Hong Kong 2013

 This year's November was special for us. Besides celebrating Le Xuan's birthday, we also planned for our trip to Hong Kong and Disneyland! The planning took us quite awhile, but it was really satisfying to see everything fall into place as we made all the plans and bookings for our trip. We were getting excited on the day that we were flying to Hong Kong as we started taking photos at the airport. The 4-hour flight seemed quite long as we were flying Jetstar and there weren't much entertainment onboard.

 By the time we reached Hong Kong in the afternoon, we were all quite tired from the flight. Time for us to make our way to the hotel, Butterfly on the Prat. This was actually the first time that we had to find our own way to the hotel without our navigation buddy...Zzm. Nevertheless, thanks to dear's directions in the itinerary, we managed to find our way to the hotel without a hitch. Darling was also happy to get her own octopus card for the MTR rides.

After settling down in the hotel, we got ready to start our exploration of Hong Kong. Our first destination was the Avenue of Stars after we had a quick dinner. It was quite a long walk from our hotel, as we started to realise that a large part of our trip was going to be on foot. Avenue of Stars was quite crowded, but the evening breeze was cooling. We watched the Symphony of Lights before meeting up with jiu jiu and making our way back to the hotel. 

After a good night's rest, we started our journey for the second day by taking the MTR to Tung Chung for the Big Buddha tour. The experience on the MTR was surprisingly similar to our MRT. Mummy kept herself busy taking lotsa photos of darling during the journey.

When we finally reached Tung Chung, we were glad that our online booking saved us the wait for the cable car to Ngong Ping. The scenic cable car ride took almost half an hour and we were glad to finally reached Ngong Ping Village. As we made our way to the Big Buddha, darling climbed the long flight of stairs up with por por while dear and I slowly made our way up. Por Por was visibly tired from the climb when we reached the top. After spending some time taking photos and resting at the Big Buddha, we had the famous vegetarian lunch (on HK TV series) at the nearby temple. Darling also had a large helping of the equally famous soya beancurd outside the temple. It was also Por Por birthday that day. In the evening, we met up again with jiu jiu for dinner and celebrated Por Por's birthday at 许留山, the famed mango dessert joint, before turning in for the night.

Day 3 of the tour started with the Big Bus Tour of the city sights before we made our way to Victoria Peak. Taking the peak tram up to the peak was quite an experience, as the tram was inclined at a very steep angle. The tram ride itself didn't take too long. The peak was really chilly and we quickly put on our jackets. Darling was also excited to put on her bunny hat. We took some time to soak in the cool view from the peak before heading for lunch.

After lunch, we headed for the Madam Tussauds wax museum. To be honest, I wasn't expecting much from the museum, thinking that it will be just a museum full of wax figures. Well, it was actually that. But the whole experience was really fun, as we took turns to take pictures with the different stars and cartoon characters. Darling, who was slightly afraid at the start also warmed up to taking pictures with the characters in different poses later on. We were quite surprised to see comic characters like Doraemon and Astroboy, and wasted no time to grab a few funny snaps. The third day of our trip ended with all of us exhausted as we made our way back to the hotel.

Day 4 of our trip was no doubt the highlight for darling. It's finally time to go Disneyland! Darling woke up already very excited knowing that we would be going Disneyland. When we got onto the train, we were delighted to find that even the handrails and glass windows were shaped like Mickey Mouse. Darling was so thrilled as we were walking pass the front walkway to the tickets collecting counter. The whole atmosphere was just magical.

A large part of our Disneyland adventure was spent taking photos with the various Disney characters. We started with the furry bear near the entrance of the park. It was so funny when darling said that she couldn't take it and needed to hug the bear again after we had our photo taken. Of course, we couldn't miss out on the photos with her favourite Disney princesses and Minnie Mouse. We didn't really get to try out many rides due to the time spent queueing for some of the photos with the various characters. But really happy that dear did get to try out 2 thrilling rides with gong gong. We ended the day with darling totally knocked out but super duper happy from the trip. She couldn't wait to go back to take photos with the rest of the Disney characters that she missed out. We had to take turns to carry darling as we made our way back on the MTR.

The last day of our trip was relatively simple, we visited the Wong Tai Sin temple before heading to Harbour City. We had wanted to do some shopping at Harbour City, but as expected, we came back empty handed. At least we managed to snap a few photos with some of the Disney exhibits that were on display. And that concludes our super fun and memorable trip to Hong Kong! With darling constantly asking us when she could go back again, I guessed she must have enjoyed it very much too.