Solo Trip to Hong Kong - Day 1

This was my first solo trip abroad and it was a fun experience. Before the trip, I did quite a bit of research and also read up other bloggers' posts on their HK trip.

Would like to give credits to the following blogs for helping me to make planning of my trip easier:

me&myTHRILLS

KAMPUNGBOYCITYGAL

Motormouth from Ipoh

Precious Pea

Some kind soul had also uploaded a consolidated Hong Kong guide to the hardwarezone forum, with plenty of useful information on shopping, food and sight-seeing etc.  I spent a total of 7 days in Hong Kong and covered quite a number of places such as Lantau Island, Tai-O, Macau etc.  Stay tuned, will blog about them soon!

I booked my flights with Jetstar.  This was also my first time taking a budget airplane.  As the journey was only slightly more than 3 hours, a bit of "suffering" was still tolerable.  Round trip ticket cost $414.90 including insurance.  For hotel, I made my booking with Largos Hotel because of its location (3 minutes away from Jordan MTR).  For 6 nights stay, it cost me HK 3132 (Exchange rate:  $1 = HK 5.48).

I took the earliest flight at 6.40am.  I had made arrangement with my colleague to meet her and her husband at HK for lunch at 12.40pm near my hotel.  Hubby drove me to the airport at around 4.30am.  Jetstar operates at Changi Airport Terminal One and thus, no need to go to Budget Terminal.

Why is Joanne Peh picking up such an ugly piece of meat?

I didn't get anything from the menu.  I would rather save up to buy better food in HK!

On my way back, the lady who sat beside me on the plane ordered the $10 chicken rice.  I found the portion quite pathetic.  I think she didn't quite enjoy the food and she even scooped some soup from her friend's tom yam cup noodle to put on her chicken rice.

Tip:  Please along an empty water bottle with you.  You can fill up the bottle with water from the water cooler at the gate.

Approaching HK... The flight took around 3 hours 15 minutes

We got to take a free shuttle service from the plane to the airport terminal

Bought my octopus card (HK 150, including HK50 which can be refunded) from Airport Express Counter

Picked up tourist maps and brochures at the Vistor Centre

I bought my Ocean Park and Lantau Island Cable Car ticket from here.

Tip:  For Ocean Park adult ticket cost HK 250 but you can get it at HK 215 here

I took Cityflyer bus A22 from the airport to my hotel.  Cost only HK 39 and you can use your octopus card, very convenient.  After placing your luggage at the lower deck, you can still move to the upper deck to get a better view.  No need to worry about your luggage as there is a CCTV where you can "see" your luggage from the top deck.

Alight at the 4th stop ie after airport stop, count 3 more stops.  You will see Kowloon Union Church on the right.  I missed the stop and had to walk one bus stop back in order to get to the hotel.  Reached the hotel at 12.40pm and I was supposed to meet my colleague for lunch at 12.40pm.  Luckily, the MTR is only 3 minutes walk from the hotel and thus I still managed to meet up with them.

After checking in, I quickly rushed to meet my colleague and her husband at Jordan MTR for lunch.

Mak Man Kee Noodle Shop

My plate of Wanton Noodle

The serving is really big, so much noodle that I couldn't finish it.

The wantons hidden underneath the noodles were quite big too (abt 5 of them).  However, I found the noodle too dry.

Pork Trotters in Fermented Beancurd noodle

Colleague's husband ordered this and he finished everything up!

I tried one piece, not bad

澳洲牛奶公司 Australia Dairy Company

Double Steamed Milk Pudding (HK 18)

This is really a "Must-Try" dessert.

Mongkok Station

Fa Yuen Street

Pet Street

Famous desert joint - Xiu Liu Shan

I like the glutinous rice balls as they were very chewy.

I had dinner at this restaurant that had quite an attractive signboard, specializing in beef balls.

My bowl of beef ball noodles

I found the soup a bit too bland and thus I added lots of chilli to my soup to give it more taste.

  The beef balls were big and quite nice.

Argly Centre

Quite disappointing.  Didn't manage to get anything from here as I think the clothings here are more suitable for teenagers.  If you are looking for something to wear to work, no point coming here as there are mostly casual clothings here.

You can find Bonjour and Sasa almost everywhere in Hong Kong.

Sasa has a security guard here.  I bought 2 boxes of "我的美丽日记 - President masks" at HK 98 here.  However, I got a feeling that I would need more than 2 boxes.  They had a wide range of masks here.  How I wish I can have a sample of every type :P

Day 2 - Lantau Island/ Tai-O

Dean's Cafe @ Toh Guan Road

Sister-in-law, Christine helped to organize a family dinnner at Toh Guan Road. She did some research on XINMSN before recommending us to this place.  This stall was shown on channel 8's show "Sizzling Wok" last year.  This place has 3 speciality dishes, namely:  1)  Crab Beehoon, 2)  Cripsy Duck and 3)  "Chai Por" Horfun.  We ordered all the above 3 recommended dish and other dishes such as a "Soon Hock" fish, Scallop in Yam, Vegetable "Nai Bai" and hotplate tofu.

