Kowloon Archives - Escapes From The Little Red Dot

Hong Kong 2019 Day 16/17 – Hong Kong Space museum, shopping at CHKC and Home Sweet Home

Posted on April 14, 2019June 2, 2020 by ziyi

This day started with early as I woke up to resume my Sunday morning run after a 2 weeks hiatus as it was simply not possible to run in freezing cold Korea.

Left the hotel at around 645 and jogged towards the bay only to find that there weren’t any roads along the bay to run. So I ran inland and at certain point, headed towards one dock to snap a view of Kowloon and continued on. While jogging, I found that the place where they shot Transformers was on this side of Hong Kong and within running distance and thus headed there. It was not too difficult to reach but to get that particular view, I had to go around the building.

View of Tsim Sha Tsui from Hong Kong Island.

Since it was really early, I was the only one there taking photos and left shortly, realizing that there were notices put up to inform people not to take photos as these were residential areas and privacy should be respected. The return trip from the hotel to Yik Cheong building was about 10km.

The rest of the family slept in late till 10 and when we were finally ready to leave, it was already noon. The rainy weather was bad; it was a drizzle that would soak when exposed to it and yet the clouds wouldn’t just pour to empty the clouds, dragging the dreadful wet weather to indefinitely drizzle.

We went to Hysan place and found the queue to the toys still packed with people. Hong Kong people really loved their toys and there was no end in sight for the queue. We decided to visit eslite bookshop instead, on the 8th floor.

Large screen stretches the entire building

The bookshop had 3 levels, many books to sell and other decorative stuff as well. Mommy initially thought of getting a fountain pen for slightly more than a hundred HKD but decided not to as most likely she won’t be using it. After hanging around a bit, we left for the Hong Kong Space Museum.

We thought we would get lunch at Tsim Sha Tsui and thus took the subway there. Upon arrival at the museum, after getting stuck in between 2 traffic lights and slightly wet from the rain, we found a long queue at museum ticket counter waiting to get tickets. There weren’t any place for lunch and so we went in search for one, which was funny because HK was supposedly a food paradise but somehow we just couldn’t find one, as if they were hidden behind the cloak of rain.

In a desperate attempt to eat and get away from the dampness, we entered a One Peking shopping arcade and got up to a 10 floor to have our lunch there, at Imperial Treasure. They were at their last orders so we had to pay immediately after the food arrived but were good for us to stay till we were done eating. Ordered fried noodles, a bowl of pig lung soup, vegetables and char siew, a bowl of walnut paste and a mango pudding for a whopping 669hkd. The food was pretty tasty though and the 10th floor offered a nice view except that we didn’t get to enjoy it as we were seated away from the windows.

Dessert of Mango pudding and walnut paste

We walked back to the museum and I charged ahead to get tickets first, and I found that the queue from the morning had disappeared (but not the drizzle). After K and mommy arrived, we entered the museum that had 2 floors, one focus was on the cosmos and the other was on space exploration.

There were a lot of interactive displays used to describe concepts which made this place interesting and we spent some 2hrs there just for the exhibits itself. K didn’t bear to leave the place and had spent the last few minutes trying out the interactive exhibits (spinning around to talk about Newton’s 3rd law) before we finally exit for the shop (which was another struggle to get away and eventually bought a pen in the shape of a NASA rocket for 85 HKD) and out of the museum.

Interesting exhibit about how Auroras were formed

Room with visual simulation on floating in space station

We walked to our next destination which was our favorite shopping place for every Hong Kong visit, the China Hong Kong City Mall as mommy want to get something from the Esprit outlet. We took to the street to walk there since the drizzle paused. Bought a black sugar tea from the TP tea shop there and went to the 3rd floor where the outlet shop was. The MMhouse which sold Disney clothings was closed, unexpectedly early and so mommy went to the outlet herself while K and I sat outside to chill, mostly K spending some time on my handphone looking at the videos that I took.

When we were done, we returned to Causeway Bay in search for dinner. After getting thru the drizzle that resumed, we arrived at a King’s Dim Sum Store near our place and settled our dinner there, consisting of a bowl of chicken porridge, crusty char siew pao, XO carrot cake and a tapioca roll and a Milk tea for almost 300hkd. After a very filling meal as I normally will clear everything left on the plates, we return to the hotel room.

We packed for the return trip to Singapore the next day and played around with the direct phone to TV mirroring with my iPhone which I was pretty impressed with, although buffering was an issue. Then it was nights off after the usual kids banter, close to midnight.

Day 17 Home Sweet Home

Last day in Hong Kong after a long time away from home and we took it easy waking up late and just chilling and some packing. I went downstairs to get some milk tea from some 南龍冰室 cafe, one that had the old style Hong Kong feels and seemed like it had some really good milk tea. My parents had gotten quite a bit of pastries from the night before when they were out with the relatives, we had the egg tarts for breakfast. K spent the remaining time running between the two rooms, until it was time to check out and head for the airport slightly after noontime.

Mommy booked an Uber, the XL one but when it arrived we were unable to fit all our luggage in and my parents to had leave on that one while we booked another taxi. The hotel bell was especially helpful by moving the luggage in and out of the hotel when we had this crisis and also directing the jammed up traffic of the street just in front of the hotel due to some road works. He had advised us against using Uber since we may not be able to get everyone up whereas for the taxi companies, they would provide one that could allow space for more luggage when requested. The taxi came 30mins later and while it may be a little later than we planned, at least we were on our way.

