Best Travel Tips for Hong Kong

Omg..it has already been two years since my last post!? Time flies and haven’t had an inspiration to write since I was repeating same locations for work travel…until now that is.

Woohoo!! A new place to visit – Hong Kong and I made the most of it by staying more days after work, enjoying the city, meeting up with friends and trying all the food that my stomach could take. Below are tips gathered from locals and friends that I found very useful!!

Tip 1: Intown Flight / Luggage check-in

What!? You could check in your suitcases a day before your flight from major train staitions like Kowloon and HK city. We used the Kowloon one about 8 hours before our flight and it was awesome! I got my luggage safely back when I got home and enjoyed 6 hrs of lugggage free before coming back home. I will be looking into this service for every city that I visit now. So awesome!! Beats trying to find a luggage locker and trying to fit in my massive amount of baggage…lol. literally.

Tip 2: Pick up an Octopus Card

These are like prepaid meteo carda that could be used for subways, ferries, buses, at most stores and are very convenient to travel around HK. You don’t need to worry about finding the Engligh menu on the ticketing machine or line-up for tickets with an operator. Combine Octopus card with Google map and the world is your oyster 😀

Tip 3: Cash for taxi and nightmarket bargains

Taxi do not take Octopus card so have cash handy if you plan to take taxis in town. The taxi’s are reasonable as well so if you have 3+ people traveling together, it maybe faster and morw convenient to travel to/from via taxi.

OMG. Lady’s night market by Mong Kok station is the best (in my opinion) You walk around HK thinking..my gah how do all these people afford to have all these $$$$ name brand wearables (bags, clothes, shoes..etc.) well, I’m sure some really make the trip to the fancy stores for authentic producta but many I assume also supplement with products from markets like Lady’s Night market. Some of them look pretty good for a fake. Lol. Make sure to bargain. Those ladies initially call for prices that are almost double what they are really willing to sell for. I succumbed to the world of shopping and purchased my first SYL bag. Lol. My brand name ecpert friend verified the ripoff is pretty darn close to the real one. Lol. Yay cheap knock offs. (Initial price: 450hkd. Paid: 250hkd) Bargaining is half of the fun of shopping in this area..in my opinion. 😉

Tip 4: 4+ stars for restaurants

I’ve heard HK is great for food but we realized not all food. We stuck with Google Map > Explore option > Restaurants option > High Rated filter > Open now filter with 100+ reviews for most of our choices and the places did not fail us. The best dim sum that we had was by Prince Hotel by Harbor City Mall called Dimsum Bar. YUM!

Tip 5: Stay near Kowloon or Tsim Tsa Tsui station area and Ferry or Subway to HK Island

Deciding where to stay was one of the big decisions to make. We stayed near Tsim Tsa Tsui station and travelled to and from places via ferry, subway and taxi as needed and it was perfect. There were a still a lot to do in Tsim Tsa Tsui area but easy to travel to different places. We ended up going to HK Island for two days for victoria peak, bay area, mid eacalator, meet with friends, one day to longtao island, all other days spent near tsim tsa tsui for light show, night markets,

Tip 6: Download Klook app

This app was so handy from getting discounted SIM card at the airport to tickets to local shows and event. Only downside of picking up the SIM card was that they were only open from 7am and we arrived earlier but SIM card worked well and the 30mins wait wasn’t too bad.

Beautiful Dalles combined with Tax Free Shopping Makes a Perfect week

My travels in the US are usually to rural industrial areas, far from the bustling city life or scenic landscapes but there is always an exception. That would be Dalles, Oregon. 🙂  The hourlong drive for Portland airport to Dalles is one of the most scenic drives that I had to do for work.  It includes mountains, waterfalls, river..beautiful overall!   I was driving so didn’t have any pictures of the drive but a full rainbow suprised us on one of the days in Dalles..so beautiful! 

Off to collect the pot of gold..

And now to taxfree shopping in Portland!  A much needed retail therapy..(although my retail therapy seems to be constant in the US with the unlimited online options..but taxfree seems to bring that extra little excitement! :P) My only question would be..Why can’t it be tax free shopping everywhere!? It’s so awesome to pay as per price tag. I bought a hat and scarf in a small shopping area in Nob Hill, not being prepared for the colder weather, and thought there was a surprise sale..only to realize that they charged me as per the price tag but no tax. Lol. Life is good when shopping is good. 😉

*Sigh* Only if I had unlimited luggage space…

I’m in the South..

