That’s my brunch at Starbucks before leaving Hong Kong. At the airport, I realise I still have a thick wad of Hong Kong currency, so I go around looking for ways to spend it.

This pretty box of special Ferrero Raffaello is a perfect buy!

Of course, you can never leave Hong Kong without these wife’s biscuits:

Then, it’s time to say goodbye to Hong Kong. Let’s look at my economy-class food!

Instead of a low-calorie meal, I ask for regular food this time round. There’s pasta and ice cream and all. I gotta say, it’s very good!

So, my thoughts on Hong Kong?

The best times I’ve had over the four days were at Lan Kwai Fong, Lantau island and the neighbouring Macau.

The nightlife at Lan Kwai Fong, where you can buy a drink from one place and bar hop to another, is simply fantastic. My only regret is not having paid it a second visit, or seen anyone famous there since it’s a popular spot for stars.

Lantau island and Macau provide several eye-opening experiences, beautiful scenery and architecture, and interesting cultural sights. Visitors that haven’t ventured to Lantau island have definitely missed the most beautiful part of Hong Kong.

When it comes to food, I really love the desserts. What a wide plethora of choices from fruits, cakes, puddings, breads, pastries, bubble teas, and so much more!

Frankly, I find that shopping in Hong Kong is overrated. Their famous shopping malls like Timesquare and Harbour City are somewhat similar to what we have in Singapore. The prices and brand names they carry are almost exactly the same as what we have here.

Lantau Island is located on the Western side of Hong Kong, far away from the hustle-bustle of Kowloon and Hong Kong island.

A cuppa before I go. Had been drinking plenty of coffee ever since I got to Hong Kong.

Had some trouble finding the correct pier to take the ferry. Luckily this English-speaking elderly man could see that I was having problems and gave me directions.

The ferry that would take me to Lantau Island.

Bye, towering buildings!

The ferry reached Lantau Island after about an hour.

There, I took a bus to the opposite side of the island, where the Giant Buddha and Po Lin monastery was. My main purpose in visiting Lantau Island was to see the Giant Buddha. It was a super long bus ride but along the way, there was plenty of amazing scenery. In the movie Initial D, there is this scene where Jay Chou and his girlfriend are sitting by a beautiful lake with mountains in the backdrop. The scene is breathtaking, and this was just like that!

Then, I saw the Giant Buddha from miles away, perched on a high hilltop. (The picture was taken from the moving bus, hence, the blurriness.)

It was a steep and narrow climb up to the top but we made it. There! Check out that staircase leading up to the Buddha. And of course, I HAD to be wearing heels, and just for that one day too.

I reached the top and the Buddha was like, waving to me.

He was huge all right!

Views from up there.

Then came the steep descent down the staircase and on to Po Lin Monastery. Boy, was the whole place overrun with tourists!

An old nun, who was dozing off, then waking up, then dozing off, and waking up all the time.

After that, I took another bus down to Tai O. It’s a fishing village located on the extreme Western end of the island. I thought it would be interesting to check out how the people lived.

People fished for a living and then sold it at the market.

Check out the size of that fish! It’s even bigger than I am!

People who visit Hong Kong just for the food and shopping would probably get the misconception that all Hong Kongers live fast-paced lives, dress well and are generally wealthy. But having seen Tai O, it’s really not the case.

Small home on a boat.

Walking along the empty road, I could see some old people sitting and lazing outside their homes by the sea.

A narrow alley between houses.

Stilt houses with hills as a backdrop.

A small local Christian school.

There were some skinny cats living in this fishing village too. They were the first stray animals I had seen in Hong Kong.

Those were hand-made bricks I think, put out to dry.

Update: Those aren’t bricks, but blocks of dried shrimp paste! Thanks to carrie3w who left a comment below.

An old shop was selling these sesame biscuits at three for ten Hong Kong dollars.

And that was my lunch.

Colourful murals.

Tai O was a stark contrast from my previous days spent in Hong Kong. It was definitely a refreshing change from the usual skyscrapers and people walking around in suits. Here, people wore slacks and straw hats, and seemed more simple and carefree in their fishing homes by the sea and mountains.

After that I had to leave Lantau Island and return to Hong Kong island. My plan was to go to Macau and by then it was already late afternoon. The weird thing was, Tai O was of the closest proximity to Macau but there was no means of getting to Macau from there. So I had to make my long journey back to Hong Kong island, and then take the turbojet from there.