The rest of the journey was no drama, checking in and some shopping at the airport (of course) where there was a Disney store. We were contemplating on getting another set of Ironman PJs for K as he loved wearing that set to sleep but didn’t and bought something else. Proceeded to board the plane soon after where I was met with a stuck screen but no biggie as I slept and K enjoyed his entertainment. Nothing interesting for the trip home except a visit to the latest Jewel mall where I had preview tickets to see the giant rain vortex, which was mesmerising.

Colourful lighting show of the rain vortex

This trip was one that we planned to go with the entire extended family after many failed attempts to do so previously. It was difficult to manage not only in logistics but more so in expectations since everyone of us were different in interests and tastes. However, it was made easier by allowing flexibility (a lot of it!) and isolating to just one or two locations. I was glad when my aunt from Hong Kong thanked me for arranging this, and that there weren’t any disagreements along the trip. This was not our first time in Seoul but it was still refreshing to visit since our last visit was very long time ago. I do not know if such trips were going to happen again but am certain it was going to be a while till the next time!

Hong Kong 2019 Day 15 – Sino Center and Hysan Place

Posted on April 13, 2019June 2, 2020 by ziyi

Hong Kong Day didn’t start well with the weary weather that loomed overhead. Instead of going to Lamma Island that mommy initially wanted to go, fearing that the weather would not hold up (with weather forecast thunderstorms throughout the day), we decided to go have morning tea before deciding.

Called Uber and a BMW 5 series came to pick us up. Was informed that per car only allowed 5 persons and thus not to call Uber if we had more. After a few conversations on the location, he finally understood that we wanted to go to City hall and drove us there, just a couple of minutes away.

We got off and entered what looked like a concert theatre. Went up to the 2nd floor and found tons of people already queuing at the Maxim Palace restaurant. Went to pick up a queue number and was shocked to find that we were queue number 56, and the next in line to enter was number 4, a whopping 52 numbers behind. We abandoned this chance to eat the traditional push cart dim sum and walked into IFC instead.

Was introduced 2 restaurants by the IFC staff one more expensive with less queue and the other more affordable with longer queues. We went to the more expensive one first but found that there were reservations already and we had to eat within an hour. We didn’t want that so tried our luck at Tasty Congee & Noodle Wantun Shop and thankfully there was already one readily available for us. Ordered some porridge, carrot cake, XO sauce rolls, egg tarts and wantun noodles upsize and a bowl of sesame paste for dessert for about 300plus HKD. The noodles were pretty good and K almost finished the entire bowl on his own while the rest was ok too. While eating, we realized that we were lucky to get there early as a queue also started to form outside this restaurant.

After randomly roaming a few stores in IFC and deciding to abandon going to Lamma Island altogether, we decided to go to Sino Center in Mong Kok to buy some Nintendo Switch games which I thought that it would be cheaper to get from Hong Kong, and Sino Center was indicated on some webby that the concentrate of video games shops was located there.

Walked to Central station and took the subway to Mong Kok, and then it was a short 10mins walk to Sino Center. The whole street was crowded with people and so was the building itself. We took the escalator, went to the third floor skipping the second and immediately we found a shop that sold the games. Walked in to ask for the cost and was quoted 355HKD. Negotiated for a discount and was given 350 which I took it. I knew for a same game back in Singapore, it would have costed me 70SGD, and buying here would save me about minimum 7%. But it would have made more sense to get more since the transportation costs to get there would have equaled the amount of savings.

K was complaining about being tired so we made our way back to the hotel. My parents was given a new room on the same level as us and fortunately, they were upgraded again, room with a nice view, a living room and not many mirrors! It even came with a nespresso machine!

We put K in bed for a short nap and during this time, I went out to the park for a walk to play my Pogo and was surprised to see that the people in Hong Kong were pretty crazy over this game as well. There were many holding umbrellas in the tiny drizzle (I didn’t have one) catching the Pokemon as they strolled in the park (there was an event ongoing, explaining the sudden surge of people there). I spent about an hour walking to and fro and checking out the park where kids were racing water boats inside a fountain area before returning to the hotel to find K just waking up.

Panoramic of one of the fountain at the park

We got ourselves ready and got out the hotel for dinner. This time we wanted to try roost goose and walked about 1.2km there. When we arrived at Kam’s Roost Goose, it was again crowded outside the restaurant. Asked if there was a queue and was informed that the restaurant was no longer taking customers and those outside were actually people lining up for takeaways. We left for another place to eat.

Retracing back the same route, we went into a certain Restaurant Kowloon to eat. Ordered fried rice, broccoli, sweet and sour pork, soup and white chicken, 2 drinks and a red bean ice for 400plus HKD. The food was not too bad but the amount was definitely more than just filling. K got a toy from one of the staff from an earlier incident which made him cry and was very eager to return to the room to play.

After dinner around 930pm, we walked to Hysan place and when we entered the building, there was an event ongoing for the Avengers movie and lots of toy models and characters models on display. We wanted to get a photo of K with his Ironman cap and realized that it was left in the restaurant. I returned to retrieve it and the staff actually kept it safe in a drawer.

After taking photos amongst the many people who were there for the same purpose, we decided to skip the shopping and return to the room. En-route, we stopped at a beancurd store called Yan Wo Dou Bun Chong (人和荳品廠) and bought some beancurd to eat. Shared with mommy original cold one while my parents got the hot almond flavored one and one with fruits cocktail. All these for about 30HKD, affordable simple desserts.

Back at the room, K played with the toy and later proceeded with bath. Then it was milk and some a page of the Avengers sticker book before going to bed, slightly past midnight.

