Hong Kong 2012 - Chapter 6: Avenue of Stars and The Ding Ding Tram~

Started off our final day in HK bright and early, the goal: Authentic HK Dim Sum for breakfast/brunch~! After that, we'd planned to visit Avenue of Stars and then cross over to Central to visit Causeway Bay..  After checking for directions with the concierge, we made our way to Nathan Road for dim sum at Cheers Restaurant (稻香）which our colleague had tried before and recommended.

 

Stopped by Mcdonalds to share a burger before beginning our search for the place.. They have twisty pasta on the menu, how cute~

 After walking around Mongkok and passing through Langham Place, we finally found the restarant!

The restaurant was bigger than it looked from the outside, and we were given a table in a smaller room. It looks empty here because we were very early, by the time we left, the entire restaurant was packed and there was a queue outside as well. I guess HK people really love their 'morning tea'~

 Order sheets.. I was a bit disappointed that they didn't use pushcarts, I think a real dim sum experience must always have pushcarts because choosing what you want from the cart is the part that is most fun XD

 Looking so excited over dim sum :P

Food for 3~ yeah, only 3 survivors left on the last day, one sick, one tired, another one on a date..

 My favourite was the steamed spare ribs, so yummy~~ but for the other stuff, i think we can get that quality in Malaysia as well, sigh.. too high expectations for HK dim sum I guess.

This is how they keep track of what has been eaten for the final bill.. little number stamps on the card :)

After our meal, we made our way to Mong Kok station again to head over to Tsim Sha Tsui

Taadaa.. behind us is the replica of the statuette given to winners at the Hong Kong Film Awards (how do I know that? well, wikipedia told me :P)

Obligatory touristy shot with the Avenue of Stars sign~ :)

There were so many palm prints both familiar and unfamiliar, but this one made me feel proud to be Malaysian.. heehee...

Photo-bombed by a little girl while taking a picture with the cute 麦兜 =.=

More touristy shots. As you can see, it was rather hazy on our last day there, and it was also getting warmer in anticipation of summer.. I ended up discarding my scarf and jacket after awhile.

We were nearing the ferry terminal and all of a sudden, I had this deja vu feeling like I knew this place! 

It's the place always seen in TVB dramas where the actors want to jump into the sea when they are feeling depressed.. hee.. :)

Finally arrived at the ferry terminal and bought our tickets.. err.. tokens. The ferry ride was so cheap, only HKD2.30 if I remember correctly.. I'm a stickler for cheap deals~ :)

Vending machine selling birthday and greeting cards, never seen this before back home..

Caught a ride on the tram, it was a novelty when we first got up but the ride was very long and quite boring frankly. I almost fell asleep on the way, lucky I had a seat because the space was quite tight and there were people standing all the way..

This was the general view along the way because we were passing through residential areas to get to our destination, which was Causeway Bay~ 

Souvenir time!!

  Never seen before in Malaysia/Singapore green tea, mango and spicy chocolate Pocky sticks~ Mango was awesome, wish I'd bought more..

Pink Longchamp Le Pliage for Mum and black Planetes for me :D It's much cheaper and affordable in HK, even for my standards. The small Le Pliage with short handle was about SGD100 after conversion and Planetes short handle only about SGD160, definitely not a price that we can get back home..

Shorts from Mango, I find it very hard to find nice shorts and pants for my big butt, so these were a nice find :) about SGD35 each after conversion~

The customary T-shirt from Giordano (which is so reasonably priced there!), Passport holder, pink clutch (both very cheap from Ladies Market), Perfume set from SaSa and a Revlon Lip Butter (it wasn't available in Malaysia when I visited HK, I came back to find that they had been introduced here, but luckily the colour I got, berry smoothie, isn't available here, otherwise... *facepalm*)

My Octopus card (which still has some credit in it) and random touristy rubbish that I don't know whether to throw or keep, LoL~

and the weirdest souvenir of all, Kotex White, the blue one is the one sold here. The Kotex White packaging looks so much better :) I got this when we were contemplating whether to all stay back in Hong Kong with our sick colleague since she wan't allowed to board the flight while she was running a fever. Just imagining dashing for the flight and being the last at the gate just makes me feel :S all over again.. 

Some notes I wanted to make for my HK trip:-

Glad that I got to try out all the different kinds of transportation there, i.e. taxi, MTR, funicular train, bus, cruise, ferry and tram :):)

I found it funny how they have jewellery stores on practically every corner, like how we have McDonald's or Starbucks here, do people really buy jewellery every other day?! @@

Rather disappointed that I only got to see the outside of Times Square for a few seconds before we had to leave as we had to rush back to the hotel to bring our sick colleague to the hospital. Our trip ended rather abruptly with a visit to St Teresa Hospital. It was a mad rush to the airport after that and we nearly missed our flight after a lot of drama. Two colleagues were left behind that night because of some very unhelpful people at the airport, lucky that only happened on our last day otherwise it would have really spoilt our mood for the trip.

Really regret that I didn't have more curry fishballs and didn't try steamed milk while I was there.. More eggtarts and curry fishballs and Hong Kong desserts and HK style milk tea too!!! Well, there's always next time I guess~

 2012 was a good travelling year I guess because right after Hong Kong, I went to Hanoi, Vietnam!! Hope that I have time to record my memories soon before I forget everything..