another trip to civilization

Ed and Ray muz be damn happy to read my blog coz it’s like I am giving them a pre-exchange recce from my trips to HK. I think I’ve really fallen in love with HK. But then again, that’s not hard considering I’ve been in recluse from civilization in an ulu part of Shenzhen.

Ok ok I know what many of you are thinking. “ULU? YOU CALL YOUR PART OF SHENZHEN ULU?” I can just hear my fellow intern Yi Yong, who is at Jiaxing, screaming into my ear. Chill chill, I dun mean recluse from civilization as recluse from people per se. I’m in the home of 1 billion people, trust me when I say there are more than enough people around here. When I say “civilization” I’m really referring to a more refined culture. In Hong Kong, the streets are clean (Susanna might think otherwise but dun bother about her, she hasn’t been to my side of PRC so she has no idea what she’s talking about…), the people are friendly, knowledgeable and can speak decent English/Chinese.

This trip I played my cards a little different from the previous one. Sue’s mum was in town at the same time so I didn’t think it would be nice to impose myself on her. Plus, my Filipino colleague, Philip, wanted to recce HK as well coz his relatives would be going there next month.

That’s me and Philip on the KCR to Hong Kong. We reached East Tsim Sha Tsui where the hostel we booked was at a tad early, so we decided to go for some breakfast at a 茶餐厅 (Tea-meal restaurant). The wanton mee we ordered was fantastic, and I got to chat with a family of Singaporeans as well. Listening to Singlish once again was like music to my ears, but I guess it’s just me. I didn’t bother to take pictures of the wanton mee lah. I mean come on, we have wanton mee at every hawker and food court, here was not very much dinner. Then again, it’s nice to have wanton mee again. I’ve been eating way too much Chinese 快餐 (fast food). Philip got a real taste of how expensive HK is. The bill came up to HKD$62 for 2 persons, when he thought it was HKD$26 – which is what we’re used to paying in Shenzhen. That’s the price of civilization I guess.

We then went to check in at our hostel which I managed to book online and here’s what it looked like:

Ok I wasn’t too disappointed. The mattress was slightly shorter than me, so Peter Crouch would’ve had a problem. Then again, if I’m Crouch then all the ang mos staying at the hostel were Yao Ming (more on Yao Ming later). And this is the toilet:

Ok the toilet is really small but I was oredi mentally prepared from my last visit to Sue’s place. At least it had hot water. Anyway, Philip and I had no intention to stay in the hostel much. We were only there for 2D1N and we wanted to make the most of it.

So after checking in, we immediately set off to Victoria’s Peak! I knew Madame Tussaud’s was there so I really wanted to go there. Plus it was the highest point of HK so it promised to have a wicked view. When we reached there we were quite shock at how long the tram queue was. After half an hour queuing half the way under the hot sun a lady gave us a pamphlet and told us if we wanted to go Madame Tussaud’s we could buy a combo ticket and could jump to the front of the queue. Great. Buay hiao zar gong lor (DUNNO HOW TO SAY EARLIER)! So we bought the ticket and I took a pic of myself and Li Ka-Shing!

So this is the dude that donated $10m for the SMU library huh? More famous people later. But first, this is how HK looks like from the Peak:

Cool huh? Ok lah, I wish the lighting was nicer, but then again I have a idiot-proof camera and not one of those fancy DSLRs. Even if the lighting was better my camera wouldn’t have captured it. You gotta be there to see it for yourself.

We came down and went to Madame Tussaud’s (side note: Ray-Ed-JH, remember the “Madame Tussaud’s” we saw outside Zouk in year 1? Hahaha…) Starting the ball rolling is Michelle Yeo!

The Jay Chou was damn disappointing. He didn’t even look like the real deal.

Here’s me acting like a wannabe with Jay’s Piano.

Me and Hugh Grant.

Leslie Cheung.

George W. Bush at his stupidest.

Saddam agrees with me.

And Albert Einstein thinks so too.