In Hong Kong, there are plenty of high-rise apartments that would put those in Singapore to shame. This one was fifty storeys easy!

The turbojet at Shun Tak Center located on Hong Kong island. They have very frequent rides to Macau.

Boarding…

Aboard the turbojet.

The ride was approximately an hour long and I slept like a baby throughout. When it reached Macau, I was dumbstruck by this bridge that I saw from my window.

It looked like a dream! A great pity the windows were so foggy. The bridge was so beeeautiful! I still don’t know what the name of the bridge is. No chance of getting a good picture too.

Update: This bridge is known as Ponte De Amizade in Portuguese, or the Bridge of Friendship. Thanks, Marc.

Got my passport stamped and wanted to go exchange for Macau currency, when I was told that Hong Kong dollars were also accepted. When I got out of the ferry terminal I was besieged by people wanting to drive me to a few touristy places for 200 Hong Kong dollars. Yeah sure, when I could take the public bus for just 2.50.

I got off at Senada Square and was again dumbstruck. Everything from the buildings, to the lamp posts, to the flowers were oh-so-beautiful. Here’s their post office.

I’m not so sure about the history of Macau. It used to be a Portuguese colony, which explains its many Portuguese road and building names.

Tell me, how come we don’t have such nice alleys in Singapore?

Meow!

Shopping area. It looks so different from typical shopping malls!

Starbucks!

McDonald’s!

St. Dominic’s Church (or Sao Domingos). A beautiful church with a violent history. There had been people murdered during mass. It was once used as a barracks too.

I made my way to the old ruins of St. Paul’s (Sao Paulo, like the Brazilian soccer club). It used to be one of Macau’s biggest churches but was almost completely destroyed in a fire. Now all that remained was its frontal stone facade.

After that I went looking for dinner. Along the way, there were many shops selling bak kwa (sweet roasted meat) except that it wasn’t pork. They had wild boar and ostrich meat, just to name a few animals. I tried out some but still preferred the Singaporean version.

Kites!

Dinner was at this Chinese restaurant and I had curry cod fish rice and barbecued chicken. It didn’t come cheap. And for the curry they even asked whether I wanted it beef-flavoured or pork-flavoured, which I thought was pretty odd.

I decided to go check out the biggest casino in Macau, the Casino Lisboa. The waitress at the restaurant seemed pretty shocked when I told her I was going there. She thought it’s no place for a single young lady. I hadn’t actually intended to go gambling, but since I was in the Las Vegas of the East, I thought what the heck! It was my first time in a casino, so I was banking on having some beginner’s luck! And I turned 21 that day too, so there comes the birthday luck!

I went from table to table watching the games and then I couldn’t resist. Got 300 Hong Kong dollars worth of counters and started playing. Their card games seemed to operate by different rules. The blackjack game was quite different from the one I know. It was interesting watching the people play. The guy would tap the table if he wanted another card, and wave his hand if he didn’t. I was trying to learn it so I would seem like a pro.

I played this dice game where people placed bets on “big”, “small”, specific numbers, etc. I would win some and lose some, until in the end I lost everything! I could get more counters but I told myself not to. Then this Hong Kong guy in a grey suit came up and tried to talk to me but I left the place.

I went looking for a place to sit down and think over my gambling experience before heading back to Hong Kong. But at 12 midnight most of the places were closed. Managed to find a small café for dessert. I had iced coffee which was yummy…

…plus a banana split. It was all fruits and came with two vanilla scoops and one unidentified yellow scoop. Weird! I thought banana splits would be chocolate, vanilla and strawberry scoops.

Couldn’t finish everything. I came to realise that so far, I hadn’t managed to finish anything off my plate in Hong Kong and Macau. The food they served seemed to always come in big servings. Anyway I took a cab back to the ferry terminal to catch a ride back to Hong Kong.

They had turbojet rides round the clock so I wasn’t too worried about not making it back. My ride was at 1am, and again I slept like a baby all the way back.

This was easily my most memorable day throughout the trip. I got to see the unique things in Hong Kong (and Macau), the cultures, and experienced the way the locals live. Travel on the same public bus they do, eat the same common food they eat. And until the day I can find a travelling partner who shares the same beliefs, I shall carry on going solo.

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So I made my way to the Ladies’ Market and ended up spending the rest of my day there. When I came out of the Mong Kok MTR station, it was street after street of electronic goods stores. They were even spilling out onto the streets selling PDAs and mobile phones.

I had lunch at this place called Da Jia Le on the second level of one of the buildings.

