MTR network.

I can't help it, this looks sooooooo soooo much like Dhoby Ghout interchange, on the way to the North East Line (NEL).
As I update my Hong Kong trip, you'll see how freaky it is that the MTR-MRT network between Singapore & Hong Kong is soooo similar!

So we took the MTR from Central Station via the Tsuen Wan line to Tsim Sha Tsui, where our hotel is located at. Yes, we lugged our luggage as we were told that public transportation in HK is much expensive compared to Singapore. Once at TST (short for Tsim Sha Tsui), we had to hunt for which exit to take. There were sooo many exits! And once we found our exit, we were appalled that there was neither an escalator nor elevator for us to take to get us to ground level. We had to literally drag our luggage up the stairs. Gah! Thank goodness the hotel was just 1 building away. Phew~ 

We then had our rest, I had my short nap as I was on my flu medication, then we set for dinner & to the south side of Kowloon. More next!