Sunday, August 10, 2014

Travelogue: 5D4N Hong Kong itinerary 2014 (Day One: The One Mall, Miramar Shopping, HarbourCity, Silvercord, Hui Lau Shan)

Before I went for my trip, I had my itinerary planned out and hoping that I could achieve at least 70% of whatever I set out to visit/eat/do. If you haven't seen that post which includes the prices for my flight, accommodation and some random stuff, you can check it out here.

There were some changes to it so here's the final one below. (as for the directions, I'd blog along the way to give more specific ones)

//Pardon if it's a little too small





Just in case you readers are wondering, my exchange rate was 6.20 at the Fountain at Marina Square (which has the best rate and I kinda always go there)

***

//Day One, 25 July 2014

My travel partner for this Hong Kong trip is this woman whom I've known to close about 10 years. Someone whom I don't even talk to on a daily basis and sometimes we meet like once in every 6 months though we're just staying a few streets away.

Thanks to her dad, we got a hassle-free ride from our place to the airport. Did our check in and waited for time to fly!

Upon arrival, unfortunate for us.. due to some unknown reasons, our baggages were slightly delayed for bout 15-30minutes. We were suppose to reach the guest house by 3:30pm but we only managed to get our baggages at 3:30pm.

Thanks to the airport free WIFI, I was able to connect and contact our guest house owner to inform him we were running a bit late.

After collecting our baggages, we wanted to look for this particular Hong Kong tourist SIM card that was publicized online. It had really good perks and plus it was not too pricey. You can read more about it here.


Unfortunately, when we asked the customer service where can we get hi-cards, she directed us to the 7-11 convenient store. We went to queue up and only to be told "sold out, next". Really, this is just the beginning of rudeness. Sigh.

We also bought our octopus card at the 'transport' counter and top-ed up at the same time. The card cost you HKD50 deposit and gives you HKD100 value. In total, we had to top up about HKD150 more for the entire trip including transfer to and fro airport via the airport railway. So that's about HKD250 spent in total for transport.

You can choose to return you card before departure but we forgot to do that. When you return the card you will get HKD50 deposit back.

The trip from Airport railway to MTR Yau Ma Tei station was roughly about 40minutes and when we exited from Yau Ma Tei Station Exit A1, it was really 30 seconds before we reach Tak Yue Mansion.

DIRECTIONS TO DANNY'S GUESTHOUSE 
Credits to Googlemap
It looks far on the map but actually it's super near. Exit MTR Exit A, while facing the main road, you turn left, walk straight all the way passing by K Circle and you'd see Tak Yue Mansion on your left.

Danny, the guest house owner happen to be selling SIM cards so we bought one from him. I showed him the Hong Kong tourist SIM card and he said it's hard to find in Hong Kong plus the connectivity isn't good. (how true, I don't know but since he was our guest house owner, we gave him the benefit of doubt.)

This is slightly more expensive then the tourist card but it gives us unlimited internet connection for 7 days.

Don't worry if your SIM is Nano SIM because Danny has the cutter for it. Well, we settled down really quickly mainly because the room was too small to even explore. 

This is the main gate with password which Danny will tell you.

This is the scary lift that Mabel was pretty paranoid about. It takes about a good 1 minute from level 12 to the ground floor. Pretty old school to me and I've not seen lifts with such round buttons before.

Please ignore Mabel that happened to be inside the video. That's just, how big our room was.

Well, if you ask me, we were alright with it just that fact the toilet was really tad too tiny. It's like you're bathing/shitting/brushing your teeth all standing at the same spot. Considering the price we paid ($127nett each), the location from the MTR station and plus we were out of of the time except coming back to sleep.. It is acceptable for me.

Just right outside and below out guesthouse, you'd be able to find Tsui Wah Restaurant. (which is pretty well known in Hong Kong according to Mab)


Soon, we took off to find The One Mall, Miramar Shopping Centre, Slivercord and Harbor City to start our journey in Hong Kong officially.


DIRECTIONS FROM TSIM SHA TSUI MTR EXIT B2 TO THE ONE MALL
Credits to googlemap

Even though we had the map with us, the moment we exited B2 we were super overwhelmed by the streets. The entire stretch of Nathan Road are filled with stores and more stores. Actually, we just had to walk one single direction and you can shop to your hearts content.

Once you see The One Mall, Mira and Mirarmar Shopping Centre is just further down. Pretty hard to miss it. Just be-careful not to come out from different side of the mall or you might end up getting lost.

Honestly, there wasn't anything much for me to see except that Miramar Shopping Centre had a Porter International shop that I was looking for. I stumbled upon a shop called sixtyeight and it sells pretty decent and affordable lingerie (from as cheap as HKD68 for a bra). Other then that, we were literally just browsing and walking.

DIRECTIONS FROM MIRAMAR SHOPPING CENTRE TO SILVERCORD/HARBOUR CITY
Credits to googlemap

Well, as you can see from the map,  you're just walking backwards and then straight all the way you will see the whole stretch of branded goods. H&M is nearby Agnes b and opposite Marc Jacobs.

There's a two storey high H&M at Silvercord, and that's probably the only thing we shopped at. Unless you're looking for brands, else I guess this is just really look-see for you.

I specially went to find Mont Blanc as I wanted to get a gift for my brother. I was looking for a passport holder and it turned out to be about $20-$30 cheaper then Singapore. Which isn't a very huge difference. I bought it nonetheless since I was already there.

Enough of window shopping, we decided to head for dinner at 香港仔鱼蛋粉. This was a place that Mabel previously had visited and recommended to me. A really good and cheap place for dinner with decent sitting and air-condition. Prices are reasonable and portions are generous. Oh, they serve the food so quickly I think it came within 2 minutes. Hahaha!

Here's the address 尖沙咀堪富利士道5號舖 5 Humphreys Avenue, Tsim Sha Tsui. You can see more about it on the openrice link here.




Satay Brisket Beef HKD42, which was awesome.


Beef noodles HKD34


As usual even if I'm overseas, it's always good to end off a meal with a desert :D. Really close by, you can find Hui Lau Shan 许留山! Even if there's no seat... Just grab and go! :D

See, the restaurant is just behind! Can you see? Top left hand corner :D
I hardly post faces of my friends.. but here's a picture of my beautiful travel mate for this Hong Kong trip. Mabel, together with our happy food.


Before I end the night, here's a shot of how my room looks like with my monkey. Hi there Monkey, this is your second trip overseas with me. What a lucky Monkey you.



And our super small toilet... 

Click here for day two adventure! (coming soon...!)

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