Wow... did 3 posts in one sitting. Now since when have I ever done that, huh??
Truth be told, I kinda kept a diary and typed most of the stuff out while on holiday in HK. Gonna be pretty hard for me to remember all the stuff in details, so yeah, these blogs do look more like a diary than some of my other rants and raves. But hey, I don't always rant and rave do I? ( I can just see my girls stiffling their giggles.... >.< ) There are more to come.. hehe
Baby 2 and I had done our homework. We googled to get the address of this cafe. Why?
This cafe is unique in that it has 7? 8? resident cats there. People go there not for the ambiance, although it is quite cozy, nor do they go for the coffee (they have none) not even the snacks (limited). They patronise the place to enjoy the cats' company, when they (the 4-legged ones) so inclined to grace us with their presences.
Customers hardly sat where they first plonked themselves. They usually move around to 'stalk' the cats... haha, for lack of a better word. Most are armed with cameras and the cats are totally unfazed by the attention, so long as one does not try to carry them.
The cats wereso so so so soooooo cute! Their fur is shiny and clean, and, for a place that has 7 or 8 cats, the cafe was really clean! RIght outside the rest room for humans are 2 restrooms for cats. They are discreetly placed at a corner, and nope - you don't smell a thing!
Had a fitful sleep despite the fact that3 of us piled onto the 2 beds last night. Baby 2 swore she didn't sleep properly. i was out, totally.
It's the free city tour today and we were up bright and early. Took the Ann's Travel coach to have dim sum, visited the Square where China gave a huge golden state flower (of Hong Kong), a diamond factory (where I won a piece of precious gem and paid HK$150 to have it set as a pendant).
We gave the temples at Causeway Bay a miss, after visiting Hong Kong's biggest yacht club in Aberdeen and went on a boat that took us round some of the fanciest yachts, moored alongside some shabby sampans that are home to some of the poorest families in Hong Kong - the irony is not lost on us... The government is subsidising these families to move them to live on shore, while the rich ones are buying larger yachts to be moored there??
Finally, we arrived at the chinese medicinal place where sales people were trying to flog us stuff. I didn't mind, except the woman who served us was both pushy and rude. In the end, we wandered somewhere else and yup, we bought from another sales lady instead.
At the end of the tour, we realised that although the tour is free, we have to pay the driver and the guide HK$50 each / pax, so that was $300 down the drain. They also took pictures of us and stuck them on some awful tacky gold-rimmed plates. I declined all but one, and that cost us another HK$150.
Afterwards, we grabbed some lunch at one of those tea restaurants that is such a craze now in Singapore, and for HK$ 78, (less than S$16) we had one of the best chicken rice - better than most coffee shops in Singapore, and 2 other lunches, drinks inclusive. Not bad, eh?
The afternoon was spent shopping along Cameron Road, my old neighbourhood, and looking for Choco Cat cafe. This was a surprise for baby 1.
Our hotel was along Nathan road, near Yaumatei MTR. It's called CASA hotel and is considered a boutique hotel. Guess it is boutique for a reason - the place is absolutely dinky!!!
It took 5 steps for us to walk from the room to the bed, the TV was wall mounted, the cupboard was big enough for 4 hanging items and the toilet was a cubicle that was big enough for a wash basin, a toilet bowl and a standing space. One can either sit on the bog to shower, or stand in front of the wash basin to do that. (I kid you not).
Perhaps I am of the generous kind, in size, so the place looked ultra .... snug.
We pushed our beds together to fit the 3 of us, and momsie took the middle. It was cozy in a strange way and I loved being able to hug my girls in the same bed again!!! hehe
It was great to wake up knowing there was hardly anything needed doing / packing as we had done most of that the night before.
So, we dwaddled and did one more load of laundry, tidied up the house and cuddled the cats (although not enough was done)....
In the end, yup... we still had to cab it to the airport and got there too early to check in. After meeting with Victor, we decided to have some lunch at Popeye's before getting checked in.
God is good. Due to the fullness of flight, our hand carry luggage was checked into the plane right at the boarding gate, so we did not have to carry it in, making our boarding rather a breeze. =)))
Arriving at HK is really rather exciting. This is the first time we visit HK without my mother around, not even as our tour guide.
It makes our trip more 'free and easy' but definitely a lot more challenging. HK has changed so much. Anyway, we took a long time to look for the guide who was supposed to pick us up and send us to the hotel. The airport was so huge, we took some time before we can find the meeting point, by then, we missed one bus. Then we went to the toilet, had a coffee, and waited for the guide - at the wrong place, and missed the bus again... in all, we were only able to get on the bus at 9.15 and get to the hotel by about 10 pm...
But, Hong Kong being the city that never sleeps, we were able to find some place for chow down about 10.30 and walked along Temple Street night market. Yes we did our first bit of shopping within hrs of landing...
Name: charisMA Home: Singapore About Me: Mom of 2 amazing n different girls. Love to sing, act n help people, even if it's just with a smile. See my complete profile Earworm:
