if anything, as i wrote this blog and look at the three times that i went to HK, i also have three different looks. in my second and third trip, i guess i look kinda...OK. but on my first, i look like a dork(below) but i was one happy dork. gosh, i hate that bangs(ugly!). it is proof that i was once young and stupid. what was i thinking?
our small group which includes my sister, 3 of our first cousins(nene, ollie and nina) and 2 of our second cousins(bessie and mimi, who appears with me in that photo above) stayed at The New World Hotel. we had 2 rooms with a connecting door. one night Ollie treated us to a nice, i dunno how many course dinner at one of those fancy chinese restaurants on the other wing of the hotel. at that time only a few in our small group know how to use chopsticks and when we asked for spoon and fork, some of the staff there were quite amused at our attempts at using that humongous spoon that i assume is used as a serving spoon. good thing Nina, the most sweet-tempered among my cousins(NOT!) couldnt see them because they were located behind her back, otherwise, all hell would have broken loose. those waitresses didnt know they had a lucky escape ..haha.. didnt some Indian guy from one of those shops in Tsim Sha Tsui got some verbal beating from my even-tempered cousin 'coz she was asking to see this particular brand of shoes and he wouldnt let her see it because they are quite expensive, ha, serves him right, he's lucky Nina was alone 'coz the rest of us are in another shop, kung hinde, kawawang bumbay..haha.. anyway, I would describe my first trip there as a mere shopping expedition. All we did in those 3 days was to shop, eat and sleep. Weve been to all the biggest malls and to the smallest shops. At that time, our favorite haunt every night is of course…
…The Mongkok Night Market. We haggled and pleaded and charmed those chinese for discounts at every stall that we came across. We bought tshirts and stuff toys and knicknacks for our friends and the rest of the tribe(relatives) back home, it was exhausting! It was a case of literally shopping till you drop. On the morning of our last day, we finally got to see a top hongkong tourist destination…
…The Ocean Park. It was the first theme park of its kind that I have ever visited and boy, was I impressed. It was located up in the mountains and it covered a huge area. It was disneyland, seaworld and a museum –of-sorts all rolled into one. There are only 2 ways to go up to the main park…
…by riding the cable car or using the never ending escalator. We decided to use the cable car to go up and the escalator to come down. But what’s even more memorable for me about this trip was the disappointment of not being able to go ride in the…
…Dragon Rollercoaster. there were so many things to see and we dont have enough time. there was a whale and dolphin show, there was a water park, there was a huge aquarium and a whole lot more. we had to leave early because we were suppose to take the afternoon flight for home. As I was riding that never ending escalator to go down, I vowed to someday come back to Ocean Park and ride that elusive rollercoaster. TWO YEARS AFTER, I did go back to Hongkong and Ocean Park in particular and rode that darn rollercoaster. The Dragon was an awesome ride, I tried to convince my older brother who came with me on this trip to ride with me but he took one look at it and said, no way! This is the same brother who was screaming in fear the entire time we were aboard the cable car going up the main park, it was embarrassing. 
On this trip we got to see two more popular tourist attraction at the time, first was Victoria Peak...
...Half the fun of visiting Victoria Peak was riding the steep angle of the peak tram going up the summit. The other half was the view of Hongkong and Kowloon, nice. The second tourist destination we visited was Tiger Balm...
