Month: February 2017

Nissin Sesame Oil Flavoured Crisps

On By Bao Bao QiuIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Very short post today.

I’m a big fan of Nissin noodles, so when I saw these in Oriental Delights, China Town (the day after I returned back from HK), I thought I had to try them out.
It’s a big bag, but don’t let that fool you into buying them (which happened to me obviously ¬_¬).
 ,

The amount of crisps were minimal, and for the oily, only slight taste of sesame oil, it was disappointing.

Cost: £1.99 (if memory serves me right, sorry for never remembering or writing prices down).

Will I buy again? Nope.

Happy Chinese New Year 2017!!! The Year of the Rooster (Chicken)

On By Bao Bao QiuIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
Happy 5th Birthday to my blog (from 31st January. I completely forgot)… thanks for following, reading and adding comments. I do enjoy reading the comments, even if it’s to tell me off, and for those who like to puke at what I write, then so be it – I was not born to please everyone… And spammers are still not welcome!!. 

Is it too late to say Happy Chinese New Year – about 4 weeks down the line?

Yes it is. But I don’t care. 
This year is the year of the Rooster. In Chinese we say 雞年 (Canto: gai nin; Mando: ji nian) meaning “year of the chicken” not rooster. The character 雞 doesn’t refer to the chicken as being male or female but it is assumed (I’m guessing) that it is the male chicken the Chinese are referring to. It’s actually the same factor for all the Chinese Zodiacs and a debate I was having with Mr Games and Miss Money. What sex were the Chinese Zodiacs? Discuss! 

Dumplings are traditionally made on the first day of the Chinese New Year, but these were bought from frozen, fried and then “steamed”. Pork and Chinese chives flavour.

These are dried, flattened sharon fruit – often made just for Chinese New Year.

And I got two lucky red envelopes. If you follow me on Instagram, I asked the question if they had money inside. Yes, they did. ^_^

One of my colleagues just came back from China, he said he had a lucky envelope for me. I said in Cantonese “唔使啦” (m sai la), meaning “no need la” – because he’s kind of my age and not my boss… it didn’t feel right accepting! LOL!  ¥10 is equivalent to £1 by the way. >_<"

Anyway, celebrations are now over, although in China Town London you can still see the red lanterns around the area.

Regal Riverside Hotel 麗豪酒店 – Shatin, Hong Kong

On By Bao Bao QiuIn Uncategorized2 Comments
Ah, one more post about Hong Kong!

Last time we stayed at the Regal Oriental Hotel based in Kowloon. My family didn’t really like that hotel even though there was free WiFi and lots of local stores. But we had to try and go back to the Regal Riverside Hotel 麗豪酒店 (Canto: lai hou jau dim) on this trip! Why?

Because the rooms are much more spacious at this hotel than their sister hotel (plus they finally finished renovating whatever they were doing and installed free WiFi)!

In previous stays at this hotel, they used to have a big table and chairs available. Now there’s a squeaky sofa and a small glass table which I kept bumping to at night. 😦 It hurts you know! I mostly sat on the floor to eat my breakfast or dinner… Felt the sofa was too high and the table was too low. >_<"" Not sure if they vacuum the rooms as often as they used to. And I don't think they change the bed sheets because I spilt a bit of soy sauce on the duvet cover, nothing was changed. ¬_¬"

We were put on the 8th Floor (lucky number for the Chinese), but really it was unlucky for us as we couldn’t sleep! I switched the aircon to heat but all we got was cold air. Turned it up to 24/25 degrees… and still no hot air… What kind of aircon did they install?

Forgot to take a picture of the bathroom. They haven’t upgraded their bathrooms for years. I think depending on the cleaner you get, you don’t always get new bottles of shampoo or body wash… 😦

Think the hotel has gone a bit stingy for a 4 star. Weren’t like this 6/7 years ago! The cleaners were much more generous with the teas and coffees and sugar… Unfortunately they give out a lot of bottles of water… In the end we had around more than 10 bottles sitting in our room! >_<" Stupid management idea really…
Didn’t take any of the drinks from the fridge… no point. They were more expensive than the supermarket and 7Eleven. 
The only best thing is how fast the lift goes up and down. ^_^

Pointers when staying at this hotel:
– Close to the bus stops but be prepared to wait for some of them, as some are hourly buses
– 2 bus stops away from New Town Plaza, which is where you can take a train
– Far away from a Metro line, so you will need to hop on a bus to somewhere like Yau Ma Tei
– There is a HK$1000 deposit – in case you break anything or order things like room service
– There are restaurants around but walk around to City One or New Town Plaza… or even walk to the Star Seafood Floating Restaurant…
– If you’ve been put in a room near the roads, then I’m afraid there’s nothing much you can do except purchase earplugs
– The walls are not that thick so it’s possible you can hear your neighboring hotel guest
– There’s finally free WiFi!!!
– Try out their restaurants, I never did, but they look good
– It’s generally a quiet area – apart from the traffic
– There’s a dry cleaners nearby, try and find it as it’s cheaper than the hotel!
– There are family rooms available which have more facilities like microwaves and cookers etc.
If I were to give a geeky rating, it would be defo be a 3/5… but 5/5 for location! :p