Here’s me acting all espionagey with Pierce Brosnan.

This is my favourite part. I was trying to be Tony Leung a la Infernal Affairs (insert your preferred number here).

Here are my mug shots.

Think Andy Lau was one of the best statues liao.

Then I started to get in the mood for love. First with Leon Lai…

Then with Bae Yong Jun.

I must miss my baby too much. Here’s my pathetic attempt on blocking Yao Ming’s shot. It was apparently his real height and I was already tip-toeing. The dude is about twice my height lah!

Beckham looked plasticky.

And I pretended to be Tiger Woods’ caddy. My dad would be so proud!

Me and Michael when he was still blackish.

Madonna’s boobs were asking for this pic.

I dinch touch it lah ok? Teresa Teng. She kinda looked like…

Miriam Yeung! I took this one for my baby, coz she’s such a fan.

And finally no Chinese Madame Tussaud’s visit would be complete without a pic with the legendary Bruce Lee!

We came back down from the Peak and admired the sky scrapers, but one particular one caught my eye:

It got me all nostalgic as I suddenly remembered watching TVB dramas and people bashing down doors shouting “香港ICAC!!!” Ok lah, dun mind me. Anyway, we were ready for some shopping, so we headed for Times Square. I figured if there’s a Times Square in the country you’ve got to see it right? So we went.

Times Square was disappointing. Let’s just say the shopping there is ssooooooo out of our range. You want original branded goods, Times Square is the place for you. But but but, all was not lost because we had KRISPY KREME!

After more hype than Shevchenko going to Chelsea I finally got my hands on some of their doughnuts. Honestly, I think they’re a little over-rated. Tastes like normal doughnuts nia mah. Except it’s got like fancy toppings. Luckily we didn’t have to queue AT ALL for it. Ok lah, they didn’t flop like Shevchenko. Maybe more like Ballack.

We decided we weren’t going to buy anything at Times Square unless we were Paris Hilton, so we gave up and went back to Tsim Sha Tsui. There we walked along Nathan Road (lots of shops there) and found our way to the Temple Street Market. Ok granted we were a little too early since it was a night market after all and when we reached it was 4pm, but there wasn’t really anything much for us and you sensed you had to bargain really hard to make any purchase worth it since it was all fake stuff. So we left for a late afternoon siesta back the hostel.

When we came back out, it was to meet Sue and her mum to watch the Symphony of Lights show at the Star Ferry Terminal. Here are some pics that I took of the night skyline.

The show was not bad, though it was a tad short. Basically the lights of the different buildings would light up in different colours and patterns according to some music. I think the STB could easily emulate it. Then again, that would be damn copycat, and I think their HK counterparts would be really pissed off.

After the show was dinner at this sidikit atas place near at the Ferry Terminal. Here’s a pic of me and Sue at the restaurant. Don’t ask me what she did to her hair. And dun ask her either lest you don’t treasure your life very much.

After dinner we headed down to the infamous Lan Kwai Fong for drinks. If you ask me the place had way too many ang mos and way too little locals. And the drinks were EEEXXXXPPPEEENNNNSSIIIVVEE!!! But ok lah, the company was fun and we played finger guessing games. Even Sue’s mum joined in! Cool hor?

Check out the number of cabs waiting for passengers.

When it was time for us to take a cab then I realized why. The cabs are EEEXXXXPPPEEENNNNSSSIIIIIVVEEE!!! Sigh the price of civilization.

We took the chance to sleep in that night, but I started stirring up earlier coz I was having a diarrhoea. In fact I was having it since Saturday early afternoon, so I think it must’ve been something I ate on Friday night. Nevertheless it was bearable, so we had our breakfast and headed to Mongkok for its 女人街 (Ladies’ Street). The shopping there was so much better than all the places we went the previous day. And the Espirit Factory Outlet is there, I can imagine why the ladies would go crazy when they are here. Gonna save up aggressively and splurge on the next trip there!