Hong Kong 2019 Day 14 – Seoul to Hong Kong

Posted on April 12, 2019June 2, 2020 by ziyi

Transition day for us and so slept in late as usual while I had to wake up slightly earlier to pack. The transport that we booked was for 10am, giving us 3.5hrs to get from Seoul to Incheon Airport for the flight to Hong Kong scheduled at 135pm.

I had to dress K in this sleep and then turn on YouTube to automate the rest of the morning process. Soon he was already up and ready eating bread and having his milk.

We made it to the ground floor to find a black vehicle waiting downstairs but of a different vehicle number. Whatsapp the driver who helped with the booking and found that the vehicle was not the right one even though he thought that the vehicle had arrived. It wasn’t too long before our vehicle came.

This Chinese driver helped with the luggage as we all loaded up his vehicle, this time more spacious for us as my sister’s family had left on an earlier vehicle to Gimpo for their extension to Japan. The journey was a 1 hr drive to Incheon and it was spent with K chattering most of the time and playing with imaginative scenarios of ice cream making and trying to shoot some last photos of Seoul from the vehicle with my phone.

Leaving for the airport…many bridges around Seoul

We got off the vehicle, paid the 70k and as I wanted to whip out my phone to see if I could place some Pokémon at the Seoul gym, I found it missing. The transport! With all the contacts being made thru my phone, I was in a very difficult situation but thankfully I remembered that I got a name card from my first driver and was taking photo of it just in the morning in the vehicle with my camera. Found it in the bag and quickly called him. Though it was frustrating, he managed to call the driver who brought back the phone to me.

We carried out the check in at the self check in machine assisted by the staffs there and it was a breeze. They even helped with attaching the luggage stickers and we were off to dropping off the luggage at the counter. We were informed to stay back for 10mins to clear the luggage Xray in which we just visited the toilet and then left to queue to clear security and immigrations. It wasn’t too long before we were at the departures and granddad who was holding bags of goodies that we bought informed me that my strawberry jam from Pocheon strawberry farm was confiscated because it was not checked in!

Did some last minute shopping for mommy who wanted something from Nature Republic and then again to spend off some of the Korean Won, I bought more goodies to bring home while the rest of the family were having a small lunch of Udon at the Saboten outlet in the food court.

Airstar Avenue for last minute shopping needs

We walked towards the gate with 15mins left and upon reaching found that we were last passengers to get on. Made it to our seats and then the plane was seated there for almost 15mins before it took to the skies. But this was not a problem as K was thoroughly entertained by the entertainment games. This plane was a new one, different from the ones we took from Singapore, and the entertainment system was new too!

There was time for me to watch 2 movies which I caught Into the Spiderverse and King of Comedy. K just played his Mickey Mouse game throughout and a little bit of Angry Birds. He was even lamenting why the plane landed so quickly before I had to pull him away to disembark.

Clearing immigrations and customs was quick, even our luggage was out the moment we arrived at the belt. We met our Hong Kong relatives at the arrival hall who was there to pick up my aunt to return home. They then escorted us to the taxi stand where we separated and went on our way to Lanson Place hotel, the accommodation where mommy was staying for her business trip.

It was a one hour drive where we all slept and upon reaching, the kind bellboys just took over all the barang barang and we could just go to the 1st floor for check in. Did a check in for my parents since mommy already checked in for her room and as we requested for the same floor, there wasn’t one. They gave an upgrade to my parents which was twice the room size but when they looked at the place and found too many mirrors and felt uncomfortable, they were given a room at the much lower level instead.

We got out for dinner and visited a Wing Kee noodle store and joined a queue that already formed. The noodle store concept was like Yong Tau Foo and we ordered 2 bowls with 4 and 3 varieties and a bowl of vegetables. Shared mine with K who loved this place as he loved noodles and could take the Tau Pok, fish cake and even the vegetables while mommy gave him some pork. I found the soup base really good and that complimented the other food that had a good texture. Worth the queue that didn’t take too long and the affordable price of 114HKD.

Proceeded to Yee Shun Milk company to have some desserts and ordered the steamed milk with red bean for mommy and chocolate flavor for me while my parents had the original and lotus seed one. The staff had to confirm the order so many times that we wondered why she didn’t bother to just write it down. The dessert tasted good, the same that I remembered it to be the last time I tried, which explained the always fully occupied seats in the store. Paid 155HKD for 4 desserts.

Spent the night walking around the streets and taking photos. There were big movies displays for photos and we got some photos with the Avengers at Hysan place and another with Dumbo at Lane Crawford.

After this short walk around the streets that were still crowded with people brightly lit with colourful lights, we returned to the rooms for the night. Mommy had some time to catch up play time with K on his whack-a-mole before we all turn in for the night.

Hong Kong 2017 Day 5 – Home Sweet Home

Posted on November 28, 2017June 2, 2020 by ziyi

Final day before returning home and the morning was spent in bed. Our flight was at 210pm and thus we had to leave by 11. We initially wanted to visit the Kowloon park to let K enjoy a little bit of playground before going home but it was not to be, as K slept all the way till 930am. By the time he woke up, got prepared and all, it was almost time to check out.

After packing all our shopping goodies into a pumped luggage, we checked out at 1055am. The staff informed that we could get a taxi to the airport for a fixed fee of HKD230, which was a pretty good deal and so had them arranged one for us, while we would go check out Heritage 1881 which typically would have nice Xmas deco.

It was a brisk walk there and we weren’t disappointed by this years theme of rocking horses and beautiful display of a traditional western building. Took some quick photos and K even managed to ride on one of the rocking horses before we proceeded back to the hotel just in time before the taxi arrived at 1120am.