Address:
中國香港新界沙田大涌橋路34-36號

34-36 Tai Chung Kiu Road, Sha Tin, Hong Kong
Phone: +852 2649 7878

Hong Kong 2016 Day 14: Last Day

On By Bao Bao QiuIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Friday 16th December 2016

Final post on my holiday! (But hotel post is next after this).
I felt the lazy bug step in. I realised why I was not able to sleep. It’s because I usually sleep late and wake up late in London, and that’s what I did on our last day. Really felt the tiredness kick in.
I felt like the lazy person I was supposed to be at the start of this holiday, my laziness was not meant to be on this holiday! MummyGeek was up and I asked if she could buy takeaway because I was being my lazy self…

My last bowl of HK congee!! This time with pig liver. Woooow. I wondered why people liked eating this one. The liver was so smoothly made… Like eating butter or very smooth cream. Yummy!

Breakfast that morning was HK$98 (~£10.32). MummyGeek paid. No prob! 😀

I managed to sleep for another 2 hours before checkout time. I was so tired. I requested a late checkout for 1pm as our flight was in the evening, but it seems Mr Stingy was kicked out at 12pm. So we kind of left. No extra charges were made so they didn’t take my deposit.
We left our luggage around the taxi station area. You’re allowed to leave your luggage at the hotel for up to 7 days before they somehow get rid of it… so during that time we went outside the hotel (it was very cold that day) and waited for the cousin who took Mr Stingy and I around our village on Day 3… 

We saw a couple in their wedding outfits… a happy day for some!

We ended up in BBQ King again. There is no escaping this restaurant! My cousin wanted to discuss family stuff – which I thought was totally inappropriate timing! Ruined my mood really... 

Lunch came up to HK$170 (~£17.89). I seemed to have paid again! :p

After our hour longish lunch of family stuff Mr Stingy and I went to the New Town Plaza Shopping Centre for one last trip. Bought a colleague a traditional Chinese music CD – as it was his birthday soon. 

Came back to the hotel within less than an hour… And then went to the airport. VERY EARLY!

It didn’t matter because we got to see the sunset from the airbus. ^_^

So at the airport we were too early to check in… about 2 to 3 hours. That meant it time to crochet Mr Picky’s scarf which I had started on the plane coming to HK. Was also trying to catch some Pokémon at the same time… free WiFi at the airport!

Finally crossed over to the other side after 8pm. Such a long wait. I think next time I’m going to choose an earlier flight with a different company. Virgin flights are really late!

I forgot to eat one of my favourites. Beef brisket curry and rice!! Oh, how could I forget?!!! I paid for MummyGeek’s meal as well… It’s really expensive at the airport, so I don’t advise you to eat there unless you really have to. Cost came to HK$252 (~£26.52). I don’t think UK airports are this expensive. ¬_¬

Mr Stingy went for char siu and special fried rice… ¬_¬” Typical of him!

Time to walk around and find our gate… Bought some sweeties and Gudetama stuff…

Finally got to our gate and so I decided to charge my phone in the meantime… At the time of charging I think someone had lost their phone or charger, well a couple of males came over so I’m not sure if someone stole something. Didn’t see anything suspicious really. I was playing Pokémon as I usually do. LOL!

Finally time to board…

It was a very unfortunate flight. We had four babies on board. Because they were all quite young they all started screaming and crying at the same time. It was possibly my worse flight in history. I’ll take Ryanair any day for the silly messages and cramped seats. Food was so-so. For a very famous company and bright, you would really expect decent food in the Economy section. :p I can even get decent food in my work canteen for less the price of what they provide per person. ¬_¬” The pasta dinner was basically the pits! Disgusting!

At some point the person in front leaned their seat back and damaged my mini USB cord. I was so upset I hit the seat in front! Grrrrr. I think the long leg room seats are not worth it. Total waste of money to be honest. Going back to a different flight company with better seating.

