This entry is suuuuper late, as we had our trip in the middle of April, but here goes..
Our family went for a weekend trip to Hong Kong and it was such a great milestone because that was the first time that all of us went abroad together. As expected, the usual family bickering surfaced, along with a bit of anxiety which stemmed from this being Dad’s first time there.
When I first went to Hong Kong (my first ever trip abroad!) with mom 3 years ago, I was awestruck at the size of the airport and the vibe of the city. I knew in my heart that I had go back there with the entire family as dad hadn’t been there before and my bro was still small when he went there with mom around 8-9 years ago. Why Hong Kong? Well, its really simple. It’s one of the more affordable trips we could find, and since I’ve been there already, I wanted to go back and explore some more, since my first HK experience was lackluster at best. Dad also had a personal agenda as he wanted to go look for the megastore of his precious plastic model kits. :P
We were on a 3-day package, which meant that we only had one full day in the city. Looking back, I’d say that it was time well-spent as I believe we were able to get the most of the limited time we had there. :D
Departure time from Manila was 8am, so we had to get up pretty early to go to the airport. The flight went smoothly enough, and it was a real treat for me since it was the first time I flew via PAL (the only other plane ride I was on was via Cebu Pacific). I’ve been dreaming of eating good airplane food since I heard about it as a kid, and the airline didn’t disappoint. :D (Haha babaw) I was also surprised that there was personal in-flight entertainment available to even economy-class passengers, although it left a lot to be desired because apparently, my headphone jack wasn’t working properly so I was getting this distorted audio feed. Shucks, I was looking forward to watching that episode of House pa naman :P
The flight was generally uneventful, and everything went according to schedule with the flight touching down about a little past 10am at the HKIA.
We met the tour guide and sat down nearby as we waited for the other members of the tour group. As we waited, mom and dad ran into some old friends that they haven’t seen in a while. Small world, isn’t it? :D
Upon reaching the hotel, we left our stuff (since our room was still being prepped) and headed out for lunch. It was already about an hour past lunchtime, and everyone was already getting cranky. It was decided that we would have lunch at the nearby Burger King (of all places!). Thereafter, we returned to the hotel where our rooms awaited. It was a real hoot for my bro since he was a big fan of fancy-ass rooms and everything. I guess I’d say we got our money’s worth for the accommodations. ;) Our only gripe at that time was that the electrical outlets required a special kind of universal connector! This left us in a state of panic, since we had no idea how we would charge the camera batteries, laptop, and cellphones! The hotel provided a universal connector on the tabletop if we wanted to purchase it, but opening that would cost us about 80HK$ (which is roughly 560Php!). L
Having stretched our legs and settled down for a bit, we proceeded to our next move, which was to take the MTR to Mongkok to find dad’s model kit treasure trove, which was located at the corner of Nathan Road and Dundas St. This would prove to be another adventure for our poorly-travelled family. :P Man, the public transportation there is really something else.. The train system is very accessible and very user friendly too. You don’t need to line up for train trip tickets. Instead, there are vending machines where you press your destination and put the appropriate amount and tada! A ticket to your intended stop! The trains run really fast, so there is very little crowd buildup at the stations. I have never seen such a fine example of efficiency in my entire life!! I was really impressed!
After alighting from the train and exiting Mongkok station, we soon came upon a small roadside electrical store selling the connector we needed, and for only 10HK$!! Hallelujah! :D We were eventually able to find dad’s precious hobby shop. While he spent his sweet time there in modeler heaven, the rest of us went around the nearby theme shopping streets there in the district. We were able to buy a bit of pasalubong for our loved ones back home. ;) After roughly 30 minutes we went back and fetched dad from the hobby shop and proceeded to the night markets, which were already starting to buzz with activity (time was around 5:30pm already I think). After much browsing and walking around, it was time to head home since our feet were starting to really hurt. We had dinner in the basement-level fastfood area of the mall in front of the hotel. After eating our fill, we retired to our rooms. Lucky for us that we were able to detect free wifi hotspots from the hotel rooms! This gave me the chance to email Gen daily and for my bro to chat it up with his friends (since our attempts to enable international roaming on our cellphones didn’t work) :D The connector worked seamlessly. We were able to recharge the camera’s batteries as well as use the laptop indefinitely. (the main purpose of bringing the laptop was to be able to unload the pictures and videos taken by the camera so that we wouldn’t run out of space in the memory card while we were out). Thus concludes Day 1…
Day 2 began kinda early for me. Since I often have trouble sleeping when I’m not in my own bed, I had a light sleep which lasted around 5 hours. After freshening up, we went out to have our free breakfast at a resto designated by the tour package, which consisted of a thick slice of bread, a fried egg, a choice between ham or sausage, and tea or coffee for drinks. After getting lost the previous night on our way back, we got back to the hotel rather quickly this time around and waited at the lobby for the tour guide. At this point I must mention that the sky was getting dark already, and it seemed like we were in for quite a downpour. I would have to say that the tour we went on this time around was a far cry from the previous one I had joined. I guess the route they took was less efficient because we only made a handful of stops, namely:
JC Jewelry Factory – Ho hum.. been there, done that, didn’t buy anything on both occasions anyway. Too expensive!
Hong Kong Convention Center – the site of the handover in 1997. This was our official photo op, where the tour group photographer took souvenir photos to be sold to us later on. It began drizzling as we left this site.