Again because of the busy street, we had to move quickly to prevent a jammed up situation and reduce the horning on the road. Other wise it was a slow drive out of the main city and a total journey of 45mins to the airport.

Checked in at the SQ counter and then we proceeded to Tsui Wah restaurant, like we always do before leaving Hong Kong. This time we had some pork noodles and hor fun for brunch with K sharing our food, though he didn’t really liked it.

After paying HKD230 for the meals with HK milk teas, we went to window shop a while, mommy buying some HK snacks while K and I visited some of the toys shops there. Then we proceeded to go to the gates, and it was all pretty smooth as it wasn’t really busy at that time. Had a little time at Zara though we didn’t get anything before boarding the A380 back to Singapore, an older plane compared to the one we took to Hong Kong.

The programs on the plane were slightly more updated and a little different. The flight back had a few turbulence but was nothing major. K even took a nap of an hour before we landed in downcast Singapore.

This was a short getaway to Hong Kong, mainly for the purpose of visiting Disneyland as a way to celebrate our boy’s birthday. Overall it was kinda rushed as time literally flew while we were there. I guessed a lot of time was spent waiting and thus the timing of the activities could have been better planned. Overall it was still enjoyable, very tiring and we missed out the food this time around.

Hong Kong 2017 Day 4 – Shopping Day Esprit outlet @ China Hong Kong City, iSquare

Posted on November 27, 2017June 2, 2020 by ziyi

Shopping day started late, everyone overslept and worst was K who only woke up at 930am. But it was ok since that was the only item on our itinerary. I had gone downstairs to the bakery to get some egg tarts and bread and we had these for breakfast before getting ready to visit the malls.

The place where we stayed was just so close to everything else, we strolled towards Harbour City where we visited the last time, nothing much changed except that there wasn’t a sale going on now. After depositing one of the bags at the available rental lockers, and short window shopping later, we then moved on to China Hong Kong city, where there was a outlet Esprit outlet store where mommy spent most of the time there. K and me got ourselves comfortable on the seats outside as we watched videos that I had taken and played Pogo, till my battery was not having much power left.

Then it was time for lunch and we went back to retrieve the bag that costed another HKD10 but there was a change machine so it was good. We googled and Yum Cha came out to be one of a recommended restaurant for dim sum. It was near too, and thus we walked 15mins to that location. Along the way, we stopped by iSquare to take a photo with its Xmas deco that had a Lego theme to it and K doing his heart shape pose with the heart shape deco there.

Upon reaching Granville road, we couldn’t really find the entrance as it was on the 3rd floor and found it to be part of a hotel called attitude on Granville. The restaurant was beautifully decorated, out of our expectations thinking that it was supposed to be another type of old style Hong Kong dim sum place.

Mommy placed order for 6 items and the buns were really cute to say the least. The Cha Siew bun were in the shape of a pig and the custard bun had eyes. Generally the food was tasting great, just not the traditional taste that we were familiar with dim sum. Probably these were more fusion taste. The bill was quite high too, HKD430..

BBQ chicken and lotus chips and carrot cake

We left for the iSquare to visit the supermarket and mommy also splurged on some cutely designed expensive chocolates to try, by Lucullus.

By the time we returned back to the room it was already past 4. K took a dump and down a packet of milk before 2 storybooks and was knocked out 5mins on the bed. The parents also rested the time K was sleeping.

Before we knew it, it was already 630pm and while I had initially proposed to visit a certain Sino Center (retro stuff could be found there according to some forums) to see if we could buy cheap DVDs of Disney cartoons, we felt too lazy to go that far and settled for visiting HMV back at iSquare again. Took a short walk back to iSquare (in fact it was much shorter on land than taking the underground route), and went up one floor, after taking some photos at the Xmas display now lighted up.

HMV was a huge store with lots of selection, guessed it was one of the few surviving ones left as online digital world killing retail all over. There was a couple of selections of Disney films and we got Frozen for HKD140 something. It wasn’t cheap but at least we could watch it in the apartment. Later, on the return, we bought some snack food of fish balls and egg pastries for dinner, as we didn’t feel too hungry for a proper meal.

Back at the apartment, we tried to used the DVD player and couldn’t turn it on. Got the hotel staff and assist and he managed to turn it on after changing the batteries on the remote. Thankfully this worked if not it would have been a waste for the DVD purchase.

The night was spend in front of the TV, getting K associated with the characters since he liked the song. The usual routine of clean up and story books and bedtime follow after, seemed like a short night but still late getting into bed.

Hong Kong 2016 Day 6 – Home Sweet Home

Posted on January 31, 2016June 2, 2020 by ziyi

I woke up at 2am to clean up the bottles and pots and prepared milk for baby K before going back to sleep.

7am sounded and I couldn’t get up. Snoozed for some time before getting up while wife got ready for cooking. Baby K slept till 10am while we had got ready the food and packed most of the items into the luggage and had bread for breakfast.

Wife went out to shop at the Esprit outlet the last time while I took a walk around ISA boutique that sold branded goods, and a wide range of items from clothings to shoes to bags and accessories, and were at huge discounts. Didn’t get anything though.

By the time we returned to the hotel, it was already 1145am. Last minute diaper changes as baby K chose to poo poo and thereafter we left the room to check out. The line to check out was incredibly slow at that time as the counters dealt with both incoming and outgoing guests. We only checked out by 1230pm.

