Summer Sale in Hong Kong

Goodbye Singapore, hello Hong Kong... lovely clouds taken from the plane.

While everyone was still sound asleep at 4.30am in the morning, my friend and I arrived at the airport for our flight to Hong Kong – a truly shopping and food paradise.

This is my 6th visit to Hong Kong and I must say it’s the BEST. Our hotel, Harbour Plaza Metropolis, was not in the main shopping belt but it was next to the KCR Rail station and there was a free shuttle to Tsim Sha Tsui, making it easy to get around. I shopped till I dropped every single day (yeah literally). And unlike other trips where food was just to fill the stomach, I had lots of authentic and good Cantonese food and dessert this time round.

The weather was wet half the time we were there… good and bad. Good because it’s not so hot and the streets did’t stink as much. Bad because I had to carry a brollie all the time and I couldn’t take many nice photos. Therefore, I’ve also included things I did and photos I took during my last trip in 2004.

While most people were heading for Disneyland, I think the Poh Lin Monastery on Lantau Island is worth a visit. This was where I went in 2004 to see the huge Buddha statue and his relic kept in the monastery, followed by a vegetarian lunch in the dining hall.

This year, we did a very ‘aunty’ thing and went to not one but two markets – Tai Po Market and Fa Yuen Street market. I’ve always wanted to go to their gai si which is always shown in Hong Kong serials. And took some lovely and gross photos of bloodied fishes.

Another interesting place was the Goldfish Market where the whole street sells nothing but goldfishes. But I pitied those goldfishes that were dyed blue, green and yellow – I think it’s really cruel.

Must Eat!
As I said earlier, Hong Kong is a food paradise. Must-haves include char siew fan (barbecue pork rice) (yes, my friend ate this 4x!), siew gor (roast goose), gauw nam min (stew beef noodles), gong zhai min (instant noodles), wanton min (pork dumpling noodles), yu dan min (fish ball noodles), ju pa (pork chop), cheong fun (rice rolls), tan tart (egg tart), bo lo bao (polo bun) nai cha (milk tea), yin yang cha (milk tea mixed with coffee) and yes, the many different types of dessert!

The Le Coral Café, 香港仔鱼蛋粉 （xiangkangzai yudanfen fish ball noodles chain），许留香 (xiuliuxiang dessert chain), The Sweet Dynasty dessert chain are really good. But in general, most of the little eateries serve quality stuff. If we had more days there, we would have gone for zuocha (early morning tea a.k.a dim sum) and tried their famous claypot too.

If I were to give an award, it’ll go to the hawker centre style food court I found on Level 3 of Tai Po Market – really cheap and simply delicious. I also discovered that condense milk goes very well with peanut butter on toast.

Must Shop!
Even though I set myself a budget, I was on the verge of bursting it after my second day. Had no choice but to increase my budget because my friend there was going to bring me shopping on the next day.

These are the brands that are much cheaper than Singapore – Benetton, Sisley, Espirit, Prada, Geox etc. Other brands to look out for Michel Rene, Le Saunda, On Peddar… I can’t remember the rest. There are many huge malls that are worth a visit – Festival Walk at Kowloon Tong, City Plaza at Tai Koo Shing, IFC at Hong Kong station, Langham Place, are some of the newer malls. My friend also brought me to Argyle Centre which sells cheap stuff – I bought a HK$49 denim skirt and a HK$20 top. My best buy to date. And for the technobuff, check out the electronic shops – Fortress, Broadway etc – for your MP3 players, cameras and lenses – prices are about 10-30% lower than the lowest prices you can get in Singapore.

And my shopping haul? 8 tops, 8 bottoms, 2 pairs of shoes, a handbag, socks, bikini, 1 set of Korean drama, a Jang Donggun old movie, a bag load of Ichiban titbits for colleagues and friends and of course, lo po bang (old wife’s biscuits) and other food stuff for my dad. As usual, I went with one luggage, threw away all the clothes I was wearing and came back with 2 luggages ; )

In a nutshell
The trip was really great despite the fact that I had diarrhoea on my first day. Looks like I’ll have to try to make this an annual affair ; )

Click here for photos: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/sandyl808/album?.dir=fcc3scd&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/sandyl808/my_photos