Debating flying vs driving, I decided to drive the four hours from Atlanta to Charleston. The way to Charleston was in darkness so I didn’t see much but when driving back to Atlanta.. OMG I saw the most beautiful fields and fields of cotton. So pretty!! I had to stop and take some photos.. There was no one else, just the occasional car passing by.. And long single road leading to somewhere.. a bit too similar to a scary scene in a horror movie…A man in a expressionless mask come and chase away the clueless asian girl snapping away in the field of cotton..lol. I may be watching too much Netflix..another original series idea? Asian girl’s adventure in the South and the mystery man with no face..

Anyways, I rushed taking a bunch of photos with my phone and drove away before it got too dark and scary. I got some pretty pics and a nice memory of pretty fields and fields of cotton. 🙂

 

In-N-Out Burger

I finally stopped by an In-N-Out burger by San Francisco airport on Washington street. The hype seems to be real with drive through line curving around to the second street.  I attempted to park by circling the lot twice then gave up quickly..1. There was no parking spot 2. It was raining.  3. I felt gross after 5 hours of flying in my grungy airport gear.  Long drive-through line up it is.

It took 20mins for me to be greeted by a young cashier on the drive through line with a iPad menu with plastic laminated paper menu hanging from her iPad (Oh!  They have a special process to accommodate the long line up..intercom seems too close to the food pick-up. Bonus points!)  Then, there was the menu.  There was 3 choices..double burger, cheese burger and regular burger w/ assortment of fries, smoothies and drinks.  “Is this all that is on the menu? It’s my first time here.”, I asked. “Yep”, an answer came back..Ok..a cheeseburger, it is.  My high expectation of a spectacular burger reduced a bit.  Still hopeful after 30mins of waiting at this point, I continued along the queue.

Ok, so here is my verdict.  It’s a burger.  Nothing spectacular or awesome about it.  I prefer the Shake Shack, Five Guys, Burger Priest over In and Out and the small burger place (El Hamburguer) in Puerto Rico still holds my top place for a burger.  I guess it’s special because It’s only in California and not everyone has access to it(?)  Like many other reviews, the fries are terrible.  I prefer McDonald’s strawberry smoothies.. For burger fanatics, it’s worth a try..just so that you could say you’ve had it but for everyone else, you are not missing much.

p.s. Yes, I’m back!  After 3 years of hiatus from blogging, it’s good to be back writing again. And, looking forward to my new assignment that promises more traveling! 🙂

Inbetween Job Anxiety

I was asked to do another panel interview for my new job that I had already interviewed, got an offer and quit my job for.  I was appalled. I complained to the recruiter that why wasn’t I told about this before and why are we doing this after an offer was done, signed and sealed.  He said it was a part of the process..

What choice did I have?  I went into the room.  There were 5 new interviewers, sitting around the room.  One person asked the questions while the others wrote notes during my answers.  Then, each one went around announcing their rating right away.  First interviewers gave me 1/5, fail.  Second one gave me 3/5, barely pass.  Third one, 4/5, pass.  Fourth one, 4/5.  Fifth one gave total sum of all the possible rating of 10.34567 and my grade of 2.1256.  What!? you want me to do math to figure out if I passed?  I needed 4 of 5 interviewers to pass me to move forward with my position.   I couldn’t think, let along do calculations in my head.  I just said, I passed.  Then, the hiring manager looked at the score and said I failed.  They can no longer take me.

What!?!?  I was furious.  I had 2 weeks until my start date.  I had already quit my job at my previous company.  My mind was going in 100miles per hour.  What should I do?  I can’t go without a job for another month. I have bills to pay.  Should I go back to my old company? How am I going to do that? How embarrassing?  I started complaining, sobbing..this is not fair.  I already had an offer.  The hiring manager seemed sympathetic and said she was sorry but couldn’t do anything.

I looked over the interviewers’ notes.  ‘very task driving’ ‘not creative’ 1/5 – it was the first interviewer’s note.  I couldn’t believe what was happening.  I kept telling myself that this is not happening..this is a dream.

I woke up.  Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to take a whole month off between jobs..eeesssh.

Catacombs of Paris

One of the most fascinating places that I’ve visited! Stacks of bones and skulls..displayed in a ‘romantic’ way. Well, that was one way the audio guide explained it.