I managed to sleep somehow after watching some of House of Cards Season 4… think I was beyond tired on that flight. What works is big earphones (always purchase your own because flight ones are rubbish) and very loud music. I dozed off with music. That’s the first time that has ever happened in my entire waking life.
When I was awake, the babies started to cry again… I really wanted to get up, go to the parents and say “would you like me to hold your baby? I have godmother experience” … But I didn’t do it as Mr Stingy was blocking me. ¬_¬””
Breakfast came and I had the full breakfast – not bad! Decent for my taste buds.
We finally arrived in London. We had to do some sort of emergency landing and all our devices had to be completely switched off. Why? It was foggy that Saturday morning. The foggiest it’s been in London since we’ve been gone. It’s really pretty from the top. Not so pretty from the ground. I think we were very lucky as during the day not many flights were going in or out from Heathrow. 
As we got to the airport, queued (and I caught 2 Pikachu’s with Xmas hats on), passed passport control, I saw this poster… American Airlines really know how to make people laugh: “Fly Flat, Arrive Sharp”… Hmmmm…

Got a taxi back. Black cab one. Cost £80. Worth it in the fog. Cabbies need to make money too!

Well that’s the end of our holiday. It was a very hectic one being with family, hardly any shopping, some sight seeing… But for me, that was not enough! Argh… maybe another time…

End of Day 14 and holiday time in HK! ^_^

Hong Kong 2016 Day 13: Kwun Tong

On By Bao Bao QiuIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Thursday 15th December 2016

Second to last day!! We’re almost to the end of this almost happy trip… 
It was difficult to decide what to do on the day before our flight back to London. In the end we all decided to go to Kwun Tong. It has one of those big shopping centres… So we took the 89X from the back of the hotel bus station… 
I thought we saw the shopping centre – but we got off the bus a stop or two too early. Argh… So we started walking to the opposite side.

We kind of walked into the wrong building, so we started walking up towards the shopping centre. I even pointed out where the old market used to be, but Mr Stingy said we’re not anywhere close to the shopping centre… so we had to get back to the bus stop we got off from. MummyGeek was annoyed with me as we should have got off the last bus stop. We walked back and forth to remember which bus number we took as well… When our bus finally came, MummyGeek asked for the wrong stop and we didn’t get on the frigging bus! And that’s when my anger stepped in. I shouted at MummyGeek for being stupid… Grrrrrr!!! (Being with your mother 24/7 for 13 days now was rather tiring!! My Aries sign kicked in… TBH: I’m glad I work). When another bus came we spent a bit more money on the bus… BUT guess what?! When we were walking, we were practically half a kilometer away from the apm shopping centre… ¬_¬”. My annoyance kicked in further… MummyGeek apologised, and I did too with gritted teeth, :p
apm shopping centre had big massive bears for their Christmas display. We walked around and around taking lots and lots of pictures. ^_^

It was finally time to eat! So we ended up in the expensive food hall. Had to thank this German guy who gave up his seat for MummyGeek and Mr Stingy! Thanks dude!

MummyGeek ordered noodles, some crappy veggies and I think it came with some pork chops. Mr Stingy had something similar…

I had a beef or was it pork with kimchi and rice… boy this sort of bibimbap was massive… and there was soooo much kimchi and not enough meat. ¬_¬”” I’ve lost the receipt but think it was quite expensive for what I got… Never again peeps! Think smaller eateries outside the shopping mall is probably the best thing to go to.

Lots and lots of kiiiiimchiiiiiii!

We all went around the shopping centre in our sort of separate ways… I didn’t buy anything because everything was too expensive for my liking. :p

After an exhausting morning, we went back to the hotel… Tough Love. Tough Morning. Tough Everything! :p

Well. It was an unsatisfying morning. So I said to MummyGeek I want to go shopping by myself that afternoon… In which I did! I went back to Ma On Shan… I had to go back to Miniso, which is now one of my favourite Japanese-Hong Kong stores. It’s a bit like the Danish Tiger stores in London, but of course Miniso sells Japanese things. :p I bought myself a new bowl for work and some other useful things…

Went into the next mall, and one of my cousins who I hadn’t seen when we had the family gathering a few days before text me to go out for dinner… Ugh!!! Why me?!! Why did I have to be the sole bearer of a mobile phone with all the contacts. 😦 Had to rush back to the hotel and explain to MummyGeek and Mr Stingy. No more shopping allowed. How unsatsifying! But at least I got what I wanted. 

Ok, so the most satisfying part of the journey back was the sunset. Hong Kong has beautiful sunsets during the winter period.