Walked to the taxi stand just on the next tower entrance, a couple shamelessly overtook us while the door staff was checking with us on our destination for the taxi and took the only taxi waiting there! Had to wait for another one which arrived rather quickly and the taxi driver was exceptional in his service, helping us to load up the luggage and then the stroller at the front seat.

300hkd and 20mins later, we arrived at the airport. The taxi driver continued with the good service, advised us on the counter for the check in and also asked me to pick up a luggage trolley so that he could load it up.

Checked in at the counter with a short queue but didn’t see the priority queue we enjoyed the previous time we were there. As baby K began to fall asleep we chose to not check in at the counter for the stroller. Little that we know that baby K didn’t sleep long enough to fully utilise the stroller.

As usual, we had some food at Tsui Wah before going through departures. There was also no priority queue so we had to go through the normal queues. Luckily there were new counters opening and we proceeded quickly to these to clear.

The gate was at a separate building so we had to take the train transfer. By the time we had arrived it was almost 15 mins before boarding. Luckily a queue was still going about where we quickly went to toilet and also got the diapers changed out at male toilet.

While on the plane, we were at the bassinet seat but weren’t given a bassinet. On the flight to Hong Kong we had to asked for one too. Don’t know if this was related to just Cathay Pacific flights or not. Otherwise it was the usual entertaining baby, letting him sleep and eating and alternating the care with mommy.

This trip to Hong Kong and Macau was primarily to visit the historical places we missed during our last trip there. We wanted to visit the big buddha and the Victoria peak during this trip but couldn’t due to the bad weather. However, we made the visit back to Ocean Park, something we did when we were a lot younger and that felt good, because now as parents, we were bringing my baby boy instead. There were bad moments such as the lost of my tickets that cost 80SGD and the weather but overall it was nice experience.

Hong Kong 2016 Day 5 – Ocean Park

Posted on January 30, 2016June 2, 2020 by ziyi

The day started awesome as the sun rays peeked through the clouds, an indication of an improving weather condition, perfect for an outing to Ocean Park.

Rays of hope of good weather. — Rays of hope of good weather early in the morning

Woke the usual early plus a little snoozing on the alarm and we were up slicing and dicing some foodstuff to prepare baby K’s porridge. Had new ingredients since we bought some from the supermarket the previous night but preparations were no issues with the small chopping board and folding knife that we purchased from Daiso.

We were all ready at 930am and left for the MTR, having learnt that the easiest one for us to get to for about 15mins of walking was Tsim Sha Tsui MTR. 10hkd per person to Admiralty station and off we went, going through the lift that was made for people with needs.

After getting off, we proceeded to the exit B where the bus stand for bus 629 was. En route, we saw a tourism info counter where they offered tickets at discounted rate, about 40hkd off, so we purchased 2 adults while baby K goes in for free.

Before going to the bus ticketing booth on the outside, we saw a hawker stand where mineral water was sold for 7hkd and on their signboards they also indicated that water of the same would cost 25hkd in Ocean Park. Bought 2 bottles and proceeded to the booth to buy return bus tickets for 10.20hkd per way.

Went to the back of the snaking queue, long queue there probably because it was a Saturday, and found that I have lost one of the park entrance ticket. Couldn’t find it after back tracking and gave up and boarded the bus. Although there was a long queue, it cleared pretty quickly as the buses came fast and furious too. We got a seat but had a hard time bringing the stroller up the bus as the walking space within the bus was not a lot.

It was quite a fast trip there, taking less than 20 mins and we were already at the escalator to the park entrance. There was a new Ocean Park MTR station there but not yet in service.

After queuing up for about 5 mins, I went to the counter to enquire if they could do something about the ticket. They said it was not possible to track that one purchased from the MTR so I bought another one.

Entering the park through the entry point for strollers and wheelchairs on the left, we went to the info booth to get 2 pamphlets, one for shows timing and the other for the park map. At almost 11am, we proceeded to the first show at the Asian animals and it was a small group of people performing juggling and stuff in animal costumes. Not really interesting though.

Proceeded to the panda enclosure and saw the pandas sleeping. The red pandas were rather active, moving around constantly. This place kinda reminded us of what we have in our Singapore zoo. On the way out, there were exhibits of goldfish and otter, where one get to have a close encounter with otter while the staff talked about it.

For lunch, we popped over to the Panda Cafe. We ordered duck and Char Siew rice and a minced meat rice, each came with a small Haagen Daz, but each for a whopping 168hkd and 140hkd correspondingly. The duck rice was bad and the minced meat rice was so so.

We went to the toilet with with diaper changing station and changed diapers before trying to get baby K to sleep. We wanted to get baby K to sleep so we walked a bit will we ventured to Whiskers Theatre, where a show was about to begin. Baby K didn’t sleep and ended up watching the show. The actors of the show actually got really close at some point to interact with the kids. The kid next to us even had his head bitten by the dolphin mascot, which was really funny.

After the show, we made our way towards the cable car. En route, we passed a small street that was designed in the style of old Hong Kong. As nostalgic old music was played along the street, baby K fell asleep.

There were two queues for the cable cars towards the Summit, the other bigger section of the park where all the rides were. The queue was not too long and we were soon boarding the very limited space of the cable car, sharing it with another family. I initially had some issues bringing the stroller onboard as the wheels kept getting stuck.

The view from the 15 mins ride was pretty good, especially as the weather was better at the other side of the mountain. Baby K continued to sleep through the ride though.

As we got off, the staff helped, thankfully, with my stroller as I struggled again. Immediately on the left of the cable car exit was the restaurant with a good view but we could get the “free” view near its entrance. Expectedly it was packed with tourists snapping away.

