We are back again..

Has been busy with all wedding stuff.

Bridal Shoe custom made :)

Will look something like this:

And today went down to select the gown too.!

Very limited choice la (To me) Not because they are moving but really LIMITED.

Total of 5 gown (Bridal and Evening)

1st time to HK... My baby's 2nd time though. So it is her who is "bringing" me to HK!

Day 1

The flight is scheduled at 0800H. So we had to be very very early in order to check in on time. But my dear Baby... as blur as ever... brought me to the wrong terminal. What a good start to a trip! Haha... But it also gave me a chance to take the skytrain from Terminal 2 to terminal 1! Anyway we were early so it was all right. Then she provided me with the 2nd blunder of the day when she brought me to the wrong check in counter. Well... guess it means I better be familiar with the HK map myself?

The plane trip was all right, with a reasonable breakfast and even some local newspapers for us to read when we boarded the plan. So spend the 4 hours journey between sleeping, reading the papers and eating.

Clearing the HK customs wasn't really a joy, the queue was quite long and it looks messy as the queues are all winding. After passing through, found that I appreciate the "gathering pt" that was set up for passengers to locate their travel agencies agents. It was easy to find our agent who later directed us to the vehicle which brought us to the hotel.

She had quite abit of grumble abt the hotel... but well, as what I kept emphasized, we'll not be in the room for most of the time other than sleeping. So not really much pt to get a better room or better hotel. But when even I had issues with the hotel... guess that it is really not so good? 1. They gave us the wrong type of room when we indicated specifically during the booking with the travel agency. While I can't be sure who made the mistake, I'll expect the hotel to rectify the problem with some form of apologies. But them seem quite nonchalant abt it and took their time. 2. Toothbrush and toothpaste was missing from the room.

After finally settling down, we took the MTR to find the Le Cha Xuan that was listed in one of the books. Their MTR is similar to our MRT, with some special features such as the jing ying section which I guess ppl are asked not to speak loudly on their mobiles? There is also a VIP section where there is larger leg space... which obviously cost higher than the normal fare.

Took some time to locate the shop... but I took it as walking along the Hong Kong Streets. HK is a very interesting place. High rise modern buildings can be built alongside old run down buildings. The contrast is quite drastic. In Sg, such buildings are probably clustered together by themselves. Well... HK is much much bigger and harder to manage?

Back to the shop. Baby told me the shop number is 90. So we stepped into the shop 90 which is a tea shop. But the only problem is... the title of the shop is not what we looking for. The shop assistant was very hospitable. So we spent some time inside the shop looking ard... But I kept thinking something was wrong as I did walk pass a tourist holding on to a Le Cha Xuan bag. So we decided to leave the shop for awhile to "consider", while I verify the address with baby. Apparently... my baby didn't tell me there is a B to the shop number... i.e. 90B. Interestingly, the shop is located a the side walk, not very prominent (especially compare to no.90). The shop assistant also appeared not very interested to serve us, other than serving us a cup of tea after we entered the shop. We ended buying a tea set. (Afternote: We had tea for 3 days in the week we came back... see how long we can last :> )

Spend the night of the 1st day at the Nu Ren Jie. It is a long stretch of road where vendors sell a number of stuff, apperently mostly targetted at tourists. It is quite similar to our flea market... But really need to be aware of how they quote the price. There was one shop who quoted us 30HKD for a magnet, which she later offered to us at 5HKD. Also saw a couple of ugly scenes of vendors appearing angry after tourists decided not to buy after bargaining.

Before I missed out, baby brought me to a famous dessert store selling mainly mango desserts. The queue was... horrible. That's the most appropriate word in my limited vocab. The queue for takeover is like a queue to snatch freebies! There was basically no queue as pple squeeze towards the counter to have their order heard. The shop was also like a war zone as the staff were running in and out to prepare and sell the mango drinks... Thankfully we found a seat inside the shop and simply took our time looking at the scene. Shld have taken a photo.. damn...

Day 2.

Join the complimentary half day city tour in the morning. Other than mandatory tips to the tour guide and driver, we also had to pay for the dim sum breakfast and chinese lunch. The itinerary included Repulse Bay, Aberdeen fishing village, Victoria peak, jewellery factory and chinese herb shop.

I must say I'm quite impressed with how the tour agency runs this "complimentary" city tour. Leaving aside the possible commission they earn by bringing tourists to the venues, the tour guides sell local delicacy on board the bus. They show a list of local delicacies from a famous shop and promises to deliver to the hotel the night before departure. Sounds like great service right? Most were enticed to it, including us. They also provided souvenirs from Disney land for sale on the bus. Futhermore, they'll put photos taken into a plate-like souvenir, which u will feel bad to not buy it when they have already made it.

The jewellery factory was a interesting experience. They have an introductory breifing, which they will introduce the key items for sale. Their most popular item is this "4 leaf" like thingy. At the start of the introduction, the breifer stated that there will be a free gift who the person who could ans a question. Ended up... guess who answered the question? Me! Thanks to my years of schooling, I managed to easily spot the question during the breifing, as such I answered the question with ease. But again, it's another brilliant money-earning act... as the gift was a "gem", which they offered to mount it on a ring for a discounted price. Of coz... I told the "gem" without the ring... since it was for fun.

Other interesting places included the repulse bay where there were many statues. We went to touch the god of fortune and walked past the longevity bridge...

After the half day tour, we walked around in Tsim Tsai Tsui before going to Tung Chung as recommended highly by SL. The place feels like IMM, with all the shops being factory outlets and crowded with ppl.

Next we went to the shopping centre beside Kwai Fung MTR, which was recommeded by our tour guide as the "local" shopping centre. There were 2 attached shopping centres, one was to the more high end crowd and the other to the general public. We went to the other, which is quite similar to our far east plaza with lots of shops selling clothes and other stuff for the young. Baby bought some clothes while I enjoyed some local snacks... haha. We even walked out of the shopping centre to walk along side the streets, where activities are still aplenty with shops selling all sorts of stuff. Bought a bowl of herbal soup from a stall... which I must say... powerful. Now that I think of it... my starting to pain throat didn't give me any issues after that.

Day 3.

Spend most of day 3 looking walking around in town and buying the local delicacies to bring home. It was a Mon morning... but it still seem to be like a weekend as the streets was still full of ppl. But we did get to see the delivery men and all the other workers working!

Just before departing for the airport, we shopped at the shopping level below the hotel. Interestingly, we found imitations of the "4 leaf" jewellery that I mentioned earlier. So bought a number as souvenirs for our family... haha...

Back to the HK airport and returned quite reluctantly... The flight was delayed by approx 40 min, which gave us abit more time to do some shopping at the airport. Bought the roasted goose rice in case baby didn't like the plane dinner (first time I tried it!).

Reached Sg at 0100H... and I had to work the following day... OMG!

James (will blog more later on the trip k?)