Miss Pinky was practically asking for one of my cups. One thing not to do is post things on your personal social media site and tell people what you’re buying or doing! Well, I can’t help but show off. So Mr Stingy decided to surprise Miss Pinky. We both got 7 stickers in total. I went down to the 7Eleven next to the hotel to check if they had stock… They did! Yippee!! I had to check which one it was coz I would have swapped with one of the other ones… Luckily the one given to me was a pink cup, and one that I didn’t want. Phew! Surprise Miss Pinky. ^_^

In the end we gave in to my female cousin. The only reason she couldn’t make the family meal was because of her son, my second cousin, LOL. He’s kind of a difficult and hyperactive child. A funny child.
My cousin came with her daughter. We haven’t seen her for about 8 years! Wow, and she’s now in uni going off to study English Literature at a Hong Kong University in Kowloon. Amazing… My cousin’s children really have grown up so fast. 
MummyGeek didn’t want to go so far, so we ended up going to BBQ King for dinner. ^_^

Food was kind of casual. The expensive item here was the soup!
Total cost came to HK$498 (~£52.42) – I paid as this cousin of mine came to London to visit us and paid for dinner last time. ^_^

Reminder of the address:
沙田沙田大涌橋路20號河畔花園D座地下39號舖
Shop 39, Riverside Garden, 20 Tai Chung Bridge Road, Sha Tin


It seemed like a very long day!
End of Day 13.

Hong Kong 2016 Day 12: Tai Po & End of 7Eleven Cup Search & City One

On By Bao Bao QiuIn Uncategorized2 Comments

Wednesday 14th December 2016

Almost towards the end of our holiday…

We had to go and visit Grandpopo and my aunt before the end of our trip. MummyGeek wanted us to eat breakfast in Tai Po before we went, and so we ended up at this tiny diner. We actually wanted to eat at the Cooked Food Centre, but lots of the stalls weren’t opened, and we would have had to share a much smaller table. 😦 Oh well. Mr Stingy was bad luck! :p

What I had wanted most was spare ribs and rice… One of my favourite HK morning foods… It just had to be done!

Unfortunately I forgot to note down the price and name of the diner. Oh well. It’s in the Tai Po Centre area, opposite a 7Eleven…

But guess what?! My search for these 7Eleven cups ended that morning in Tai Po!! Stock did come that night!! Phew!! So I got one for free, and then I paid an extra HK$28 with 7 stickers for the second one. Actually, none of my friends know I have a second cup (the Purin one) – so keep it quiet. Shhhh. LOL! And no, no-one is having these… 

So that afternoon was spent at Grandpopo’s place… Had to fix the TV, show my aunt how to copy and paste stuff from her computer… and we ate loads again! It was very warm that day…

After our visit, we went back to Tai Po so that Mr Stingy could go and look around. MummyGeek and I ended up doing some last minute shopping. I love this area. You can buy your essentials for cheap. I wish things in London could be as cute and cheap at the same time. LOL.

Time to go back. Instead of waiting for the 74A, we took the 73A or B – can’t remember and went all the way to City One 第一城. It’s one of the few places we have been to in HK… and I actually like it. It’s not far from the hotel. So I do recommend this place for small shopping.

We ended up in McDonald’s in City One. MummyGeek said she’ll pay for my dinner… My meal came to HK$55.30 (~£5.82), but I accidentally didn’t select the meal as I thought the “shake shake” seasoning was the price of the fries as well and had to pay separately for everything… total geek moment that was! Ugh. So I had to pay extra for the fries… AuntyGeek is getting old… ¬_¬” I’m sure the youngsters in McD’s were looking at me as a confused HKer… Sorry kids!
This is Mr Stingy’s burger… I forgot which one this is.

I had another Hokkaido burger. This was with salmon, ham slice (or was it chicken) and egg. Had a lemon tea and a double strawberry sundae! Yay!!! ^_^

My shake shake fries with nori seasoning… messy business eating this!

Ooooo… doesn’t my sundae look so cool!

Ended up walking around City One. Not sure why my cousins think it’s an average place to go to… I like it! Need to walk around it during the day time next time… 🙂

End of Day 12.

Hong Kong 2016 Day 11: Sai Kung & The Search For Those Damn 7Eleven cups! ( ͒˃⌂˂ ͒)

On By Bao Bao QiuIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
Apologies all! Been a bit busy this week. Took the HSK Level 2 yesterday and so I had to study for that… and before that, I’ve been made into a carpenter… New carpet needed at home.

Tuesday 13th December 2016
The day started late. We didn’t have breakfast near the hotel that morning. Instead we went out to Sai Kung as my cousins needed us to do some family matter stuff. 
So we waited at the bus stop opposite the hotel. MummyGeek spotted a couple of guys canoeing… I think we waited forever for the 299X to appear that morning!

Finally in Sai Kung. As I’ve mentioned in one of my previous posts the journey isn’t that long… Sai Kung is a seafood town, so you’ll see lots of fresh seafood.

We ended up in Cheun Kee Seafood Restaurant where one of my cousins took us last time when we visited. So basically we had a dim sum breakfast/brunch/lunch. ^_^ They make everything fresh, so sometimes you might be waiting for a while for the food… Really can’t fault this place. But yeah, it’s where the tourists would go too.

