Picture updates of Hong Kong! Part 5 of 5!

We came upon these statues in the middle of Central (close to the market), so I had to take some pictures with them!

And here's the classic alleyway in Hong Kong, where vendors would set up tables and plastic stools on a side street.

We went to the Mochi Cafe in Tsim Sha Tsui for some awesome handmade udon!  We ordered some appetizers to start, and found that their tempura yam was quite unique.  They wrapped the yam first in ham before dipping it in tempura batter.

Below left, is the yummy cold udon with side of pork; right, is the classic beef in soupy udon!  What's really good here besides the handmade udon, is the fact that they serve their soupy noodles in stone bowls, which means that it'll remain hot and steamy til the last bite!

And here, you can see Kel slurping down his spicy pork udon!

I spent a few days staying over at my godparents', and my godmom and I went shopping around Tsuen Wan on one of those days.  I never knew there was a park this nice in the middle of it!  Apparently, it was funded by the Hong Kong Jockey Club.

A mall I enjoy walking around is CityWalk in Tsuen Wan because the layout reminds of malls in Japan (like LaLaPort in Tokyo), where there's a green space in the middle!

On our last night in Hong Kong, we had dinner at Peking Garden in Tsim Sha Tsui.  One of the unique dishes they had was Beggar's Chicken, where they marinate the chicken, wrap it in layers of lotus leaves, tie it up, wrap it in tin foil, and then encase it in mud and baked!

Below left, you can see Kel's uncle and cousin getting ready to break open the mud baked chicken; right, the many layers after it's been opened.

Picture updates of Hong Kong! Part 4!

Actually, today's post is on the day and a half we spent at Macau. We went to Macau with my brother and his girlfriend and got tickets to see Cirque de Soleil's Zaia at The Venetian, so that's where we headed first to get seats for later that night. Good thing, too, because that meant no one was around and we could take all the pictures we wanted.

And here's another one of Kel's wacky pics..

After getting seats at the Venetian, guess where we went? For FOOD of course!  Here, we are lining up for some famous street style shark fin soup (碗仔翅).

Next, we went down the street for some famous noodles!  On the left, you can see us lining up at the noodle shop.  On the right, is my brother and his girlfriend Samina.  They can't wait to dig in!  See the brown stuff on the noodles?  It's shrimp eggs... (蝦子撈) yummmm.. and fried wontons in the middle!

After all the food, we needed to go for a walk, so we went and saw the sights at Macau.  Below left, you can see Kel and I at the front of the Ruins of St. Paul's (大三巴牌坊). And on the right, my bro, Samina, and I climbed the stairs on the other side of the ruins.  Kel stayed on the ground to take the picture.  Can you make us out without blowing up the picture?

After that, we climbed the stairs to Mount Fortress (大砲台).

And here, we have Kel posing with some Greek mythology statues at the New Century Hotel.

Below are some pictures we took at the Venetian.

 The canals in the Venetian...

The girl on the boat started singing.. and my brother started mimicing (on the left), and you can see our reaction on the right!

Oh and here, we had our midnight snack... I apologize for the half eaten congee.. we were hungry and I forgot to take a picture before we started, but you can still see the crab swimming in the congee. (水蟹粥)

Picture updates of Hong Kong! Part 3!

In order to meet up with more people at the same time, Sunny and Freddy organized a karoake night so people can drop in, leave early, or stay the whole way.  We ended up at C.E.O. at Causeway Bay one of those Friday nights.  Our group pictures started out with...

Below:  3 of us... to 4.... to 5.. to 9!!  People just jumped into the picture one after the other!  (There were others in the room not captured.)

One of our objectives of this trip, was to attend Kel's cousin Karl's wedding.  Below are a few pictures from that night.

During our trip, I've noticed that the 7-Elevens (and other convenience and grocery stores) actually carry more flavours of Haagen Dazs ice cream than the Haagen Dazs stores.  The main difference is that the stores can only carry what's meant for the Hong Kong market, whereas the grocery stores can carry flavours from their Japanese line as well.  Me being such a crazy Haagen Dazs fan, had to try the other flavours, too!  So, I bought their "Sweet Potato Pie", "Apple Calvados", and their new sorbet flavour in Hong Kong "Raspberry".  I was slightly unsure about the "Sweet Potato Pie" flavour, but was pleasantly surprised!  Upon opening the tub, I found that the top actually resembled the picture!  For those who know me well, you'd know that I love my sweet potato and I can tell you that this flavour has definitely exceeded my expectations!  If I could, I would bring a huge tub of it back with me!  They were able to get the taste just right, and even the texture, too!  After savouring a few bites, I could actually feel the familiar graininess of sweet potato on my tongue! YUM!  Kel isn't much of a sweet potato kind of guy, so the "Apple Calvados" was awesome for him.  (I love it, too!  It's got my stamp of approval as well!)  It was surprisingly refreshing and captured the essence of apples well.  As for the raspberry sorbet, it was good, but nothing extraordinary.  It was fruity as expected, but no surprises there.

Last Sunday, I met up with Samuel, his girlfriend, and Annie for lunch at a Thai restaurant.  We were originally supposed to do dinner, but my grandma wanted to do dinner on Sunday so our meal had to be pushed up to lunch.  We ended up eating at Lung Jie (隆姐泰國美食館) at Kowloon City (九龍城).  Food was great and definitely recommended.  Just be prepared to line up outside for a table as they do not take reservations!