Dear Dayre,
Just flew back from HK last night and reached Singapore at midnight!
I didn't update on Dayre during the trip because it was a really tiring one and I couldn't handle doing so many things at one time ๐
This was what was going on during the first three days of the trip: filming from location to location!
NuffnangSG X HKTB
My fifth time to Hong Kong and second time this year!
I'm not sure if I got lucky or the stars aligned: I initially booked the trip for YZ and myself some time ago because SQ's two-to-go tickets were only going at $300 per pax! @trishaliang goes to HK every year because Casey's family lives in HK, and the last time we went to HK together was 2013.
So. I booked my tickets to coincide with her trip and it so happened that Hong Kong Tourism Board engaged me for a campaign on the same dates!
Of course I agreed to the campaign immediately!
Such serendipity hahaha.
I even told my manager: "Please tell HKTB that I am a big fan of HK and I have like six blog posts on HK on my blog." Lololol it's true; I do enjoy HK a lot!
It was a crazy week though right before I flew off ๐ญ I didn't sleep the night before the morning flight at 7am! Too many things to settle before the trip sigh and I only packed three hours before we left for the airport.
Gonna spam photos from the six day trip but do expect to see more on my blog, I'm definitely gonna be sharing my new food haunts as well as the interesting events covered during this trip ๐
While waiting for our flight at 7am ๐ด
First thing upon touchdown was lunch at Star Cafe at Tsim Sha Tsui!
This is really so old school and hidden that I'd never have stumbled across it in a million years.
Went down this dinky staircase in an old shopping centre to the basement level.. Felt like it was out of an old Hong Kong movie ๐ฆ
They are famous for tomato noodles and pork chop!
With @misstamchiak and @evonnz who were both part of the same campaign, yay!
A photo with the boss of Star Cafe haha he was very friendly and he told us he was old friends with Andy Lau ๐ Dunno real or not
Uber comfy hotel room at Marco Polo hotel! Hotel stays are the best especially when you get to stay in such a posh suite ๐๐๐
We stayed here for two nights!
Freshened up and headed out for leather making workshop at Fungus Workshop!
My first time at a leather making workshop and it was actually heaps of fun! I like handiwork and craft stuff even though I don't go out of my way to do it.
I'm so sad cos my memory card died (again WTF) and I lost many photos from my first day ๐ญ Including those from leather making workshop!
But we made our own card holders and it was truly not a simple task.
During the workshop.. Three girls hard at work ๐ It was such a pity we had to rush the workshop due to time constraints and couldn't take our time to create a masterpiece..! Nonetheless we all managed to complete our leather product with the help of our experienced instructor at Fungus Workshop. It was so fun.
Lol my eyes were closed but here's a photo of us with our Shifu! Plus our leather products made from scratch ๐
After which we headed to our evening activity: Hong Kong Wine and Dine Festival!
It's so massive! It's like a wine and food fair all in one giant place and we drank and ate so much ๐ณ
Excited for wining and dining! ๐ฏ๐ฏ
Getting high already this Evonne.
Tried everything from wines to craft beers as well as tons of food at the festival!
Fast forward to day 2, when we explored a new shopping area near Sheung Wan / Central called PMQ!
PMQ is a really hipsterish compound with small shops by different local brands ranging from small artsy brands to designer names like Vivienne Tam! Quite expensive though as all designer stuff are ๐ฉ But definitely very interesting to explore!
A lot of the shopping places don't open that early in HK though, most open around 12?
MY FAVOURITE CURRY BEEF BRISKET NOODLES!!! ๐๐๐
At Kau Kee (Gough Street), very near PMQ!
LOVE. YZ and I even went back one more time for the curry noodles!
Next destination: Happiest place on earth!!!
You got that right, HK DISNEYLAND!
Second time to HKDL and to be honest I thought I would be bored since I've been there before but no leh I still enjoyed it so much! I guess it's true, there's magic going on at Disney!
Because I don't normally get to act cutesy hehehehehehehe
Halloween tea set!
Halloween is a special event at HKDL and there's extra cool stuff like Halloween themed decorations and even food ๐๐ป
Disney Parade!
I kind of get used to the characters speaking in Cantonese ๐ I find it quite funny and endearing too!