I think I made a wrong order, but this is prawn spring rolls in cheung fun wrap. It tasted great. Might have this again one day! Just need to remember the name for next time. ^_^

This is a steamed rice with pork and mushroom. They only make this when it’s been ordered by the customer. So order these dishes first so that it comes around the same time as your dim sum. Allow 15 to 20 minutes for it to arrive!

Total cost came to HK$235 (~£24.74). Pretty much cheapish compared to London prices.


87-89 Man Nin Street, Sai Kung
西貢萬年街87-89號地下


We ended up waiting for our cousins for a bit, so we went and walked around looking for Hakka teacakes.

Somehow we ended at this place in Sai Kung Market 西貢街市 (Canto: sai gung gaai si). MummyGeek wanted to buy some char siu and chicken for DaddyChef’s family (again!)… Think they’ve had enough meat, but you know “beggars can’t be choosers!”. We saw two places selling meat, one had no prices but the other did. So we went to this place with the prices. It shows that they’re genuine in my eyes. This place is pretty famous in Sai Kung for their honey char siu – the way I like it! Extra sweet. ^_^ 

The place is called 旺記燒爉 Wong Kee Siu Lap – you can’t miss it on the ground floor of the indoor market!

Address: 67 Yi Chun St, Sai Kung, Hong Kong

Now it was time to find those teacakes! We had to go around some back streets just to find it… If you see this street art, you’re in the wrong street!

If you see this street, which is just a few metres away, then you’re in the right street for those famous teacakes.

But unfortunately, they only open on the weekends! Argh! MummyGeek was not so happy… LOL!!

西貢市場街21號地下
G/F, 21 See Cheung Street, Sai Kung

In the end we walked back towards the pier…

Then we found an old lady who was selling them… I think it was HK$10 for 3. ^_^ … Suddenly a whole bunch of ladies came up to buy some too. Where did they come from?!!!

Our cousins finally came, did our family matters, then ended up walking to find something for them to eat! ¬_¬”” Don’t understand why my family loves food. >_<"

It was quite hot that day, so I ended up drinking a cold coffee…

Finally it was time to say our goodbyes… I wrote some postcards on the bus, and thought I must send them that day urgently! >_<""" Luckily I remembered where the post office was – kind of! Thankfully, I found it – it's basically near the centre. Can't really miss it. Heheheheh. So five lucky friends/family got a postcard all the way from HK. 

So what did I do for the rest of the day? Went out searching for these damn 7Eleven cups (the ones on the left in the picture). Practically sold out everywhere. Just don’t understand why can’t the 7Eleven stores stock more! Got told off from one shop near the hotel that they had no stock. So rude. :p  Mr Stingy went somewhere… not sure where!
Every 7Eleven I went to said they had no stock from Sai Kung to Mong Kok to Ap Liu Street to Sham Shui Po… 😦 MummyGeek was actually with me as she was afraid I would do something crazy and get lost… :p 
Well, we couldn’t find the place. But we remembered to go back to this Dai Pai Dong (big food stall) for their beef brisket noodles and VERY fresh vegetables. The place is still running after many years… ^_^ So happy!

Total cost came to HK$79 (~£8.32). Still amazing prices for a side street food stall – and still loved by the locals! ^_^ I think we had more noodles a few years ago … I guess food prices went up!

鴻記麵家, 深水埗耀東街15-16門前大牌檔
Hung Kee Noodles, Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong

Ok, so we gave up on the search for the cups, so in the end we had to trek back to the hotel! Ended back around Mong Kok, then we had to find Laundry Street to take the mini bus back to Sai Kung (and ask again for the cups – because one of the workers said there will be stock that night… not true, think they got stock after midnight!). Gosh. I really dislike those mini buses. They are the scariest rides EVER! Well… couldn’t get the cups but I bought some pen supplies from my favourite store – Japan Home Cenre. ^_^
At the hotel MummyGeek and I ate the teacakes. I forgot what each one was made of, but just imagine big versions of none-sweet Japanese mochi.

Not bad teacakes. Not one of my fave Hakka desserts but decent enough to eat.

End of Day 11.

Hong Kong 2016 Day 10: Ma On Shan & Shatin & Family Dinner

On By Bao Bao QiuIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Monday 12th December 2016

Finally into the second week of our holiday.

I promise a shorter post this evening. ^_^

The day started a little later than expected… I basically didn’t want to get out of bed because Ocean Park was absolutely tiring. I’m not sure if I managed to sleep because on that weekend the hotel again was blasting that stupid music all night. In the end I took advantage, ¬_¬”, and asked MummyGeek to get takeaway brekkie… She came back with this from the congee place…  It’s called 鹹煎餅 (Canto: haam jin beng). It’s a salty and sweet bun with sesame seeds on top. Looks kind of fried – because it is fried. It has a fluffy inside too… Chinese donut? Nah…!