“Sampan ride” area at Aberdeen – the place itself was a makeshift dock in between a fancy-ass yacht club and a police station. Here, people could go on a 25-minute ride on a motorized sampan to go around a small part of the harbour. The sights to be seen on this ride are the Jumbo floating Casino owned by Stanley Ho (a slightly smaller version of which is moored near the CCP complex here in Manila :P), and a “floating village” of sorts populated by the poor fishermen of Hong Kong whose numbers are dwindling due to the modernization of the city. The latter seems more like an eyesore than a novelty. (Think floating squatters area) I’ve been on this ride before, and it wasn’t really interesting, and besides, 150HK$ per head is quite expensive for something I found rather useless.
Mid-level of Victoria Peak – the view fro this place was supposed to be fantastic, but since it was drizzling, there was a slight fog obscuring the view.
Four stops, that’s all we made. :P I would like to think that the driver was forced to compromise due to the bad weather, but we arrived at the hotel exactly when the tour guide said, so we concluded that the tour route really sucked regardless of the weather.
Resting up the hotel once again, we were then picked up by a relative of my mom from China. Technically, the guy would be our cousin, as mom is a half-sister of his dad. :D He took us to the famous Stanley Market, which would have been a lot of fun had it not been for the really awful weather. It was really pouring by the time we got there. To get to Stanley, we took the MTR from Tsim Sha Tsui, switched trains at Admiralty, and rode all the way to the end of that particular line to Chai Wan station. We then rode the 16M minibus to Stanley. It was a long winding road along the side of the mountains, and we even passed on top of a huge dam! I have to admit that I really liked that stop in Stanley despite the rain. There was just so much you could see and buy there! :D I had my Chinese name engraved onto a chop block, which I now use to stamp on all my books (apart from the ever-popular rubber stamp of my name which all my classmates know so well). I also got some items for Gen’s mom and bro.:D After our little shopping trip, he took us back to Chai Wan were we then road a taxi to their place. Their flat was on the 32nd floor in one of the buildings of a residential condominium complex. Far removed from the hustle and bustle of regular Hong Kong city life, the complex seemed peaceful enough, had it not been for the torrential downpour taking place at the time. They had their own pre-school located at the ground floor of one of the buildings there, and even a shopping mall built into what seemed to be the central building. Talk about convenience! :P We hung around for a while at their place, which seemed a little cramped but cozy nonetheless (the tourist guide said that living space was very expensive in HK). After chatting it up with the relatives, they took us to the aforementioned mall and treated us to a sumptuous traditional Chinese dinner (what else?:D). After saying our goodbyes, we were accompanied by another cousin back to our hotel, which was on the Kowloon peninsula (we were on HK island at the time). He took us via taxi to the Star Ferry pier and we went on a boat ride across Victoria Harbour. It was a relatively cheap mode of transport, costing only HK$2.50 (roughly 20 Php) per head. Although it was still drizzling, the HK skyline was still a sight to behold. We then went back to the hotel, exhausted, but satisfied.
Our last day in HK fell on a Sunday, so it was imperative that we were able to go to mass. We decided to go for the earlier mass at the nearby Rosary Church despite the fact that it would be in Chinese. I though, big deal, I’ve gone to Chinese masses (in Mandarin) before and understood at least some of it. Imagine our surprise when, lo and behold, the mass was in Cantonese!!! (which is understandable due to HK’s proximity to Macau and a great proportion of HK’s current populaton speak the dialect) The church is this cozy air-conditioned structure near the HK Science Museum. It didn’t look like much from the outside, but appearances were really deceiving because it was actually a finely decorated church inside. After hearing mass, we went to have breakfast at the usual place and headed back to the hotel. The tour guide said that the bus would pick us up at around 2:30pm to take us to the airport. The cousin who had dropped us off the previous night volunteered to take us out to lunch and show us around a little bit to pass the time. It was unfortunate that I didn’t remember where he took us to eat, because the food was EXCELLENT!! The most memorable dishes there for me were a kind of stuffed tofu, and a special kind of egg tart that was waaaaaay better than what we buy here locally at Lord Stows… :D
Having eaten our fill once again, he took us for a long scenic walk to the famous Avenue of the Stars, a waterfront tourist attraction wherein handprints of famous Chinese movie personalities could be found all along the boardwalk, kinda like what they have in Hollywood. He then took malling where we got some last-minute pasalubong and finally dropped us off at the hotel lobby.
It was a real treat for me when I saw my brother’s awe at the size of the HKIA, where you even took a train ride to get to the more distant gates to the airplanes. Alas we only had about an hour to get to the gate and thus had little time to look around. Although we got to the gate on time, I noted that the plane was nowhere to be seen. Apparently, our flight was a little delayed and we took off after around 30 minutes. Curiously, we got back to Manila at the appointed time despite the slight delay. I mean, I haven’t even finished my dinner yet when the captain said that we were approaching Manila already! My theory is that even in the air, the pilots can be “kaskasero” if they want to.. :P
On a final note, I just want to say that arriving in the Philippines was a big letdown for me.. When I saw the dismal state of the arrival area, the inefficiency of the baggage handling, the sleazy-looking customs officials greedily eyeing all the passengers looking to make a quick buck.. It sickens me, kinda like a sarcastic “Welcome Back”. My country has the potential to be so much better, but it isn’t, and I now doubt if it will ever be.. Sigh..
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