HK: Random Shots

I wanted to take lots of photos during this trip, since it’s our first trip abroad as a family. And to that end, I even got myself a decent camera. Hihi. :D

Goofing around the train station

Super clean! It's an old coach but look how spotless!

We found a nice little resto (sadly, I forgot the name) a few meters from our hotel which served yummy noodles and dimsum. And most importantly, chicken (the brat would not eat any other dish except if it has chicken)!

Soo cute. I still can't believe this cute boy is mine. Hahaha. So cute several tourists would approach him and smile at him, and I would overhear some of them commenting how cute he is. I therefore conclude Joey's cuteness is universal.

Loved this meal! I think it's one of the best we had during this trip.

I didn’t get to shop (ridiculous, but true) but we did manage to get some trinkets at Disneyland (more out of necessity – had to buy the umbrella and rain coat since it was raining cats and dogs when we arrived, and had to buy the sunglasses for Joey on our last day). Our total purchases entitled us to get the cup and saucer at almost 70% off, so we got those too.

The train stations are very clean and have decent stores (unlike here in Manila, where everything is mucky in the train stations), and we found some really cool cakes:

I would have bought this, if I thought we could eat it. But, we're not big cake fans.

Yellow love!

On our last day, hubby insisted on going to this obscure Catholic bookstore. I’m glad we did though, coz we found an exorcist book which I am dying to read (hubby’s taking forever!) and look who else we saw on a side street?

Jollibee! Of course, it was full of Pinoys inside (although I spied a couple of Caucasians as well)

Right along the corner from the jolly little bee, is BDO. Too bad, you can't withdraw from this bank using PH atms (we tried our BPI atms and they didn't work)

We weren’t planning on going anywhere after that, but figured, why waste our last day in HK? So off we went to the Peak Tram to ride the steep funicular.

 

Here it comes!

Standing room only. Good thing hubby and I were fast enough to grab seats.

Didn’t really want to go to the wax museum, so we just walked around and headed back to our hotel (it was super hot that day, I got sunburns!), but not before a glimpse of this:

View of the city from the peak

Spent three hours waiting for the symphony of lights, which turned out to be a waste – it was way simpler than from our trip in 2010. I was actually disappointed as only a handful of buildings had dancing and laser lights. And it seems the San Miguel Corp sign on top of one of the buildings had been taken down as well.

The view was still marvellous, though:

Pirate ship? We should have just taken a cruise.

Couldn't resist adding some sunset glow to the photo. Taken using my trusty iphone.

The HK harbour

Til our next trip (the brat and I are already planning on another Disneyland escapade on his birthday)!

Ocean Park

One of our last stops during our family vacation in Hongkong was Ocean Park. The boybie and I had a somewhat funny exchange on our last day at Disneyland hotel, as I was telling him we were transferring to another hotel.

Joey: Mom, why do we have to transfer to another hotel? I like it here, I want to stay here.

Me: You want to stay here forever?

Joey: Not forever. I still want to go home. But maybe a hundred days. 

Me: We have to move to another hotel because this one is too far. We’re going to Ocean Park tomorrow.

Joey: But mom! I didn’t ask to go to Ocean Park! I only want to go to Disneyland! Why did you plan on going to Ocean Park???

Fine. So I forgot to consult the five year old when I was drafting our itinerary. :D

Anyway, all was forgotten when Joey saw the our ride: a double decker bus! We don’t have this in the Philippines (saying it out loud, Joey-style) and in fact, Joey only rode a bus once for his field trip so this is a new experience for him.

This is not the exact same bus we took (this one's on display at the Ocean Park) but looks quite about the same.

A little mishap almost prevented us from getting into the park. See, I booked all our park tickets (Disney and Ocean Park) via asiatravel.com and our hotel rooms via agoda.com (for the Luxe Manor) and the Disneyland website (for the Disney Resort Hotel). But it seems that while I got the confirmation voucher for Ocean Park, it didn’t have the barcode that the park needed. And horror of horrors – it was a holiday in HK that day so I couldn’t reach our travel agent. A good thing that I know for a fact that Asiatravel has offices in Manila so after several phone calls, emails, and internet browsing (and yeah, I got the shock of my life when I got home to a Php21,000 Globe cellphone bill - I should have just bought new tickets instead of making those calls), I was finally able to get our precious tickets. Perhaps a tiny mishap but it almost ruined my birthday! Thanks to the Manila office and the park’s very attentive and nice guest relations officers, we managed to salvage half of the day.

Finally!

I had only three goals at the Ocean Park: see the pandas, ride the cable car (had wanted to try Ngong Ping but we didn’t want to move around too much, so had to nix that off the itinerary), and ride the hot air balloon. Well, the last one was a no-go (sadly; guess I’ll have to squeeze in that DHL hot air balloon next time) but I can finally cross off the pandas from my to do list. :D

This one beats all the other cable cars rides I've taken. The view was breath taking.

We only had to wait ten minutes or so for our turn. Wanted the yellow car but had to settle for a red one.

The park's revolving tower, where guests can get 360 degree views of the area while sitting comfortably in an airconditioned room

Hongkong’s harbours are very beautiful, whichever side you’re on.

View from the cable car

View from the tower

And yet another view

And another...

Going on the park tower was a nice touch as it afforded us a great view of the park, the harbour, the islets, and the endless ocean, all while seated inside this huge revolving room.

We saw this from afar but it looked too scary - look at those legs dangling from midair!

We wanted to ride the boat thing (forgot what it was called) and were prepared to get wet, but the line was too long and our legs weren’t up to it. A good thing we found a spot where passersby can use water guns to drench those in the boats.

Joey had a blast shooting the boats. haha!

Our last stop was the aquarium and the pandas, which were close to the entrance gates.

By far, Joey's favorite among the bunch. Fish he dubbed the squishies.

Went by several souvenir shops but didn’t find anything I liked (except the panda stuffed toys, but an officemate had already given me one).

A juggler outside the aquarium

Pandas!

There were many rides and attractions at the park, but most of them were for adults (read: nauseating and scary) and well, I am not a big fan of those so we just took pictures, roamed around, and called it a day. 

But not before having our photo taken just a few meters from the gates (and quite coerced into buying snow globes and key chains with our faces on it). Well, might as well get a couple for souvenir right? :D