This time I had 艇仔粥 (Canto: teng jai juk), which means “boat congee”… a recipe from Guangzhou. It has squid and peanuts in this one. ^_^

MummyGeek also bought this cha siu cheung fun… Didn’t really like it, think the soy sauce wasn’t sweet enough. 😦 This was my own disappointment with the shop.
Total cost came to HK$98… seriously? I think MummyGeek also bought some for Mr Stingy too…

And again the address for this place is…

南記粥品店，沙田沙田圍怡成坊田園閣地下
Naam Kee Congee, G/F, Greenfield Court, Yi Shing Square, Sha Tin Wai, Sha Tin

Mr Stingy decided to go with us to Ma On Shan Shopping Centre… From opposite the hotel, you need to take the bus 86K or the smaller bus 803. I suggest you take the 86K if you fear for your life! I really don’t like the small buses. They just go too fast. Hong Kong roads are considered as racing tracks for some. ¬_¬” 
You have to get off at Bayshore Towers bus stop 海柏花園. From there you need to go up the escalators to one of the shopping centres… It’s the old one. Just make sure you go a bit late as some shops probably won’t be opened early!

At Christmas time last year they had the Yokai theme. If you remembered when I went to Japan, Miss Pinky and I were very amused by their exercise ending song. Here’s the English song version: https://youtu.be/FQM_r4dbLVU.

Throughout the week, I was collecting these stickers from 7Eleven. As soon as you get 20 stickers you can get a free cup. If you 7 stickers and pay an extra HK$28 you can get a cup… I asked in if that was the case in Ma On Shan… but didn’t get a full answer, didn’t even get a chance to ask if they had any stock, which made MummyGeek kind of angry. ¬_¬” Maybe I should have listened to her! 

We walked to the other shopping centre… I still don’t understand why in HK why there’s an old and new shopping centre next to each other,

We explored the other shopping centre and bought sweets and looked around… Hasn’t changed that much, but they did have a DC Comic Christmas theme last year!

It was kind of boring because lots of the shops were closed due to renovations.

In the end we took the bus 86K back. Mr Stingy went back to the hotel and MummyGeek and I went to Shatin New Town Plaza. I still don’t like this shopping centre, it’s one of those places where the rich need to buy all their valuables. ¬_¬”… Off to the old neighboring shopping centre!

We explored around the old shopping centre and the small stalls. I think I’m just an oldie at heart. I love old HK!
MummyGeek was hungry. We explored the Chinese restaurants, but they looked so full. I spotted KFC, but nope, we weren’t allowed to enter there. 😦 I wanted fried chicken!!! So in the end it was McDonald’s all the way! ¬_¬”  MummyGeek went for a hamburger Happy Meal. And I went for the Hokkaido Salmon Series. Why hasn’t the UK got into the fish burgers yet? It’s always beef burgers… boooo!!!
Cant remember how many burgers were available for this series…

The burger consisted of lettuce, burger and fried salmon. Not a bad burger!

I had a choco apple pie with ice cream and strawberry syrup… Yum yum yum… They need to bring this back to the UK!!! Why has the UK economy gone so bad with their food industry?! 😦

Total cost came to HK$74 (~£7.79). Wow! That’s so cheap for all of this.

Hong Kong, Sha Tin, Wang Pok St, 2-16號沙田中心商場三樓32A及69A號舖

Back into the shopping centre – after buying some cheap scarves from a scapegoat cart… She doesn’t have a licence and they run away so quickly.

And then back into New Town Plaza… gosh everything has changed. There’s no bookshops there either… I searched the lower ground floor for it… Nothing there! 😦

But the one section I love out of this shopping centre is this section where there’s food and a Japanese accessories store is… Can’t remember the name of the store, but will look into my old posts for it. >_<"!

We took a bus back to the hotel… we used to take the 299 because it was the easiest bus to remember to get back to the hotel with. But now it’s so expensive, so I kind of asked a bus driver if there were any another buses that headed there. And there was! Bus number 284 headed back to Regal Riverside at HK$3.80 (~£0.40). It’s around HK$10 with the Bus 299. 

We were to meet one of my aunts (DaddyChef’s younger sister) who just lives close to the hotel and her youngest son with his wife and daughter also live quite close too… so we went to their flat to have a look around, play and talk… ^_^

Trying to take a pic of the full moon from my cousin’s flat using my phone but it doesn’t take great shots… and I didn’t bring my small camera along with me. Oh well. 

We finally headed out for dinner… It was mostly DaddyChef’s family – a big get together with my aunts and cousins! Very rare to see us all together. LOL.  Usually we meet half and the other half another time. ¬_¬”” (It was a painful moment in my holiday… texting, texting and texting…!!). 

