First Day On The Town

Central at Night
see all photos »

Today after breakfast, we headed to the Newtown Plaza in the district named Shah Ting. To get there we had to take a private "minibus" from the estate. The estate's name is Royal Ascot. I managed to wack my head on the roofs of all these buses every time I board. After getting off the mini-bus we headed up to the third floor of this super mall. This mall had everything on sale but we were headed to eat and not shop. So I was a bit unhappy. So the Korean restaurant was really nice. We had stone pot cooked rice, spicy with kimchi and spicy beef with a bean paste and even some high end chicken wings. I'm definitely going to be a pro at eating with chopsticks by the end of this trip.

More Central at Night
see all photos »

After eating at the "South Mountain Valley" Korean restaurant we decided to look around the shops. I wasn't really in the mood for shopping despite seeing all the sales from before. We then went and looked at all the electronics. The prices for computers are comparable to those back home. I'd say that you get a better choice of the Asian brands though.

I'm a Travelator, I'm here to Travel

So at this point we split from teresa's Mom and teresa and I took the metro to Tsim Sha Tsui (pronounced Chim Sha Choi) to catch the ferry to go to Central Hong Kong. We crossed Victoria Harbour by the Ferry which was very interesting. We got to see all the buildings, and the site reminded me a lot of the New York City skyline.

More Central at Night
see all photos »

Once we got to Central I noticed that there were Filipinos everywhere!!!. All siting together in the middle of the raised walkways, eating, playing cards and dancing. Apparently, all the maids in HK are filipino and sunday is their day off. They all get together in Central and party together. We continued along the dock and entered the International Finance Center which is another big mall. We just walked through to get to SOHO (south of hollywood road) which is a very trendy area with bars, pub and clubs. Small streets with vendors, some asian dude called me good looking (according to Teresa). I think he wanted me to buy something. We took the "Travelator" ( no arnold) which is a motorized moving sidewalk, that takes you up to the the top of SOHO, then we walked our way back down. Stopped at Lemon Exchange, a small little shop that sells lemonades and other food. I had a strawberry lemonade that was very good, quenched my thirst and was quite cheap.

Central During Day
see all photos »

We then headed to Lan Kwai Fong, which i s the original ex-pat area (where there are more clubs). Then we walked towards the HSBC building and got on the tram and headed towards North Point. On the way we passed Wan Chai and Causeway bay. We then Passed by Teresa's old apartment. Then we got off at Shau Kei Wan and took nthe tram back to Lan Kwai Fong. At that point the streets were all closed and people were filling the streets for the christmas countdown. Apparently over 200,000 people were there for the countdown. Yes, there is a countdown for Christmas AND New Year's.

More Central During the Day
see all photos »

We then took the Ferry Back to TST and got to see all the skyscrapers with their christmas lights. You should see it on one of the pictures. We made it back to the estate and had a really good supper at the clubhouse that included calamari, friend noodles, brocolli and some duck. So tired, came back upstairs and passed out.