We made it in on the 2nd day attempt. (There is always a long line-up so make sure you give yourself extra 30mins to a 1hr for lining up.) Once you make it through the entrance (€8), it is a self-guided tour with or without an audio guide(€4). We opted for an audio guide and appreciated the explanation. Sometimes, there are descriptions on the wall but in the 19m deep into the darkness, I recommend the audio guide. It is worth the 4euros. Self-guided also meant there is a plenty of time to take pictures and walk through at your own pace. The display of skulls and bones are in multiple quarries so don’t get queued up on first quarry that you see..there are a lot more to see!

The Catacombs contain the remainders of approximately six million Parisian! Opened in the late 18th century, the underground cemetery became a tourist attraction on a small scale from the early 19th century, and has been open to the public on a regular basis from 1874.

 

 

Since Roman times, Paris has buried its dead on the outskirts of the city, but habits changed with the rise of Christianity and its practice of burying its faithful in the consecrated ground under and around its churches, no matter their location. By the 10th century, many of Paris’s parish cemeteries were well

within city limits, and eventually some, because of their central location in dense urban growth, were unable to expand and became overcrowded. An attempt to remedy this situation came in the early 12th century with the opening of a central mass burial ground for those not wealthy enough to pay for a church burial. Once an excavation in one section of the cemetery was full, it would be covered over and another opened. Residues resulting from the decaying of organic matter, a process often chemically accelerated with the use of lime, entered directly into the earth, creating a situation unacceptable for a city whose then-principal source of water was wells.

The government had been searching for and consolidating long abandoned stone quarries in and around the capital since 1777, and it was the Police Lieutenant General overseeing the renovations, Alexandre Lenoir, who first had the idea to use empty underground tunnels on the outskirts of the capital to this end. His successor, Thiroux de Crosne, chose a place to the south of Paris’s “porte d’Enfer” city gate (the place Denfert-Rochereau today), and the exhumation and transfer of all Paris’s dead to the underground sepulture began in 1786, taking until 1788 to complete.

The catacombs in their first years were mainly a bone repository but in 1810, Louis-Étienne Héricart de Thury, oversaw the renovations that would transform the underground caverns into a real and visitable sepulture on par with any mausoleum. In addition to directing the arrangement of skulls and femurs into the configuration seen in the catacombs today, he used those tombstones and cemetery decorations he could find (many had disappeared after the 1789 Revolution) to complement the walls of bones. – Wiki

One of those must-see places if you are in Paris! 🙂 

The Peace Palace

To be honest, I did not know a place called, the Peace Palace existed.  Even if I heard of it in the past, I guess it did not fully register in my head.  So, for me, it was a learning and insightful visit.  The free tour walked us through the different stages of how the Peace Palace came to existence after the World War I and even to how Carnegie, a name I only heard as a famous concert hall in New York, had been involved with the build.  The examples of the international cases that the Palace handles to ensure conflict resolutions between countries and people of different nationalities were also fascinating.  Had I known about this place, would I have been more interested in law and international issues in school? Probably not.  I had always been a math/science nerd but it was great for me to open eyes into a different area.  🙂

 

Well, here are some interesting facts about the Peace Palace:

• The Palace officially opened on August 28, 1913.
• Andrew Carnegie provided 1.5 Million dollars to build the Palace with a condition that there will be a library.
• To build, the foundation called for an international competition and the winner was Louis Cordonnier, a French architect with his Neo-Renaissance design.
• The scene in Skyfall where M is being questioned is a courtroom in the Palace.
• Inside is filled with many gifts from different countries and guided tours are available only on weekends.
• The visitor center opens dailys until October and provides great information and short films about the Palace.

 

 

 

“Dogging” in UK

Interesting discussion topic after two days of all day meetings and a few drinks with co-workers..the phenomenon(?) of dogging in UK.

Direct quote from wiki:

Dogging is a British English euphemism for engaging in sexual acts in a public or semi-public place or watching others doing so. There may be more than two participants; both group sex and gang banging can be included. As observation is encouraged, voyeurism and exhibitionism are closely associated with dogging. The two sets of people involved often meet either randomly or (increasingly) arrange to meet up beforehand over the Internet.