We ended going somewhere nearly local to all of them. Walking distance from the flat. But some of us took the car. ^_^ I would have walked… but they insisted… :p

This restaurant called 明星海鮮舫 (Canto: ming sing hoi sin fong) Star Seafood Floating Restaurant. I think the one before this restaurant appeared MummyGeek used to go to this location a lot for parties and weddings… Seems like a popular place. We always passed it every time we came back but looked so far to walk to, to go and eat… Maybe not… It makes me want to try out the restaurant in Regent’s Park… the one next to London Zoo. >_<"

I think we had no idea what to order… so left it up to the family… I have no idea what set they ordered. But it might have been an expensive meal! 
So started off with 白切雞 (Canto: baak chit gai), this literally means “white cut chicken” … boiled chicken, and basically because it comes out white once boiled and then cut into chunks. One of my cousins made a comment about cameras eating first before the humans eat… LOL! Sorry cousin. I take pics all the time. :p

Some sort of sweetcorn soup…

This was kind of gruesome to see… Pigeon! 燒乳鴿 (Canto: siu yu gaap) … roast pigeon ¬_¬”. Mr Sting and I didn’t want to attempt it, but I gave it a go. It tastes like roast duck. But I think I’ll stick to duck for sure. Pigeon doesn’t look exciting.

Think this was some sort of tofu and veggie dish.

Seafood and rice noodles, mushrooms and veggies… my parents make this all the time… Nothing that special.

Ah! But this was a rare thing to eat! Big giant crab with thick legs to indulge in. Hahahah. One of my cousins was so greedy and had the rest of the remainders… The one who took us to the underground restaurant. Hilarious!

Now these are fresh abalone 鮑魚 (Canto: baau yu). A shellfish. You need to actually cut it away from the shell. Just don’t eat the green part that’s attached to the shell… ^_^ This is one of my favourite seafoods.

Big catfish was on the menu too…

And then finally dessert. This is a sort of red bean paste crispy looking pancake 紅豆沙鍋餅 (Canto: hung dau sa wo beng)… it will translate on Google as red bean casserole, but it actually means “Red bean paste pancake”. It was ok.

The last dessert was this sort of plain bun with sugar on top, and red bean paste at the bottom. Not sure what this is called in Chinese… But it was ok.

Leftover pigeon heads… sorry…  Feel sorry for them!!!

As we were leaving my cousin (the big eater) had to show me the fresh seafood. LOL!

Total cost came to (I think) HK$1800 (~£189) for 14 of us, which would have been around £13 each really… Cheap! But I didn’t pay. So, oh well.

Address: 沙田大涌橋路55-57號
55-57 Tai Chung Kiu Road, Sha Tin



End of Day 10.

Hong Kong 2016 Day 9: Ocean Park

On By Bao Bao QiuIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Warning: this post has a lot of pictures >_<"""

It’s been ridiculously busy and tiring for these past few days! Back into the blogging swing again (for now).


Sunday 11th December 2016

Yay!! I threw up the previous night, and the following morning I felt ok, but decided to go light with the breakfast in case my stomach decided to give in. Don’t worry, this happens to me once in a blue moon on a long flight holiday. Surprisingly it didn’t happen when I was in Japan, Texas or New York… Hmmm…

That morning we woke up slightly late but on time. We didn’t walk far for breakfast… We went to BBQ King. Gosh, these peeps wake up early and sleep late! I don’t think I could survive their working and sleeping patterns. 😦

MummyGeek decided to have some spaghetti in the morning, which comes with soup, BBQ pork and sweetcorn plus sausage and toast. I think I ate the sausage and toast. Heheheh.

But I did have a really light, light brekkie! A typical Hong Kong ham and flat scrambled egg sandwich with the crust off. Asians just don’t like crusty sandwiches. I think any sandwich with scrambled egg is from HK. >_<""

I forgot about dai pai dong coffee is so bitter. Had to add a lot of sugar!! HK coffee is like one of those you like it or hate it situations, (like Marmite)… I’m one of those in betweeners. :p

Total cost came to HK$60 (~£6.32). Our cheapest breakfast for two people so far!

It was time to head out to OCEAN PARK!! We took a bus 81C from the hotel to Yau Ma Tei, then went to find this bus stop – Mang Ming Lane at Yau Ma Tei. We took the bus 171 which takes us all the way to Ocean Park. (I checked online, and it seems you can get a straight bus 170 from Greenfield Court, which is a short walk from the hotel… oh well).

We got to Ocean Park around 10.30 am. Got stuck in traffic!!!! Thankfully the queues weren’t too bad when we got there. ^_^

Prices for the tickets at the time were HK£385 (~£40.53) for one adult, they have now gone up to HK$438 (~£46.10). My, my! So expensive these tickets!! Even London Zoo is not that expensive!