The place served a large variety of food and they had a food counter system where you collect your food once your number is flashed on the LED screen. Reminds me of clinics!

The soy chicken rice I had was delicious, though quite oily.

For dessert, I had toast in condensed milk and honey.

Then, I finally went to the Ladies’ Market. They sold mainly clothes, accessories, toys, VCDs, and I noticed that out of every four or five stalls, there would be someone selling fake branded bags.

Colourful wigs!

Light saber sticks?

And these nodding toys! I had never seen such a huge variety of these toys in Singapore. They had Little Twin Stars, Snoopy and even a fortune kitty one! I didn’t get any in the end because I already have a few lying around in my house. But I was pretty tempted though.

The Hong Kongers seem to pay great importance to their desserts. I had mixed fruits…

Glutinous rice balls in mango juice. Yummy yummy yummy.

Coconut juice pudding with red beans. Wasn’t yummy. I admit it, I got this only because it looked pretty.

There were also a bunch of food stalls along the street and they sold smelly beancurd. I could smell them even as I was trying on clothes in another store. I didn’t like the smell one bit but if I was to chance upon a beancurd seller again, I should probably get some out of curiosity.

At one building, there was an entire storey dedicated to toys. But surprisingly none of them stocked any Care Bears at all. Apparently the most popular toy in Hong Kong is the Doraemon.

I went to this bubble tea café and had a chocolate mint drink. It didn’t taste as good as it looked.

Then it rained again. But I was fine with it because I had done enough shopping to keep myself satisfied. I even wanted to visit Lan Kwai Fong again but I was simply carrying too many things.

Came back with a heap of clothes, shades, and this bright red Le Coq Sportif bag. I love Le Coq Sportif! Now, I wonder how I’m gonna bring all this stuff back to Singapore?

And I turn 21 finally. Can’t say I’m too happy or sad. It’s just another day.

As for the last day in Hong Kong, I would probably take a quick trip to Macau. I just hope I don’t wake up too late again.

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In my mind I was thinking how ridiculously unlucky this was. The first day I couldn’t go to the Peak because it was raining. The second day when I made it this far, got onto the tram, and it had engine problems! I had no choice but to give the Peak a complete miss.

At the tram terminal, I ran into Henry, a South American dude from Venezuela where they have all the gorgeous beauty queens. He was also a solo traveller and didn’t know what to do in Hong Kong. So I said, let’s go take the Star Ferry to Kowloon!

The ferry ride was extremely cheap at 2.20 HKD. We got some good views of the Hong Kong skyline onboard. There’s the Hong Kong convention and exhibition centre.

And my favourite, the Bank of China tower. It’s the one with the diagonal lines and a pair of chopsticks on top.

When the ferry arrived at the Kowloon pier, I was quite amused to see that the pier had been built to look like the ferries themselves. How cute!

There was a whole bunch of shops near the pier and everywhere we went, Indians would approach and try to get henry to make suits with them. They probably saw all caucasian-looking guys as walking dollar bills.

We went to the Peninsula Hotel to take pictures, where some of the James Bond movies had been filmed. It looked really grand.

Then Henry and I parted ways as I wanted to do some shopping, while he was off to check out the Hong Kong Museum of Art. Bad move! It started raining shortly after, and he had an umbrella! I went to the Hong Kong Cultural Centre anyway. Here’s a view of the clock tower taken from the cultural centre.

There’s also a model of miniature buildings around. The cute dome shape in the bottom left is the Hong Kong space museum.

See?

I happened to pass by the Avenue of Stars then. It didn’t occur to me it was THAT nearby.

Most of the tiles on the ground didn’t have handprints on them, although they had names of famous people such as Jackie Chan.

Andy Lau

Jet Li has freakishly small hands!

Then there’s Bruce Lee who had been honoured with a star.

These placeholder tiles were reserved for Chow Yun Fat and Stephen Chow.

It was quite fun spotting those tiles. There were also these cute looking stalls selling snacks and drinks.

Views of the Hong Kong skyline from the Avenue of Stars.

Engrish! Sounded like “kill the lovely plants” to me.

I had a meal at the nearby New World Centre.

Loved the ceiling lights that kept changing colours!

I had unagi rice at a Japanese restaurant. It was yummy!

There were some interesting things on display inside New World Centre, such as live parrots and a rather adorable toucan. There were some cool vehicles too.

An old timer. Pass with care!