Dogging started in the later part of the 20th century, in the UK, with locations mainly being public car parks and lay-bys (usually on quiet country roads) with activity normally taking place after dark. Doggers would usually leave their interior lights on in their cars so that other doggers would know that they too were doggers. Some would flash their headlights at other cars or flick the interior light on-and-off briefly. These are the most common signs to show that one is a dogger, and are also the signs used by gay men who use lay-bys as cruising grounds for sexual activity. Many dogging locations are used by both straight doggers and gay men.

Did you know this?? It was news to me. Why we started talking about his topic..Apparently, there was a documentary recently done on British channel 4?(YouTube-if you are curious) Popular in parking lots…Anyways, I must have been traveling for awhile..these topics neither surprises or embarrasses me anymore. Chalking it up to one of ‘those’ interesting moments. ;P

Royal Delft Museum

A pleasant and informative visit to the Royal Delft Museum in Delft, NL, approximately 10mins drive from The Hague, NL.

Royal Delft is the only remaining earthenware factory that produces the world famous Delftware since the 17th century. The tour take you on a journey through the history the century-old pottery and chance to see the authentic production process and meet the artists at work. Also, the showroom presenting both classic and modern Delftware and it’s fun to compare what period and style of potteries you like versus your friends do.

The admission is € 12,00 but you could also get a 25% discount if you print the link (http://www.delft.nl/delften/Tourists/Discover_Delft/To_see/Delft_Blue/Royal_Delft) before your visit. 🙂

The style of the Royal Delft potteries originated from China and became pretty popular.  When the transport of the potteries became difficult, factories were open in Europe to meet the market demand.  They also developed a unique method of producing the potteries that involve various stages from mixing the right portions of the exact ingredients to pre-heated in an oven, painted, heated again in an oven then glossed to establish the deep blue color that Royal Delft is famous for.  It was interesting to see that when the artists paint the potteries, the colors show as black but when they are heated again, the color turns out blue.

Anyways, if you like the Royal Delft pottery, it’s an interesting 1.5 hours to learn about the history and the different styles.  My friends had a great idea to learn about Royal Delft at the museum, skip the experience gift store and use the knowledge to pick out the Royal Delft at antique and garage sales.  The good, high qualities ones are quite expensive!

The photo on the right is Delft Potteries with Miffy on them.  Wondering why Miffy is on them? Because Miffy is Dutch! 🙂  She originated in a series of picture books drawn and written by Dutch artist Dick Bruna. The original Dutch name, Nijntje, is a shortening or diminutive of konijntje, “little rabbit”.  😉

Good Bye Sydney!

95 days in Sydney, Australia. It has been a long trip!!!!  Would I like to return? Not really. (I’m probably jinxing myself here.) The work pace was too slow for me here. I’ve been told ‘too pushy’, ‘too tough’, ‘too agressive’..me? really? To the Australians, I was, apparently. I don’t mind being called things or even if they don’t like me but it was frustrating to not get things done. A workstation setup that would have taken a week at home, took 2 months here….To fix ONE door, it is still in progress for the last 4 months. Eh, You get the idea…

Anyways, let me focus on the good things I experienced in Sydney:

Delicious multicultural Food:
Yum! 95 days=285 meals. Australia is similar to Canada a multi-cultural country. A great variety and tasty as well. 🙂
My weekly regular was Thai food. I’ve even explored new menus, Laksa and Pad See Ew. Now, I could say I have four favourite Thai dishes: Pad Thai, Green curry, Laksa and Pad See Ew. LOL. I also tried Kangaroo and Crocodile dishes. I thought ‘chewier’ beef(Kangaroo) and ‘chewier’ chicken(Crocodile)..Don’t need to try again. 😛

 

 
         

Great Weather for the Beach:
I’m not a big beach person but there’s always been great weather for it. Nice beaches everywhere too. On these weather, I headed to the air conditioned malls and ate ice cream or drank bubble tea. 😛

Easy Public Transportation System:
Whether it is a ferry, train or bus, they will connect you easily to the different parts of Sydney and its suburbs. Mobile App – Link Express is a great tool to find out what’s the fastest, least walking, least transfers methods. Pictures below are Sydney Monorail but it will be closed soon..July 2013.

Attractions near the city:
Sydney Opera House, Habour Bridge, Tarongo Zoo, Darling Habour, Fish Market, Bondi and Manly beaches are all near the city. It was convenient to get around..So, you could see them over and over easily by just getting to the ciyt.I must have seen the Opera house at least ten times. 😛

 

Well, it’s been interesting – Sydney!  Good bye. 🙂