So it’s picture time…

MummyGeek wanted us to take loads and loads of pictures! Well, MummyGeek hasn’t been there since her honeymoon with DaddyChef methinks (it was part of their honeymoon). I last went to Ocean Park when I was 18 with DaddyChef and one of my cousins – before she got married… That was a very long time ago… But Mr Stingy has never been, so we gave him the opportunity to go. ^_^ From here onwards it’s just pictures… Stop when you see some writing!

Mr Stingy and I wanted to take the cable car first… get the scary part out of the way… If I remember back a long time ago, I’m sure I had to climb some stairs… that was from the Aquarium end, but you don’t have to do that anymore! You’ll pass an old looking street for the entrance. You can take the Express Train if you’re scared of the cable cars.

The queue looked quite long! But in fact they moved quite quickly… I guess some people wanted to take the train…

It was finally our turn, and we were lucky to have our own cable car.

Time for the riiiiiiide….

LOL!! Mr Stingy got scared, and I kind of became scared for a tiny moment. MummyGeek was just enjoying herself! She asked Mr Stingy: “why are you afraid? You flew 10-11 hours on a plane, and that was high”. His answer: “I didn’t any views to look down”. Blimey!!

We arrived at one of the mountains… And ended up walking around… Mr Stingy also went on a ride to get himself soaked because it was again quite hot that day.

Time to go back dooooown. I don’t think we all wanted to take the cable car, so we took the express train!

Next stop. Giant Panda Adventure area!

But we had to eat first… Already lunch time… So quick! We went into the Panda Restaurant… Both MummyGeek and Mr Stingy ordered the same foods. We also go a free ice cream.

I had the spicy beef brisket noodles… I wanted the panda buns, but they weren’t ready by the time I got there… 😦

Total cost for my food was HK$194 (~£20.42)… ok that is frigging expensive. Advise you to bring a sandwich or something filling.

Had to wait for Mr Stingy and MummyGeek to go to the loo, so I waited and took pictures… Pandas! Here I come!

Uh. Why are these pandas sleeping?!!!!!

Even the red pandas were sleeping. ¬_¬”

Awww, it was great to look at them all sleep… but next time stay awake when I come again… :p

We were heading towards the Grand Aquarium and I saw there was another monkey/ panda section… So told MummyGeek to wait for us.

This was Mr Stingy’s happy moment when he saw these two Sichuan Golden Snub-nosed monkeys make out in front of us… It’s not often you see this…

The male monkey was like, whatcha looking at?!

The female monkey was probably like… We’re doing this for you guys! LOL!

Hahahah… They look innocent now. Naughty monkeys!

Mr Stingy just couldn’t stop laughing.

The Giant Aquarium is what it says, a very giant aquarium! Bigger than the London Aquarium? Maybe. Just want to point out, be wary of Chinese Mainland tourists, they might barge into you or squeeze in front of you to take some pictures… MummyGeek was saying it’s probably because they have limited time to stay then go to their next destination… But you know what, it’s only fair to be polite and say sorry excuse me. :p My British mannerism comes in. ¬_¬”

Phew… That felt stressful!

We actually had to sit down and cool off… ^_^

The fountain was moving to the rhythm of the music.

Time to say goodbye to Ocean Park and see them next time… There were many parts we hadn’t seen. But maybe next time!

We waited for a bus going back to Shatin but that would have taken a while to wait for, there was a guy also waiting for the same bus and tut his teeth when we moved to another bus stop. Uh. Why didn’t you look at the times as well. Idiot. Anyway we took a bus that headed into town… Unfortunately it stopped at Admiralty. So our final options were to take another bus which was more expensive, or take the Metro to Yau Ma Tei and take another bus from there to the hotel. We took the latter option…
Took a picture of thi poster advert. Pretty cute. You can’t see the writing in English but it reads: “It doesn’t matter if it is a black cat or white cat; as long as it manages debt well, it is a good cat.” LOL! A bank ad. =^.^=

It took us a while to find the bus stop from Yau Ma Tei, but we finally got back on the 81C and back to Shatin we went… Just to let you know, the nearest bus stop is opposite the fire station, but Mr Stingy decided to walk more. Poo.

MummyGeek paid for dinner whilst I went to buy a whole load of drinks! Roast duck and BBQ pork… plus an extra dish of Chinese leaves… all from BBQ King again!!

Hm. I’ve not tasted this flavour before. Dark Chocolate Waffle. Tasted like waffle but I think more chocolate than waffle.

End of Day 9… I promise not to add so many pictures in the next post… At least we all enjoyed ourselves – apart from the return to the hotel situation!