After that I went back to the Avenue of Stars to catch the nightly Symphony of Lights at 8pm. For that night, they had special fireworks as well. Throngs of people, Hong Kongers and tourists alike, were waiting there for it to start. The Hong Kong skyline at night was truly spectacular.

And then it rained!!! Bloody hell. Everyone had umbrellas except for me. But luckily I found shelter pretty quickly. The symphony of lights was amazing! It lasted about half an hour with plenty of fireworks bursting from all the towers, and lights dancing and everything. I don’t know how to describe it! Nor could my camera capture anything decently. But nonetheless, I’m really glad I got to witness it.

I went back to Hong Kong island and headed for Lan Kwai Fong. It’s Hong Kong’s equivalent of our Mohammad Sultan. I had some trouble finding it at first until I stumbled across a staircase with a sign that read “this way to Lan Kwai Fong — 24 hours access”. Yahoo!

I liked this “LOST” signboard because it reminded me of the TV series.

Lan Kwai Fong was crowded with people looking for a good time, mostly caucasians. There were pubs and restaurants and cafés and on the streets, there were a lot of foodstalls and mainly beer stalls. It was very cool. They sold beer cheaply and people could just grab one and go. And there was a long queue forming at this lan kwai fong beer stall. Everyone was aiming for this!

It’s a long tube container with a velcro strap around it so that people could just wear it around their neck and go. And sure enough, everyone had at least one of those around their necks. And the best thing was that it cost only 45 Hong Kong bucks. That’s less than ten Singapore dollars — very cheap for that much beer! I was queuing for it when I saw a familiar face. Henry! What are the odds man?

It was really happening there. But I couldn’t drink that much because I still needed to get back to the hotel on my own. So I hit the Starbucks for some hot mocha. The drinks here are pricier than Singapore’s.

The moment I entered Starbucks with all my beer, everyone turned to look and ask me how much it cost. I made it back to the hotel after that, with the nice beer tube container to keep as a souvenir. What a good day!

Back in my room, I found that the nice hotel people had provided weather forecast slips on my bed. Rain again for the following day. Argh!

Then, I hit the gym for an hour! How very sporty of me after all that beer and coffee. Then I realised what the true purpose of the glass shower room is. I could shower inside and watch TV at the same time. It took me more than an hour to shower because Jerry Maguire was showing. I love this room!

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When we arrived in Hong Kong, it was raining! I was quite disappointed. Somehow the summer season of Hong Kong I had pictured in my mind was all sunny and dry. And it continued to rain for the rest of the day. It would rain for ten minutes, then stop for ten minutes, and rain for another ten minutes, and the cycle repeats itself. My plan was to go visit the Peak, and that had to be scrapped.

My hotel room at Le Meridien is awesome. It is super clean and I don’t think I would have any trouble falling asleep at night.

The coolest part of the room has got to be the shower. It’s all glass so people in the room would be able to see you showering. How kinky! Of course, I’m staying here alone. I like it because when I’m showering, I can look at my laptop from where I am, and see if anyone has sent me a message.

And of course, there’s the plasma TV and free internet access. I flew into frenzy this afternoon when I couldn’t get connected. But managed to fix it in the end.

Strawberries and tea…

That’s about it. I decided to go check out Causeway Bay and do some shopping. It was Friday evening so the area was very crowded. And yeah Hong Kongers walk fast all right. They also tend to be attractive and well-dressed.

So it was street after street of shopping centres and I couldn’t even keep track of all their names. Most of the smaller ones looked similar. Many neon signs and colourful signboards too.

And there’s World Trade Centre which looked quite striking.

There were also a lot of people crowding around this pet shop in a street corner that sold puppies. It was the only pet shop I had seen so far.

For dinner I didn’t have much of a choice since every other place was super crowded and people were forming long queues everywhere. I ate at this UCC coffee place inside sogo. Coffee plus chocolate French toast.

Then the rain came AGAIN when I was hitting the streets. I noticed Hong Kongers all carry umbrellas with them. I had to seek shelter at Timesquare. It’s a huge shopping mall with pretty much the exact same brands you find in Singapore at the same prices. Anyway there was a denim jeans exhibition going on at Timesquare which I thought was quite cool. They had faces of famous people painted on the jeans.

Here’s Leonardo da Vinci.

Sun Yat-Sen

Bruce Lee

At the end of the shopping trip I got this Precious Moment musical ornament for my room…

…and this diamante gourd pendant I had always wanted.

Let’s pray that it doesn’t rain anymore and it’ll be a more fruitful day tomorrow. Wish me luck!

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