what a wonderful world: HongKong 2010 Day 3 Part 1

So Day 1, we explored Kowloon island.

Day 2, we moved on to Lantau island for Disneyland.

For Day 3, we decided to do some shopping and sightseeing at Hong Kong island.

Wore many layers of clothing even though it wasn't that cold that morning as we were going to The Peak in the late afternoon and we didn't want to shiver while taking pic!

Start the island hunting at Causeway Bay! I like the calligraphy which is different from other stations!

Do you remember SOGO? We used to have one in Singapore. Beth told us that we should go there "see see" since we were already there so we did and all the stuff were so expensive! It's just like Takashimaya but the shoes, hats, scarves and whatsoever cost more than S$100. We ended up at the food department looking for breakfast. We bought croquettes!

Des enjoying his crab cream croquette...

It's pretty easy to identify Causeway Bay, Central, Admiralty from other places in HK because they have alot of buildings with reflective glass!

Actually, I was pretty amazed with HK's housing conditions! The most pressing issue is the limited space and so their housing units are small and cramped. Unless you are rich and can afford to buy land at the peak, then you may have to stick to living in super cramped condo or govt flats. Plus, the buildings are packed next to one another. Very dangerous lei! What if there's fire? It can spread so easily! And their doors usually face each other. So you can't have your own private corridor if you know what I mean...

Happily eating my pumpkin croquette

Some of these buildings are angled towards the cross junction. Good meh? I wonder if it will affect the building's fengshui considering that the Hongkongers are pretty superstitious about such things.

We know our trip will turn out unproductive if we continued staying at SOGO. So, we explored other buildings near SOGO and came upon The Excelsior. Apparently, there's a shopping mall located right below the hotel and I saw a shop that sells lots of cute Japanese products like towels, pouches, umbrellas, bags and so on...

Spent a bomb on these stuff! Couldn't resist how adorable they were!

Sidetrack a little, did you know how the locals look down on Mainland Chinese? It's such an irony right? They themselves belong to China and yet they hate them to the core as these Chinese are usually 爆发库 which means that they get rich overnight and not like they are rich all the while. So the Hongkongers still think that these people are crude and distasteful and hate to serve them. Honestly, I think Hongkongers have lousy service. Maybe not for those who work in the tourism industry.

I experience rude service when I was purchasing these items. I spoke to the lady in English and thinking that I bought so many stuff from her, she should be more polite right! It turned out to be the opposite! The lady asked me to check all the pouches I bought. So when I spotted some loose threads on one of the pouches, I told her to change it for me. Thinking that I may not understand Cantonese, she walked away to get a new one and mumbled in Canto: "So small cannot see still want to change!" SO RUDE RIGHT!!!!

Beth came to join us for the rest of the afternoon and we went to this very traditional cafe for lunch. They sell snake soup and roast meat.

Here's what we ordered! The food was so-so. But what's fun was we fought the lunch crowd and shared table with others. We also get to wash our utensils in the glasses of tea!

We walked around to see their transportation and sign boards.

The green vehicle in the background is called tram or 叮叮车. They run on cable and they can only be found in HK island!

I managed to capture the bustling crowd!

Since we couldn't think of any other places to go, Beth suggested taking the tram ride. So we just boarded one that came along and enjoyed the ride! It's fun! Abit scary if you take the higher deck as you will worry if the tram is stable or not.

The tram ride is only HK$2 regardless of the length of the journey! So cheap!

Inside of the tram- lower deck

Plenty of stationery shop along this street!

The tram I took!

People standing on the upper deck! So dangerous lor! I scare the tram will topple! Anyway, we took a tram from Causeway Bay to Sheung Wan.

Street name on the building!

Saw the famous Pacific Place at Admiralty

The symbolic Bank of China

Saw a protest outside a commercial building! The protesters were professionals! They printed out their banner and had everything prepared instead of handwriting!

Alighted at Western Market near Central

Western Market sells alot of craftwork!

went to a restaurant to use their toilet! LOL

Ms Cheng, the toilet keeper!

As we wanted to visit The Peak, we walked to the nearest MTR to Admiralty.

The locals stand at the right instead of the left when taking escalator.

We walked to The Peak Terminus from Admiralty station and saw many beautiful buildings!

Lippo Centre, Bank of China...

LOL

It's very sunny! I almost got heatstroke as I was wearing too much!

This pic looks like Des is superimposed on the background LOL.

Nice right?

Saw this on the way...

It's a steep walk up and we were very tired!

What long queue for the peak tram ticket! We were lucky that we had priority as we bought the Madame Tussuad tickets.

Only pic I snapped along the way up the hill! Hate the ride! It was so dangerous! We should be seated down. Because of the large crowd, we had to stand and the ride was so steep! I was holding on to my dear life while trying not to fall backwards!