Photo op with the Duffy bears, all dressed in special Halloween outfits!
The last time we came, I was too stingy to buy the cute Minnie Mouse hair band ๐ but got it this time and I didn't even want to take down the hair band during the rides but I had to! ๐
Oh I made Evonne and Maureen take some rides with me and they were scared out of their wits ๐ it really wasn't that bad!!! Love the grizzly gulch roller coaster so much!!!!
Disneyland isn't complete without a Mickey-shaped ice cream!
It was my first time enjoying the night parade which is quite new to HKDL! And I loved it, super entertaining with all the happy music and lots of lights and my favourite disney characters!
I made this video with some snippets from the night parade ๐
Our packed itinerary was really filled to the brim ๐ After Disneyland, we went back to our hotel for Marco Polo German Bier Fest!! More food and also beer woohooooo! Everyone was so high. If you saw Evonne's snapchat ๐ We were all singing along and dancing to the live band!
And after Bier Fest I persuaded Evonne and Fiona from HKTB to go for supper with YZ and I at our favourite fish dumplings place, 15 mins walk away from our hotel ๐ Hung Lee restaurant serves up really good ้ฑผ็ฎ้ฅบ and beef brisket!
I only managed to go that once during our entire trip sigh!! Better than nothing.
The last day of the campaign was all about filming and eating non-stop… We had so many meals, one after another that I gave up on trying to finish the food really.
From Kam Wah cafe….
(SUPER GOOD BOLO BAO AND EGG TART AND FRENCH TOAST ๐)
Those egg tartsssss
โจ๐๐ป
To Kung Wo, a bean curd shop that hand makes its beancurd for over a hundred years….
We had the freshest bean curd here in all forms, soy bean milk, dou hua, tao gua and more!
We just kept eating…. And eating…. And eating.
Wrapped up the last bit of filming and said good bye to the Reelity and Nuffnang crew who were flying back.
And then checked into my new apartment which was super budget.. Only paid $87 a night for both of us and I wouldn't recommend anyone book it unless they're doing backpacking or are totally non-fussy travelers ๐
You would have seen it on my snapchat if you follow me! But well a bed is a bed is a bed. Wasn't too bad and for the price I really can't complain.
Off to Casey's for some home cooked goodness by his mummy!
Casey brought us to take the iconic "Ding Ding", the tram that runs on electricity. It has a bell that goes "ding ding", hence the nickname!
This is the view atop the tram. I took these in black and white because more "hweeling" you know what I mean?
A ding ding tram is the cheapest form of transport in HK!
On the top deck.
Captured the driver
And one of us on the tram.. YZ didn't get the "look cool" memo ๐
We had an amazing home-cooked dinner at Casey's!! Went to the supermarket before dinner to buy some wine and alcohol to accompany the food, and it was a happy happy night.
That pork belly stew… ๐๐๐ Really ๆ้พๅฟ!
Uber-ing everywhere I go, even in HK!
Casey's home is quite far (on Hong Kong island) so we shared an Uber back with Evonne.
The only ootd photo I took in HK. This skirt I also kept in blue/grey that I wore to Japan!
The hat is Evonne's and it matched my outfit so perfectly lol.
Due to @evonnz's insistent requests we visited Dim Sum Icon, also known as the Gudetama dimsum cafe!
Here's a video of the fun we had during our meal ๐
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Juvenile…… But we couldn't resist it HAHAHAHAHA
After which I brought YZ for Oddies Foodies, super yummy eggette waffle with soft serve ๐
โจ๐ฆโจ
The problem with HK is that there is too much food to eat and just not enough stomach space.
If only I could keep eating and just have the calories disappear and the food not take up space in my tummy…. Confirm I will eat six meals a day. But… I cannot.
So in between every meal we'll roam the streets, do some shopping, and we even went for a massage, impromptu, because we saw a huge signboard advertising for Thai massage while on the streets ๐
Everyone raves about Mak's noodles, but I didn't try that! Had Wing Wah (at Wan Chai) instead and I thought it was pretty good, especially the juicy wantons with generous prawn fillings! ๐ค
I like the battered and worn streets of HK. It's not clean or modern or new but has its own old school charm. Except the dripping aircon water everywhere on the streets ๐
With my girlies @trishaliang and @evonnz, second trip of the year! ^.^ Sort of together but not hahahah.