Crab Beehoon

The beehon was good and according to the video, the beehoon was pre-fried first to give it a bit more flavour.  The crab meat was very firm but I would prefer it to be a bit softer.  There wasn't much orangy roe in this dish, a bit disappointing.  I still prefer the crab beehoon near my place at Pasir Ris - "Seafood Kitchen".

Horfun in "Chai Por" ($5)

I like this dish.  Very special and it was quite appetizing.  It tasted something like fried carrot cake + horfun :P

Crispy Duck

 Each yam ball with scallop cost $2.  It was served with mayonaise.  However, I think there is really nothing quite fantastic about this dish actually.

Dean's Cafe

Blk 267A Toh Guan Rd

#01-01

S601267

Superdog @ White Sands [Closed]

This fast food place has been around in White Sands for quite some time.  Finally, I decided to give it a try since they have special $5.50 set meal if you order between 6 to 9pm.  Normally it cost around $7 - $8 and I always feel that the price is a bit high for a sausage bun set meal.

There is no "Wow" factor for this sausage bun.  I will only buy if there is a promotion, otherwise, I don't think it is really worth the price.  I prefer my A&W Corney Dog anytime.

Toy Story 3 is coming soon!!

Remember I had just made a recent trip to Pixar Exhibition and did some coverage on some of the exhibits?  I also chanced upon inFamous Singapore blogger Xiaxue's blog on her exclusive tour to Pixar company at San Francisco!  You may want to read up her blog post on Pixar tour here, quite interesting.  I am really impressed with Pixar production and is happy that "Toy Story 3" will be launching soon and I do hope to catch this movie on the big screen. 

My favourite Toy Story 3 character is Dolly.

Description of this new toy: 

 Dolly is a soft and sweet dress-up rag doll, and is the perfect gift for any young child! Her floppy body and sunny smile will make her an irresistible new member of your family. Dolly has purple hair, googly eyes and gently blushing cheeks. She comes with a pretty blue dress, but templates are included to create and sew your own outfits! Machine washable on gentle cycle.

Don't you think Dolly look very adorable?  She seems to have a very pleasant personality that will make everybody happy :)  Love her big eyes!! 

“Catch Toy Story 3 Movie starting from 17th June 2010 and join the official Facebook and Twitter page!”

Pelican Pizza Delivery

Ordered the 2 types of pizzas that I had not yet tried. Not bad but I would prefer their Turkey Mushroom Pizza that I ordered previously.

Mayo Hawa

Mayonaise Sauce, Tomato, Musroom, Pineapple and Cheese

Pepperoni

Pepperoni and Cheese

$21.90 for 2 regular 10" pizzas.

http://www.pelicanpizza.com.sg/

6260 8488 (Tampines)

6289 8488 (Yio Chu Kang)

Spagetti Too @ IMM

Spagetti Too [Closed]

After the visit to Pixar Exhibition, hubby came and fetch me and we went to IMM for shopping and dinner. :)   Dinner at Spagetti Too was a pleasant one.  The food was quite good and value for money.  The staff who served us was very friendly and he always had a smile on his face.  Just wondering, how come the name of the restaurant is as such.  Spagetti with a missing "h" and why the "Too"?  By the way, this restaurant is halal-certified too.

My order:  Chicken Baked Rice

Hubby's order:  Lamb Shank

This is an open-concept restaurant

We also bought some tarts from Fancy Delight back home for snacks.  I love these tarts and hope that they will have more branches in the East.

They sell 16 different types of tarts.  We ordered chicken & mushroom, durian, green tea and cheese tarts.

http://www.fancydelight.com.sg/

Phin's Steakhouse @ Tampines Mall

I was quite glad that I could still able to watch IP Man2 on the big screen after so many weeks.  We booked our tickets online for the 9.35pm show at Century Square Shaw.  Before that, we had our dinner at Phin's Steakhouse at Tampines Mall.  I ordered the Beer-battered Fish-and-Chips.  I remembered this is the place where I first tried beer-battered fish many years ago.  Tastewise, it was still quite decent just that it was a bit too oily at the bottom and some of the fries underneath were soaked with the oil.

Hubby ordered Australian Grain Fed Tenderloin Steak Set (Medium Rare).  He then cut the steak into smaller pieces and "cooked" those parts on the sizzling hot plate which were too bloody :P

The set came with salad, soup and a small piece of garlic bread.  The soup wasn't nice as it was very diluted.

The waiter recommended this type of beer to my hubby to go with his steak.

IP Man 2 葉問

Still remember the exciting fighting scenes between Sammo Hung and Donnie Yen in "SPL" and was very impressed with Yen then.  But I think that time he was still not so famous.  This time round in IP Man 2, Yen had really made a name for himself and I still love to watch the showdown between him and Sammo Hung in the show.