Travel Blog: Hong Kong Macau Trip Day 5, 香港澳门之旅第五天, 6 Aug 11

Hong Kong Macau Trip Day 1: 2nd August 2011, Saturday
香港澳门之旅第五天：8月6日2011年, 星期六

It's the fifth day already!?

We had free breakfast again. This time we ordered different sets from the previous day. Some fruit platter and another is parfait set. Really have nothing else to say except it's AWESOME! Really recommend this hotel if you don't mind the obscurity of the place.

A healthy fruit platter to start off Day 5!


Parfait for the health-conscious.

We went to look for another place recommended by Nut Nut, located in Mongkok. In fact we had wanted to go for this dim sum restaurant on the previous night, however it was too late by the time we reached the restaurant. It closes at 9:30pm.

We reached at around 1:30pm and were told that we had to wait up to 3pm to get a seat. WTH!? We immediately dumped the idea of having dim sum there and opted for 稻香 again.

Here's the address if you wanna try out. Be there (extremely) early!

添好運點心專門店
旺角廣華街2號

We went to the same place again. This time no doubt we were in time for their dim sum menu. But problem was, the restaurant was full house and we had to wait for a while to get our table. We shared our table with an old couple, as well as four other ladies.

And so we ordered so many items that we end up dabao-ing some of them hahaha. But the food was indeed so good that we did not regret ordering so many different items.

桂花红豆糕。 This is GOOD!


马蹄糕拼萝卜糕


香麻叉烧酥。 正点!


Dear's favourite is carrot cake so she ordered four more pieces of this 香煎萝卜糕.
And she ate all of them! O_O


松软叉烧包 - good, 香滑奶皇包 - sux, 稻香鲜虾饺 - good


上汤小笼包


翡翠叉烧肠

What a scrumptious meal. Almost couldn't walk after that. We then made our way back to the hotel to grab our luggage. Had to take this special arrangement of bus service because part of the MTR line was disrupted due to some construction going on. Interesting experience eh? I believe we were also captured on TV because there were cameramen shooting passengers taking this free service. OMG we're overnight celebrities lol.

Of all times they had to do this during our short trip in HK lol.


The westernmost station on Hong Kong Island was closed for renovation/construction.

From our hotel, we walked a distance to the Macau Ferry Terminal. It was part of my plan to take this hotel since it's within walkable distance of the ferry terminal. Did not expect it to be such a chore since I had to pull our 20-kg luggage across several streets, up the stairs, across an overhead bridge, to reach the terminal. Felt like I did some strenuous exercise. But all was good and we got our tickets to the ferry to Macau almost immediately when we reached the ticket counter.

Before long, we hopped onto the ferry bound for Macau and were ready to say goodbye to lovely Hong Kong.

Hotel De Edge By Rhombus as pointed by the black arrow.


The cityscape of Macau is so alluring.

And within one hour, we reached Macau!

Took the free shuttle service from the ferry to our hotel, Metropark Hotel, within 10-15 mins.

In fact, most of the hotels in Macau surely has some free shuttle service to the ferry. So you can hop onto any service if you wanna go anywhere near those hotels.

We checked into our hotel and was told that since we went for the 2 + 1 room, cos that was the cheaper alternative to the available rooms when I made the online reservation, the concierge guy offered to change to this superior room with just a king-size bed with a large living room. Since we don't need the third bed, so we decided to go for this exchange. And it was a pleasant surprise. The room was really one of the biggest in the hotel. Comes with everything you need, as well as a TV area big enough to place two mahjong tables.

Super comfy bed.


Nice interiors.


The wardrobe has every standard thing.


Large TV area with a big sofa and side lamp.


We were watching Channel News Asia lol.


All the controls for the lighting, music, air-con etc.


Even comes with a free soft toy bear bearing the words "Special For You 为您而设".

It was rather late already by the time we settled down. We then walked along the streets of Macau to admire the beauty of the hotels and casinos. By the time we finished the tour, it was probably 10+pm. There wasn't much places to choose from for dinner by that time, so we went for a restaurant called 鼎泰丰 (not the restaurant chain in Singapore) near our hotel which sells really Chinese cuisine. Not very nice, so not worth mentioning.

Went to check out a few other casinos before calling it a day. Shagged! Needed a good night's sleep to chiong the rest of Macau on the following day.

For a list of the hotels available for booking in Hong Kong via Agoda.com, click here.
To make a hotel booking at Hotel de Edge by Rhombus, click here.

For a list of the hotels available for booking in Macau via Agoda.com, click here.
To make a hotel booking at Metropark Hotel, click here.

Links to my Hong Kong Macau Trip 2011
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 6
Day 7
Souvenirs

Read More

Travel Blog: Hong Kong Macau Trip Day 1, 香港澳门之旅第一天, 2 Aug 11

Hong Kong Macau Trip Day 1: 2nd August 2011, Tuesday
香港澳门之旅第一天：8月2日2011年, 星期二

We woke up at 4:30am to take cab to Budget Terminal, wacauz damn early. But reach there already got long queue checking in zzz. Had to wait like 30 mins to do check-in.

Then it's McDonald's breakfast! Always the same routine. Check-in, McBreakfast.