We proceeded to the poles expedition exhibits, one with the seals and walrus and the other with penguins that was pretty cold as we were sharing the surrounding temperature with them. It was amazing to see a walrus for our first time, swimming around. However we struggled a bit on pushing the strollers, constantly looking out for lifts to take as baby K was snoozing in it and we couldn’t risk taking the escalator. Near the exit of the souvenir shop was the discrete entrance to the exhibit for the snow fox. There were a couple of them but all were asleep.

We bypassed all the roller coasters and proceeded to the Shark exhibit. The strollers weren’t allowed in it and we had to park it outside. It was then baby K awoke in time for the visit as he loved to look at fishes. The area was quite a walk with various sections, one where we could view from top of a open pool, one from the sides, one from below looking up and one floor to ceiling kind of enclosure. Of course it couldn’t be compared to the one in Singapore in terms of size but this was only for sharks. There were a couple of types, I recognized the hammerheads easily.

One of the roller coasters, Hairraiser. — One of the roller coasters, Hair Raiser.

Exiting the shark exhibits, baby K had milk and then we walked through the many thrill rides and a short stretch of empty road before reaching the Marine Mammal Breeding and Research Center, where the dolphins were kept when the ocean theatre was closed during winter without shows. We watch the dolphins swimming in pools from behind a clear panel and the staff feeding them but nothing else. It was amazing to see the dolphins actually leaped out of the water within such a small space.

Marine mammals breeding and research center.

Walking back was rather tiring as it was an uphill climb and almost 15mins of that. We were all exhausted when we finally arrived at the Ocean Express train ride back to the Waterfront section. Initially wanted to change diapers for baby K but the one and only room near the shark exhibit was occupied and was informed by a nice dad outside that breastfeeding was in progress and would take up another 10mins.

Thrill mountain, mostly rides based entertainment.

There was a priority queue for strollers for the train ride but it had the longest queue. And funnily not all waiting had a stroller. Luckily we could all get onboard the large train. The ride was a slow moving train but seemed to be faster than the cable car, maybe 15mins? During the journey, there were screens to simulate our journey going through water and depths of earth and stuff, entertaining the kids inside the train.

Back at the waterfront, we went back to the first diaper changing room. Then we went to take another photo with a shark mascot at the booth (previously was a panda) and proceeded to the aquarium, our last attraction for the day. There was no queue also and we managed to take the lift to the top level where the exhibit starts.

In this aquarium, there were similar arrangements but was bigger than the shark ones. Again baby K was excited about looking at marine life, of which we saw the usual nemos and Alaskan crabs and starfish and seahorses. There was also nice exhibit of schools of fishes swimming together and a large octopus.

After this visit, we left the park at 6pm after mommy bought some memorabilia from the shop near the entrance. There was supposed to be a light and fountain show but we gave it a miss as that was at 7pm. Imagine if we had to take the thrill rides, a day out didn’t seem enough. Expectedly, the bus queue was long and we had to wait awhile before getting on the bus, having the same struggle as the day. The evening ride back took longer than the morning one due to the traffic jam. Baby K fell asleep on the ride.

Back at Admiralty we took the same route back to TST and the 20mins walk back to the hotel. Back at the hotel, we quickly cooked dinner for baby K and got out to Harbour City Cafe de Coral for dinner.

Shopping started after dinner and the shops only mostly closed at 10pm. Some had extended hours due to CNY and we stayed till then, leaving the Toys R Us at almost 1030pm.

Back at the room, we only managed to get baby K to sleep and we followed suit falling asleep, leaving the utensils unwashed.

Hong Kong 2016 Day 4 – Wet weather program – shopping

Posted on January 29, 2016June 2, 2020 by ziyi

Woke up earlier for almost the same routine. However we were able to get ready earlier since we didn’t have to pack to leave. Ate the Portuguese egg tarts for breakfast while preparing.

The tickling sound of water can be heard and the obvious disappointment followed as after peeking behind the curtains were raindrops on the windows and opened umbrellas can be seen on the streets below. Bad weather.

Nonetheless we were aiming to visit Ocean Park today and we left the room at about 930am hoping that it t was not that bad a weather. All hopes were dashed soon we reached the entrance.

Wet weather program was to continue our shopping at the same mall (CHKC) we went yesterday. However, not all the shops were opened. Walked around G2000 outlet and also to the Mickey Mouse House outlet and purchase some items. Went back to the same nursing room to feed baby K and change his diapers and suddenly there was a blackout. We weren’t worried as I turned on the light on my hp but a staff was there to “rescue” us with his torchlight and helped shone the way for us to get to the mall, which was not affected. Most of the escalators stopped working though.

That was quite an issue as we brought a stroller along and were told to take a detour for the lift. Had to ask the staff to locate the lifts. Made our way to the Geox outlet but wasn’t ready to pay so we left.

While we took a left upon exiting following the arrow to the MTR. Not knowingly, we chose to proceed to the Jordan MTR which was some 15mins walk away instead of choosing the Austin station which was closer, to take a train to Tsim Sha Tsui MTR. Baby K meanwhile snoozed while mommy carried him.

The subway at the Jordan station was not stroller friendly and I had to bring it down the steps. Within the station though, we found lifts that brought us to the train platform and we quickly boarded the train which had just arrived.

One stop and we took our exit. With no real target, we hit the iSquare mall to walk around a bit. Bought a pair of shoes for baby K and myself, scoring the sale items. Went to Baby R Us and bought a toy for baby K and brought back a balloon too (babies have a thing for balloon). There wasn’t much more and as baby K started to become cranky due to hunger, we quickly left (since the restaurants there felt expensive) and went back to Tsui Wah back at one of the TST MTR entrance.

