Hong Kong - Day 1.

Today has been one of the longest day I've had in a while !

Here goes.

I had to wake up at 3am to get ready and make sure that everything was packed. We left the house at about 4am and headed for the airport. The check-in queue wasn't too bad. I then had a quick puff outside before proceeding to the departure hall. Our mission was to head to DFS to get a carton of cigarettes, but check this, the law is the same as Singapore. You are not allowed to bring any cigarettes into the country ! And I thought Singapore was bad, hahaha ! On the way to our gate, we made a quick detour to the smoking area for a cheeky smoke.

And here's a special thank you to Kimberly, who came to see me off during her break time. I just love that girl so much !

So about approximately 4 hours later, we arrived at Hong Kong international airport.

We got our bags in no time. We had planned to take a taxi to the hotel but we couldn't find the taxi stand and there weren't any signs - not that we could see anyway. Somehow we landed ourselves right in front of the train station and we were quite tempted to take train, but we didn't in the end. So we finally managed to find the taxi stand which was quite a distance away. It's quite amusing how they split into 3 different areas. The red was for the area where our hotel was, green was for Central Hong Kong whilst blue was for around the airport, or so we were told.

The journey from the airport to our hotel took about a surprising 20 minutes. It was a little cheaper than we had anticipated as well, so that was a plus.

We left our bags with left baggage and immediately went to have lunch as we were starving by then. I really wanted to have dim sum, and we were directed to the building opposite our hotel.

The building looked really crappy from the outside, but the restaurant's entrance was grand !

Here are photos from lunch.

I've always been a big fan of dim sum, but this was on a whole new level. My dim sum experience has always been in Singapore and in London ( and don't be surprised, but the dim sum in London is way better than in Singapore ). It was my first time having dim sum in Hong Kong and I felt like was in heaven.

I honestly don't know how to describe what was different about the same dishes that I order in Singapore and in Hong Kong, they're just a million times amazing here in Hong Kong. And I found my new favorite baked pork buns. They're just full on mouth orgasms ! I just can't think of any other way to express how I felt when I first took a bite into those buns.

After lunch, I took my grand-mother back to the hotel to let her rest. After she was settled in, I went to recce the area around us. My first mission was to look for the train station which proved difficult to find. I went ahead with this hotel as it stated that we were 8 minutes away from the nearest station. After asking about 5 different people, I managed to find it. I got a little worried as it was a long distance away for my grand-mother to walk.

So worries aside, my second mission, to find out what shopping we had around us. The other reason why we booked this hotel, was that it was located near the famous ladies market, which I found after walking blindly. I managed to get back to the hotel after walking random alleys somehow.

I had already pre-planned a brief itinerary before we came and on it was symphony of lights. The show was at 8pm so I wanted to make sure that we wouldn't be late. I had a craving for sushi, so the first place that popped up in my mind was Itacho sushi - for all of you out there who don't know, Hong Kong is where it originated ! After google-ling for a fairly long time, we came to a conclusion that wasn't any near Tsim sha sui, where the show was.

We then hopped onto a taxi and decided to look for something nearby to have dinner. To be totally honest with you, after alighting, I felt like a lost sheep. We didn't know which direction to walk. So we just chose a path and walked in. We were in a high class street with no restaurants in sight. We almost had to settle for McDonald's when suddenly we saw a plainly printed sheet with Spaghetti house on it. And that was what we settled for.

And here are photos from dinner.

Dinner turned out to be quite pleasant in the end, except for that smoked salmon that we had to share. Smoked salmon is one of my favorite dishes, but this was disgusting. It didn't taste anything near what smoked salmon should taste like !

So with 20 minutes left to spare before the show started, we quickly made our way there.

We managed to make it in time and managed to a photo before the show had begun.

And here's one in the midst of the show.

Shall I tell you what I thought of the whole thing ?

Basically, I was really excited before it started. But less than 2 minutes into it, I got bored. Apart from the pretty lighting, which pretty much kept repeating itself but in different colors and the cheesy music, there wasn't much else. The whole show lasted about 10 minutes. The first few minutes was definitely a wow factor and then you end up thinking, how long more till it ends. I wasn't the only one who thought this way, there were lots of people who left halfway through. I would of done the same if my grand-mother was there with me ! But please, it's only my opinion. If you do visit Hong Kong, just visit this attraction for once in your life. It's free to view anyway !

After the show had ended, we strolled along the habour where the 'Avenue of star's' were. It was just flooded with people. But since we had lots of time to spare, we just took it slow.

We took lots and lots of photos but here are a selected few !

We decided to head back to our area to do some shopping using the train. We could see signs everywhere leading us to the station so we thought it was fairly near, but it took us a good 20 minutes to get to the entrance of the station. When we finally arrived, we couldn't see the ticketing machine or the gantries. Again we had to walk. We finally found the control station but he wasn't very friendly. But at that point, I couldn't care less. So after speaking to him, we bought our tickets and headed for the green line. We walked and walked and walked for about half an hour when we finally arrived at the entrance of the green line. Just imagine this. My legs were starting to feel sore, just imagine how my grand-mother felt ! In the end, we made a detour and made my grand-mother climb the final longest steps of the day and we took a taxi back to the hotel instead. Whatever energy she had left for shopping was all drained now.

After I settled my grand-mother down, I went for a walk to familiarize myself with the area a little more.

And now, I can finally have a nice long sleep.

P.S : You can view the full album on facebook.