Lost in Hong Kong : City of Lights

I haven't written on this blog for like two months now. I give you guys a break because I have been writing all these spiritual stuff and my inner struggles, in which some of you accidentally know by the way, without you knowing the other aspects of my boring life.

Anyway,enough with the intro blabbering. My family just came from vacation in Hong Kong and who wouldn't want to blog our adventures and misadventures (will tell you about that part later), on how to make "tawad" with the chinese when you're shopping and understanding your travel guide in their strong mandarin accent.

Arrival: The City of Lights

Team Philippines, yo!

We departed from Manila in about 2:50PM last Friday. The flight was uneventful and it was all cloudy for 2 hours until we reached the airport in Lantau Island. The sea was covered in fog and the weather was surpisingly very cold. I have miscalculated that it would hot in there since it's summer and it's like 34 degrees in Manila so assuming that Hong Kong is several degrees latitude up north, then it would be hotter. Anyway after lining at the immigration, we waited for our fellow tour travellers and took pictures while waiting. The staff, who were with us from Manila, from the branch of the appliance store where my father is working already boarded the train and we thanked them for giving us tips on the how's and to's and where and where to's while travelling in HongKong.

By 6:30PM, our tour guide whose name is Eric gathered us together gave us our hotel assignments. Eric reminded me of Michael V because he is short and stocky and it has become his monicker for the Filipinos during the whole tour, Eric aka "Bitoy". We boarded up on the bus that will take us to Kowloon, HongKong's residential district, where we would stay in a hotel during the entire duration of our tour.

It was already dusk when we were on the bus and it was getting dark and it was a sight to see Hong Kong's skyline looming with tall condominiums and buildings scattered in between the mountainous terrain of Lantau island. The bus rolled on lazily along the traffic jam-free highway. Woohoo! What a relief especially if you're travelling along EDSA everyday on peak hours. It was about 7:30PM when we got by Kowloon and traffic was building up slowly. It was unfortunate that we would miss the symphony of lights by the waterfront at 8. It took us about thirty minutes winding up within the city area until we got into our hotel. After stuffing our luggage in our respective rooms, we were starving so we ventured outside and looked for a nearby restaurant.

Chow Time!

We hinted a McDonalds two blocks away from where we are (I think it was Bowring street) but my dad wanted to experience a truly Hongkong eating experience. So we looked for a local noodle house and we found one just around the corner. I ordered for a noodle topped with chili meat sauce which costs around 24HKD (very expensive) but it was worth it because it was really delicious. It was like Italian pasta and Chinese flavor combined. It was about 9PM after we had our dinner and we decided to buy water at the nearby 7/11 for our Disneyland tour for tomorrow. We got back in our hotel afterwards, prepared our things and went to sleep.

To be continued in Lost on HongKong : The City of Smog