And I want to talk about roast goose. I had roast goose three times on this trip (as compared to none at all on my last trip) so now I finally feel qualified to recommend you a roast goose.
When you google roast goose in Hong Kong, the first result that will pop up is Yung Kee Roast Goose.
DO NOT GO TO YUNG KEE.
We had dinner one night at Yung Kee, spent 927HKD (171SGD) amongst 4 pax and had an utterly disappointing meal.
$927 looked like this plus a plate of charsiew, and vegetables.
The best thing was probably the pitan because the roast goose tasted closer to duck, dry and hard to chew and without that juicy fatness of roast goose meat.
We got a shock when the bill came and amounted to $927, that's 40HKD per pax for an abysmally little amount of food ๐ค
It was a posh and nice restaurant but was honestly not worth paying for.
Please go to Kam's Roast Goose instead: reputedly opened by the grandson of Yung Kee, and is a way way more down-to-earth establishment with much better roast goose, too!
It's along Hennessy Road at Wan Chai, not too far from the MTR!
There was a queue when we arrived there around lunch time (1pm) but we took a queue number and then walked down to Capital Cafe just a couple of streets away, had a truffle scrambled egg toast, came back and got a seat immediately ๐
This is the amount of food we had for $314 (58SGD).
We ordered two set lunches:
Roast meat with rice
+ soup & tofu
Charsiew with noodles
+ drink & pitan
And an additional small portion of roast goose (leg) on top of that. It was a generous amount of food for about 29HKD per pax!
The roast goose skin was crisp and yet melted in your mouth like a good roast goose should. The juices were so flavorful that we forgot about the plum sauce. And every bite of meat that I sank my teeth into was a little taste of heaven ๐
OK LAH maybe not so kuazhang but you have to try it and tell me if I'm exaggerating!
I haven't been to Yat Lok (the other well-known roast goose place) but I remember @misstamchiak mentioned that Kam is better.
So I would presume it is Kam > Yat Lok > Yung Kee.
My final word on this: DO. NOT. GO. TO. YUNG. KEE.
Thank you very much. And you are welcome too for thanking me because I just saved you a lot of money that you can now spend on eating other delicious things in HK.
For instance MORE egg tarts because this is very near Kam's Roast Goose so you ought to try it! Honolulu Cafe has a pretty good egg tart, I'd say it's comparable to Kam Wah's egg tarts! Flaky crust that falls into pieces when you bite into it and a jelly soft egg custard that slides down your throat.
Tai Cheong at Central is also quite good for their egg tarts which are slightly different with a biscuit-like crust that's crumbly instead of flaky.
You don't say no to egg tarts like these ๐ (Honolulu)
Or these (Tai Cheong)
Of course, apart from eating (I wish I could just eat nonstop so that I could eat everything I wanted to try but I can't) we also walked around and shopped too!
I didn't buy much this time but I have to say Argyle Centre is great for buying cheap boots/shoes. I like this shop on the second floor (1F because they have a G/F as well) for shoes!
Bought a random parka as well but it wasn't cheap, around SGD50.
It's this shop!!! I bought a pair of ankle boots for like 27SGD or something. @trishaliang and I like to hunt for shoes here.
I asked YZ to take a photo of me with the lady boss so that next time when I go back, I can shamelessly ask for a discount.
Random ็ชๆๅ at random ่ถ้คๅ but ain't my owl beanie cute? It was expensive and also it's kid-sized (meant for 5-7 years old) but I bought it anyway ๐
With that I come to an end for this Dayre post. I'll be blogging more for sure in regards to my new food haunts as well as all the fun stuff we participated in so be patient and wait for more on my blog! โบ๏ธโบ๏ธโบ๏ธ
Last but not least a ๐๐ป๐๐ป๐๐ป๐๐ป to the pretty SQ stewardess who greeted me by name and said goodbye to me when we got off the plane on the flight home, if you're reading this, YZ said you were very pretty ๐
HOME SWEET HOME, and back to work! ๐ช๐ป๐ช๐ป๐ช๐ป
#yinagoestohk