Our stroller had to be left at the doorway for being to big but we were given a table close to it. Ordered some pork with instant noodles and wife got some tasty fish bee hoon. Baby K was hard to manage as he wasn’t really interested in the lunch we cooked him, probably bored from eating the same thing for so long. Fed him some bread that we bought from a bakery.

Then we started to walk southwards along Nathan road and went into SOGO hoping to find a supermarket but it was tiny. We then headed west towards Harbour city. We walked through it, looking at the various on sale options and at the end, returned back to our hotel room for a break, while feeding baby K and giving him a bath and collected the items from the hotel concierge left by my mom that she helped bring for us.

My mom then came along with our aunt from Hong Kong to come see baby K and there we spent some time in the room. Mommy cooked dinner and then tried to get baby K to sleep after my mom and aunt left, but we couldn’t dissipate his energy enough. In the end, we packed and went shopping back at Harbour City and baby K fell asleep as soon as we were back in the open.

Went to the various stores of our favorite brands and many were on sale. I didn’t think I could afford them but my wife manage to get something. Went to Uniqlo but it seemed more expensive than Singapore. After a while, my mom called and informed of the reservation made by our Hong Kong cousin at Crystal Jade restaurant. Met up and we went for dinner, baby K finding hard to get comfortable with his unfamiliar overseas aunt.

Dinner was alright as we fed baby K oatmeal with milk while we dined having a couple of dishes ordered for the 5 of us, inclusive of the popular dumplings. Baby K was always a handful at the dinner table, my mom having to deal with his forte of troublemaking while we had our dinner.

After the dinner, we left for our shopping while they made their way back. Continued to the C!tysuper supermarket which was pretty huge and offered some fresh fish where we could buy for baby K meal preparations. After that, we also purchased some desert of matcha icecream and a puff containing matcha cream and red bean, from Sweets House Cha Cha, pretty tasty but expensive.

Continued to Zara and then going back to the room thereafter, ending a full day of shopping.

Back in the room, we were just exhausted. But the work didn’t start to end till baby K fell asleep at 1130pm and finishing and cleaning at 12. Tiring again, but expected as part and parcel of traveling with a toddler.

Macau and Hong Kong 2016 Day 3 – Ferry to Tsim Sha Tsui

Posted on January 28, 2016June 2, 2020 by ziyi

Learning from the previous day, we woke up at 8am to start the day early. Baby K woke up twice again, once at 230am and another at 630am but my biological clock was already in tune to his feeding time.

The light sound of thunder could be heard and the showers came. Though we were going to leave Macau, it was going to be difficult if the showers continued.

Preparing the food for cooking while wife started packing and baby K still snoozing made us highly productive. We even had time for breakfast which we packed from the day earlier. Only when baby K woke up was when we had to keep an eye on him so that he didn’t hurt himself.

Breakfast bread from the Macau Tower bakery.

After we were all packed, changed and ready, it was past 1030 and we proceeded to first check out the room and then deposit our luggage before visiting the Macau 3D World within the hotel, that was like the Alive museum. It was another 48Hkd for one as we already had a free ticket from the hotel stay.

There were quite some numbers of wall paintings but some were really not that good. The first exhibit had Michael Jackson and some of his album related displays. Then it was dinosaurs and other random but local related activities. We didn’t spend much time there as baby K soon napped as mommy carried him. There was another floor with very limited display of a moving Trex and a dinosaur video superimposed with our image. We left only after 30mins.

Baby K continued to snooze while we explore the 6th floor of the hotel that had some restaurants and fitness center and pool but the food wasn’t affordable and so we ended up waiting at the reception level at one of the chairs of the restaurant. However, we were asked to move as we weren’t customers of the restaurants and so we went back to the 6th floor as there were cushion seats there as well but not other guests that had packed the reception level seating area.

Baby K woke up after 1hr of nap and we proceeded to wait for the free shuttle bus to the terminal just outside the reception, under shelter thankfully, away from the harsh chill and rain outside. Bus frequency was said to be 15mins but it took about 30. We were the 2nd in queue and loaded up the bus quickly. The luggage and stroller was all placed at the front row seats. There were people who couldn’t get up and had to wait which wasn’t long as the 2nd bus came, picked up what’s left and was long gone while the luggage was still being loaded up on our bus.

Queue for shuttle bus to the ferry terminal. Shuttle bus is the same size as that in the photo.

The bus ride to the ferry terminal was rather quick, about 20mins and soon we were at the ferry terminal’s bus stop. However, the alighting point was not sheltered to the bus and so we had to quickly unload the luggage and move it to the shelter. I made the second trip to get the stroller while mommy carried baby K.

Luckily for lifts on both sides of the bus stop and the terminal, we got to the 3rd floor of the ferry terminal for some lunch at 南北麵點小廚 after checking out the next timing for the ferry to Kowloon. Ate at dim sum restaurant 187Hkd which had good noodles but the rest was so so. After that we bought some Portuguese egg tarts from the local products store on the 3rd floor and proceeded to 2nd floor for tickets.

Purchased the 335pm ferry for 444Hkd (baby K had to pay if over 1 year old) which gave us an hour to be ready. However we still had to wait to check in our luggage and was told to come back at 3pm. For 3 pieces including the stroller, it cost us 75Hkd.

After going through the immigrations quickly, we waited a short while at the small waiting area at the gate before boarding the ferry. The weather was not as cold as before. Seated in the middle row, the ferry raced though the seas whereas it was pretty bumpy at times. That made us a little nauseous.

