Typhoon warning and frequent storms have dampened our touring spirits in the city. Our initial plans to take the rides in Ocean Park and tour The Peak after that had been cancelled.
Day three, after staying in the hotel for the early part of the morning, we lazily dragged ourselves to the lousy breakfast restaurant in our hotel. After which, we took a bus ride to the other part of HK island, and walked around the place. We visited one shopping mall, IFC mall, but the shops are all not opened. In the end we end up at Macdonalds for some small bites and coffee and went to the roof garden for some photo shoots.
Check out was not as swift as we mistook the US currency for SG dollars, end up we actually pay quite a bit for the hotel room. Ride up to Kowloon was a breeze thru the tunnel which was pretty long and amazing when u realized you are right below a 15m deep sea.
The Royal Plaza Hotel is quite a grand hotel, with a huge lobby although and lounge area. It looks traditionally decorated, with gold and greens with bits of crystals to reflects lights around. The room was also pretty decent. We had a family room meant for three, one double bed and a king size bed. The bed is cosy and comfy. Only problem is… There is no internet access…
After dropping of the luggage and some well deserved rest, we walked out to the shopping mall connected to the hotel, Century Plaza, a 6-storey building selling from cosmetics and lady needs to clothing and electronics. There is even a floor dedicated to baby stuffs. However, they did not sell any 3G sim card which I am desperately looking for now to get online. Online charges in the hotel is HK$40 for one hour, or HK$120 for 24hours. Which is not very convenient for me since I only use approx 1-3hrs a day. Hence I think there are better deals outside that we could use.
Shopping for the little lady was in one “ulu” building specially meant for girls. All ladies stuffs, we parted the little girl in search for some other things we, guys, like to see. However, the weather doesn’t seems to like us wandering around. With frequent down pours and short breaks, making us hide in shops that we totally are not interested to go in at all. We did hide in one Espirit store which is pretty cheap esp with the sale price. Else we went to one of the famed camera shop to find the people rather unfriendly and the price for the lens are not very cheap. In the end we end up in KFC to take shelter, having grilled chicken and waffles fries. The grilled chicken taste all right and there is even a Portuguese egg tart to go along, which is decent too. Looking for those wavy egg tarts my sis told me to find.
After 2hrs of shopping for the lady, there seems to be more smiles on her face. Though armed with only a small tote bag of goodies, she seems fairly happy for her purchases. Great!
We went on to walk the ladies market which was pretty disappointing for me. Nothing really catches my eye, I end up buying two monkey Tees for myself. HK got a nice Romance of Three Kingdom chess sets and the lady got a Little Twin Stars bedsheet.
We left Mongkok for TST looking for the other camera shop to buy the lens. Its so silly of me not to note the address of the shop before we came here hence we were looking up and down the place. We end up finding that the shop is closed, but we did had some nice desserts before we left.
Lastly we went all the way down to the Avenue of Start, one of TST famed handprints walks. But due to the typhoon previous night, there was some accident, which I think is that the neon lights of the building near to the walk was “busted” hence a section of it was closed. We had to walk one big round the shopping mall to reach the place. They didn’t even bother to redirect the traffic and we were so lost in the area.
Turn out the hand prints are not that fantastic. The occasional, “oh that’s the who who whose hand print over there” and the “oh I know him, he do that that that one”, was all we enjoyed of the handprints. However, the view was fascinating. The whole of HK island was brightly lighted with various commercial neon lights and building lights. Making the whole view a great experience. Too bad i do not have a tripod with me if not I believe the photos will be great…
I quick cab back to the hotel brought us to the lounge to enjoyed the music sang by a Philippines girl and organ played by one local chubby bald guy. My friend says he is cute~ lol.
We had quite a bit of drinks there and chatted heart fully before going back to sleep. It was one of the best sleep we had over here….
