Hong Kong

It’s been a while since we last went on a trip together especially after the opening of Sabroso. So I thought it would be nice to go on a short trip to Hong Kong, a country that we both have not been during the long weekend in conjunction with the Queen’s birthday.

For me, who grew up watching a lot of Hong Kong dramas, listening to Jacky Cheung, Aaron Kwok, Anita Mui, Leon Lai etc.. And going to a country that speaks my language and the origin of my all time favorite ‘Yin Yang tea’ excites me lots.

But Hong Kong ended up to be quite a let down.

We stayed at Yau Ma Tei area in Kowloon. The area was full of local eateries, shops selling medicine, dried food, clothing, cosmetic.. With huge neon signage that comes to life in the evening. Think of it like as huge china town and you’ll get what I mean.

The food in Hong Kong was a disappointment. And after a while we agree that Mc Donald’s and Burger King would be a better choice for our palette.

Before going to Hong Kong, one of the thing that I really looked forward to was the tea restaurant (known as Cha Chan Teng) which the locals frequent during breakfast. So I foursquared and found this Mido cafe from the 50s which received quite good ratings.

We ordered the famous French toast, pineapple po lou bun, beef Minnesota soup, vegetable stir fried noodle, braised pork in tomato gravy and yin yang tea.

The bill came up to approx $215 HKD with is close to RM90. Honestly the food and drink was really bland… And I would say that Malaysian Chinese food and Teh Tarik is so much more better compare to these…

When I learned that Hong Kong is the land of 7/11, I got really excited. Probably because I am spoiled in Bangkok for the variety of stuff that they sell in 7/11 with very very cheap price. But Hong Kong turned out to be a disappointment again… The 7/11 was extremely small and food items were like 3-4 times more expensive. For example, a box or Pokky cost about $20HKD which is RM8 where in

Bangkok it is only RM1 or RM1.50. And a small sandwich is $12HKD which is RM5.

I was ready to splurge in Hong Kong. Bu when it comes to shopping, the only thing(s) I bought was a stethoscope at a local pharmacy, Nioxin shampoo, a Longchamp bag, a novel by Khalid Hosseini, and two chocolate bar at the airport. Temple street where most people raved about was a disappointment. Nothing much to see and buy, I think I’ll have better luck at Patpong night market.

The other touristy thing that we did was taking a stroll along Avenue of Stars along the Victoria Harbour waterfront in Tsim Sha Tsui, in a sea of very loud mainland Chinese.

We also stayed for the Symphony of Lights, a 15 minutes display of coloured lights and laser beams involving 40 buildings from both sides of the harbour. Sad to say, I wasn’t really impressed.

In all…I didn’t quite enjoy Hong Kong. It didn’t wow me like how I expected it to be.

But I did enjoy the time spent with Jorge and little Jorgito, whom behaved really well during the entire trip 😀