View from waiting area. — View of the rainy weather from waiting area.

Baby K became cranky and when he couldn’t fall asleep, I made a bottle of milk with the lukewarm water because of the leaky vacuum flask and he immediately devoured and went to sleep.

An hour’s ride and we arrived at the ferry terminal in Tsim Sha Tsui. Took the elevator to the arrivals hall where we had to give in to some China tourists who did not give way to us even when we had a sleeping baby in the stroller, pretty annoying. At the immigrations, the queue cleared in 10mins though we had to shift the stroller for the officer to see baby K.

Picked up the luggage that was left on the belt, the last 2 in fact. Left the arrivals and immediately some steps away was the elevator to our hotel – the Royal Pacific hotel. This was so accessible, especially for parents tugging 2 large luggage and a stroller containing my sleeping boy. We made 2 trips up the escalator as I couldn’t find a lift and the checked in was rather quick, given a 19th floor room which had a “ok” view.

Baby K continued to snooze while his parents did a little washing and a whole lot of resting. When he did wake up, he was again on his feet climbing here and there and after changing out his diapers after he pooed, we went downstairs to shop.

As the hotel was smacked in the China Hong Kong city (CHKC), it was just too convenient to have Marketplace by Jasons and shopping at our doorstep. The Marketplace was not really huge though and we didn’t really find fresh fish to cook. There were packets of milk available.

Later we visited the Esprit outlet and while mommy shopped, baby K practiced walking around with me, having fun. As we left, we noticed that there were a few outlet stores here and thought we would returned to check out the other outlets (since there were closed already).

Baby K pooed again and we visited the baby room which was pretty clean but didn’t have a lot of facilities.

At 8 pm we left for dinner but there weren’t many options left as many were closed. We got to an area called podium of restaurants and went into one Kung Fu Dim Sum. Ordered pork ribs rice and beef brisket noodles and a plate of Chee Chiong Fun with Char Siew. The food wasn’t really good. Baby K was cranky as well as the food he ate was a little cold.

Kung Fu Dim Sum restaurant. Manual as a menu.

Went back to room to bath baby K and prepare for the night. The long journey today was tired enough for us to go to bed early.

Hong Kong 2015 Day 5 – Home Sweet Home

Posted on September 28, 2015June 2, 2020 by ziyi

We woke up real late today, but since it was the last day, there weren’t much of a plan. After we were done with packing and having the longevity bun for breakfast, we walked to Harbour City again, having found on the Toys R Us website that the shop was actually at the Ocean Terminal side. The hotel granted us a late check out at 1pm which meant we had about an hour to shop and get out.

It was easy to get to Toys R Us and in fact, the whole level on the ground floor was dedicated for children’s stuff. There was a store called Its Magical which had some original toys for kids. Didn’t get anything from there so we went to Toys R Us. It was a huge store but we had limited time so we quickly decided on what to buy and paid for the items. These toys were selling cheaper in Hong Kong than Singapore so we bought quite a bit. Plastic bag was 50cts additional, a nice environmental initiative but we needed it to lug the toys back.

Back in the room, we quickly packed the stash of toys and fed baby K before checking out. Initially wanted the recept to assist with booking a taxi but she just told us to go to the entrance where a colleague would be there to assist us. When we got out, the staff just told us to wait at the entrance and at that instant, one taxi came in to pick us up.

The trip to the airport was smooth as traffic was light. It was supposedly a holiday for Hong Kong. The costs for the ride was about 240HKD, pretty close to the airport express tickets of 100HKD each. The time taken was about 30mins but I felt it was worth it to pay that additional for the extra comfort, especially with a baby in tow.

Inside the airport. — Inside Hong Kong international airport.

We checked in at the Cathay Pacific counter under the priority queue of having baby K in arms and it was done quickly. Proceeded to the 2nd floor to have lunch at Tsui Wah when my mom joined us after arriving later at the airport and completed checking in. Ordered chicken rice and fish ball rice noodles and Portuguese style coffee and red bean drink. Nothing extraordinary but adequate for a good lunch.

We went through immigrations and at the scanning line, there was again a priority queue and we sped ahead of my mom who had initially gone ahead and went onto the normal queue. It was lucky that the staff allowed her to bring the insulated container of porridge through as she said it was for her grandson although we were not together at the queue.

After immigrations, we proceeded straight to the gates as we were afraid that getting there required us to take the train. In this case, it wasn’t required and we just waited to board. Wanted to shop a bit but impossible with the time flying past like that.

Waiting for boarding at the airport surrounded by mountains.

After getting onboard, the 1hr that it took for the plane to taxi till it was airborne, baby K was frequently screaming! He must have been hungry but it was very frustrating for us. We had to try to feed the porridge to him while taking off to calm him down. Challenging experience.

The rest of the journey was smooth except baby K was largely active and moving around a lot. That meant that it was tiring but still manageable.

This trip was largely for us to catch Bon Jovi live in Macau and to do a relaxing shopping trip in Hong Kong. However, there was simply not enough time at all and everyday’s activities were limited. It was worst in Macau that I felt I have not even been there, except for the concert. I will be revisiting, having been to Macau more than once but not a single time seen the most iconic ruins of St. Paul’s.

Through the 5 trips with baby K, I think the period where it was easiest to travel with a baby was during the period where he was 6months old. Food was still milk and he was not able to move around that much. However, babies at different age present a different challenge and it was really up to the comfort level of the parents to determine when to travel with a baby.