...no, its not the "miracle" ointment your mom used to cure every kind of ailment that afflicts the family. but it was built by the company that manufacture this ointment to promote their product. it is also called The Tiger Balm Gardens. its like a huge colorful maze of concrete sculptures and that's just about it...period.After several years of not being able to travel because of a problem with my passport, I was able to secure one four years ago in 2006. Guess where I traveled first…where else but Hongkong. No more trip to Ocean Park this time, when I rode The Dragon on my second visit, ive had my closure, thank you very much. we met up at the HK airport with my sister and our cousin Cher who were flying in from germany and i traveled with Cher's family. a funny thing happened when we were waiting to board our flight to HK, we heard our names being called one by one and Cher's mom Inie was panicking telling her husband, my first cousin Ding who was responsible for all our tickets and passports and boarding pass and all that stuff..."Ding, what did you do? why are they calling our names? did you forget to give them something?" when he came back, he was carrying a new set of boarding passes ...we were upgraded to business class baby! yay! yay! yay! earlier Jori, Cher's brother was surprised to see a female former classmate manning the check-in counter of Cathay Pacific and he was kidding around with this classmate, asking that we be upgraded to first class :)
shopping is always a part of every hongkong itinerary. there were a lot of new malls to see and yeah, we saw them all, of course. For bargain shopping, my sister and i found a new destination, Temple Street. We shopped for those silk bags like there was no tomorrow and even bought those silk pillow cases and table runners only to find out later on that it was cheaper to get it at home. Jeez, I want to forget that little detail but the OC in me cant'. Lesson of the story on this trip: all things considered, everything is cheaper in the philippines and if you have asthma bring your medication, lots of it. For some reason the air is so thick its physically hard to breathe in the Nathan Road area where our hotel is located. that night, while the rest of my party was shopping for good-finds and haggling for bargains, i went back to Nathan Road to our hotel alone and decided to call it a night. i was too tired and being scared because im all alone in a hotel room in a foreign country was thrown out of the window, i just couldnt care less, taking a bath and hitting the sack was all i want!
We did go see another theme park on this trip, the newly opened Hongkong Disneyland. We had to change trains to go to the main park. we rode this special MTR Disney train that took us to Lantau Island where the theme park is located. It was the cutest train, we love its Mickey Mouse shaped windows and handgrip, aahh, too cute! If the air in the city was a big let down on this trip, the MTR is the most improved. The tracks are now enclosed in glass and would only open where the doors of the trains are located when the trains arrive. So if youre thinking of ending your life by jumping on those tracks, no can do, not anymore. i think that's precisely why those glass panels were installed, too many HK residents were comitting suicide.
Back to Disney, my overall impression of the park is that it is too small. Yeah, Mickey and Minnie and Donald and Goofy and the whole gang is there to welcome the guests, but id take Ocean Park anytime over this particular Disneyland. I heard that an expansion is now under construction and will be finished by 2013 so who knows, I may consider going back again, “may” being the operative word.
Before we flew home to good old PI, we took a one day tour of neighboring MACAU. If Hongkong was under British colony until 1997, Macau was under Portugese rule until it was handed over to China in 1999. the large american owned casinos were still under construction when we were there in 2006. Macau is so small, a one day tour is enough to see the sights. First stop, the St Paul ruins. Only the façade of the chuch was left because the rest was made from wood and apparently it was burned to the ground many years ago and to this day, it remains a symbol of Macau and its past which is an odd mixture of christianity that was brought by the Portuguese and its own ethnic Chinese Buddism. The statue of Kun Lam, located in the waterfront is like the Blessed Virgin Mary of both the Buddist and Christian populace of this tiny island. Another treat not to be missed is the famous Macanese Egg Tart. My cousin bought a couple and yes, it is yummy indeed. We were made to choose between going to see this famous casino, with gold bars literally lining the floors or go to a factory outlet of clothes. Guess what we chose…yeah, shopping won again. We left Macau for Hongkong riding a turbo jet ferry at nightime. I swear that at some point in that ride, I could feel that the ferry was literally above water because it was going too fast. I ended up vomiting what little I ate at lunchtime, eeww! Everybody was soo quiet, little did I know that most were saying a prayer and as soon as we docked in hongkong, I could hear their sigh of relief. Had the ferry landed on the wrong side and flipped, I would have been history coz I don’t know how to swim. I found out later that a few months after that trip, the husband of one my cousins also threw up on the same type of ferry going through the same route. That is some pretty nasty ride, I tell you. Lesson of the story: if you have to take that ride, bring a large vomit bag and make sure it doesn’t leak!
my cousin's family is suppose to leave a day before us and we were all suppose to go to Mongkok, again for their last night of shopping, BUT, while we were there, my cousin's wife was feeling not-too-good so we took refuge i n one of the restos there and when she went to the ladies room, she ended up throwing-up all over the place coz what she was forced to use was a squat-type toilet...haha...our group ended up calling it a night after that. my sister and i spent our last day, of course going shopping...back to Temple Street for us.
