Hong Kong was fun! I beg to differ when people said that 6 days in Hong Kong would be boring and dull. Well, probably so if you're not there for the first time.
I spent a day each at (chronological order):
-Tsim Sha Tsui/Avenue of Stars
-Causeway Bay/The Peak/Madame Tussaud's
-Disneyland
-Lantau Island/Tung Chung Citygate/Mongkok
-Ocean Park/Mongkok
-Mongkok
And so 6 days were barely enough. Prior to the trip, we even armed ourselves with a food list, which we tried to patronise selected restaurants from. They were all great recommendations! One of my best experiences was the Michelin One-star restaurant, Tim Ho Wan--cheap and best Dim Sum ever.
Eating in HK, however, can be a stressful affair. As land space is a luxury, restaurants are all tiny. This means that eateries with some level of fame, will perpetually have a queue outside. The wait staff will tend to clear up your table once you finish your last strand of noodles, and you know what you should do.
It's also an interesting habit of the restaurants to serve a cup of tea once you're seated. And it's not for drinking. I've tasted a sip though, and realised it was for rinsing your cutlery. The sights and sounds of HK 茶餐厅 are always interesting. Loud, busy staff whizzing past everywhere. Loud customers chatting away. Quite different from the food court culture here.
HK, is surprisingly very similar to Singapore nevertheless. To me, the buses are identical. Traffic lights and road signs too. The people eat similar food as us here, just BETTER. Just like us, the people there do not speak English and Mandarin well. Land is scarce. Foreign talents are everywhere. Their MTR is very similar to our MRT too. Even the electrical plugs are the same. Blah Blah. But their people are more trendy and take pride in dressing up, especially among the young.
Interestingly, whenever I speak Mandarin to them, they would ask if I come from Taiwan. When I said no, they would always guess correctly that I'm a Singaporean. And they would ALWAYS say that alot of Singaporeans visit HK. This is so true. I have at least 20 other facebook contacts who went/are going HK over these 2 months. But still, it's nothing compared to the huge influx of Mainland Chinese at every attraction. Conflicts of some sort are bound to happen--at a street market, one stall owner was seen scolding a Mainland Chinese (in Cantonese) for bargaining and yet decided not buying in the end.
On attractions, those I went to, are really worth visiting. Disneyland was supposedly the smallest in the world, but guess what, we only finished 65% of the attractions inside. The shows were superb. I loved The Lion King musical to bits, and all other shows too actually! HK Disneyland was the 3rd Disneyland I've been to, but the magical feeling will never fail to overwhelm me. To top it off, the Disney parades and nightly fireworks show were unforgettable.
Ocean Park was another worthy mention. The rides were all Genting standard, but that's not all. It's a place where you get to see animals too. Pandas were one of the main draws, alongside sea creatures. There's an aquarium that we didnt have time to enter. Animal shows should not be missed too. We were very lucky that the 3rd-level Typhoon was downgraded to 1st-level when we were in the park, and hence the rides were reopened. The best part was, the lack of queues!
I guess I can rattle on with other highlights, like the Giant Buddha on Lantau Island, the nightly Symphony of Lights show, the Wax Museum at The Peak, the famous roasted goose dinner..
I'm gonna leave all that to the videos that I'm currently uploading. Will update here once they're done, and they speak a million more words themselves.
人生是黑白的.
12:14 AM <3
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