Then it's an almost 4 hours flight to Hong Kong. It's both our first time taking a plane to HK. The last time I went was via ferry from Macau. Dear was busy snapping pix of clouds throughout the flight while I was trying to doze off on the journey.

Momorange's first overseas trip, and on a plane.


Touchdown!

Woohoo HK! Doesn't feel much different from Singapore cos the weather is freaking hot! We checked-out and went to get the Airport Express. Didn't know there was a 2-person special package to Kowloon station for only HK$140. Their website says HK$95 for a ticket only. Nevertheless it's a good thing they recommended this package so we took it and went to take the express train. Cool! Another new experience.

The special package for 2-person single journey tickets on the Airport Express to Kowloon station HK$140 for 2 persons.


On our way to Kowloon station. The train feels like a bullet train in Japan.


Tired and hungry.

Once we reached Kowloon station, we were at this shopping centre called ELEMENTS. Decided to try out this Japanese restaurant for our first taste of HK. Not very appropriate but it's the one of the best around we could find to fill our empty stomachs.

First meal in HK. Japanese restaurant! LOL... It's Ippei'an at ELEMENTS in Kowloon.


Jap food can never go wrong.


Ramen!


And more ramen!


Some chicken don.


We'll get our dim sum in HK soon. For now any food will do.

Then we took the free airport shuttle to our hotel. They had like 5 different routes going to different parts of HK, visiting several hotels. So convenient. Ours was K5 and we were headed for Royal Plaza Hotel.

Free shuttle service K5 to our hotel, Royal Plaza Hotel, at Mongkok East station.

Ours was the last stop for this service, so it's a pretty long ride. Once we reached the hotel, we checked in to it and initially got a room at level 18. The moment we entered the room, there was a strong cigarette smell, which prompted us to request for a change of room. They gave us a room on the 19th floor instead. Room 1903. It's a pretty weird architecture cos the main lift stops at level 18 and we had to climb stairs, walking past the level 19 reception area, to our floor. 19 and above are executive rooms. Probably for the added security? Quite stupid...no lift serving our floor. Nevertheless, the view we saw when we entered the room was splendid.

Fwah got ourselves an executive room in this 5-star hotel.


Very spacious room and has everything we need.


Time to take a nap first before we embark on our HK tour.

It was almost 3:30pm by the time we settled down, and the first thing I wanna do was to SLEEP! We took a roughly two hour nap before we headed off for our tour of HK.

First up on our itinerary was to look for this famous dim sum restaurant called 稻香 recommended by Nut Nut. Had no problem looking for this place cos I have done intensive research on how to get there. It's located on level 3 of Carnavon Plaza. Once we reached there we were told that dim sum ends at 4pm! Didn't think that they would end dim sum at such a timing. We reached at 7pm or so. Therefore we had no choice but to try out their dinner menu. They recommended this 2-person set meal consisting of melon soup and mixed meats. The soup was awesome and gave us a good cooling down to prepare us for the heat we're gonna get in the next few days.

稻香
香港九龍尖沙咀加拿芬道20號加拿芬廣場3樓
營業時間：早上7:30 - 凌晨1:00
電話：2367 1328
傳真：2367 9176

First stop is Chinese restaurant 稻香. Dim sum ends at 4pm, therefore we had no choice but to get a 2-person set of mixed meat.


Comes with winter melon soup. Sweet, nutritious and cooling soup to remove the heatiness in us.


In fact I believe this big pot of soup can feed at least 6 people ahaha.


We still managed to finish everything. Burp!


Yes it's situated in Carnavon Plaza near Tsim Sha Tsui station.

I'm pretty sure the pot of soup was meant for 4-6 people. We finished up the whole pot and almost couldn't walk! But it was really nice and too wasted if we din finish it. After the dinner, we shopped around the area and at the nearby Sogo and then walked to the Avenue of Stars for the Symphony of Lights at 9pm.

An ad featuring the beautiful Linda Chung.


Streets in HK, so full of energy.


And here we are at the Avenue of Stars. Just love the lighting in this pic.


Dear is now a movie star!


Oh oh dear get out of there!


Momo high-5s the golden pig.


Momo gets a star of her own.

After the picture-taking session along the Avenue of Stars, we took a train to Mongkok area and visited one of the night markets around the place. Pretty much the same "pirated" stuff we see in other night markets around the world.

Went to one of the many night markets near TST.

Decided to drop by this place. There was quite a queue outside so we thought the desserts should be real good. We ordered just the green bean with beancurd and to our disappointment, it wasn't as good as we thought. What's with the long queue?

Decided to get a dessert after walking such a long distance. Not very nice lol.


Yea it's called Lucky Dessert. And always full house. Wonder what's so nice sia.

After the dessert, we slowly made our way back to Grand Century Place, the shopping centre in which our hotel was sort of connected to it. It had an exit which leads directly to the lounge of our hotel. Very convenient hotel.

So that wraps up the end of Day 1 of HK/Macau tour! More tiring days to come lol.

For a list of the hotels available for booking in Hong Kong via Agoda.com, click here.
To make a hotel booking at Royal Plaza Hotel, click here.

Links to my Hong Kong Macau Trip 2011
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Souvenirs

Read More