Busy Sickly Me.

Well I've been back from hk from Friday afternoon, but I've been missing for quite a good long time. Why?

1) Internet connection costs 6 sgd per hour at the hotel. I'm not prepared to pay such monies, when I can get a nice pot of tea + free internet for 8 sgd at the hotel cafe.

2) After I came back, mugged for 1 whole day as my first paper is on Sat.

3) After mugging, I had a stockpile of work to do that accumulated while I was away. Result was 3 laptops repaired and 5 iPhones unlocked/repaired from Sat night till Sunday noon.

4) And I fell sick after that rush. Apparently working overnight is extremely damaging to the body. Came down with fever + flu + sore throat + sore eyes, basically the whole package.

Didn't see a doc, just used multitudes upon multitudes of old wives' tales remedies, and today I woke up fantastically healed. I haven't gotten this sick in ages now.

Ok... That's that for my absence.

Now, I'll begin with the first day of our trip.

Clarisse flew by SQ, sponsored by her co of cos, while I had to fly Jetstar self-funded. Our flights were 2 hours apart, so she sends me off and waits for 2 hours before her flight, and I land in HK and wait 2 hours for her arrival. Pretty simple and straightforward.

While the plane was cruising and about to take off, I caught this funky bird which was standing on the wing, enjoying the breeze. As tho it was surfing. And as the engines were boosted to take-off speed, it simply slipped and its head whacked onto the wing board before it flapped flapped away. A real pity I didn't take a vid of this, it was hilarious. ^_^

Beautiful Sunrise on a jet plane.

The glaring morning sun.

A can of Shiraz Cabernet, my fave drink for a good flight, and their on-board fried rice with shrimp. Pretty bad, but I didn't really want nasi lemak, or nissin cup noodles, or biscuits or what not.

So a little food, and I watched Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. Pretty wierd movie with wierd extreme stuff all throughout. I don't know, but it gave me a feeling that it was making a joke out of violence. I liked 2001: A Space Odyssey very much, so I didn't think this could be very far off. Fact is, it's really really far off.


Cruising above the sea of clouds. Nice pic, with the reflection of the sun in the clouds. That's the flare near the centre-left of the pic. And soon I landed.

At Chek Lap Kok Airport.




A nice replica of the first private aircraft in HK, "The Spirit of Sha Tin". Sha Tin is where my pal Nickie stays, and before they closed down the airport, she really enjoyed watching the planes take off and land over her head.

This craft was in HK in 1911, a mere 7 years after the invention of heavier-than-air controlled airplanes in 1903. The replica used to be at Sha Tin Airport, I think it's the same one, now transferred to the new airport.

I picked up a SIM card and a drink at 7-eleven at the airport, and waited for Clarisse...

WHILE BEING STAMPEDED.

By the fans of some teenage band, don't know where they're from, don't care, but there were kids around the age range of 10-16 carrying boards. Well even the fans were split into gangs, with 1 group holding "ANDY" while another was holding another name, and another group was holding the name of the band, and they virtually drew out borders between themselves.

Me, having been there since much earlier, managed to get a place very up-front to wait for Clarisse, and I was surrounded by 2 of the groups, many members of whom were almost pushing me almost over the railings. Irritating. And when Clarisse arrived, I pulled her and we evacuated the place as soon as we could... What a warzone...

The Airport Express train brings us to Hong Kong island within 20min for 20 bucks, which can be done for 4 bucks in a time of an hour. Since clarisse could claim, and we were still unfamiliar with public transport, we just paid and set off.

We checked in, at Island Pacific Hotel, a pretty normal 3-star hotel, which had a very strong advantage that might make it big in the future... a great view.

This pic was taken in the first room we were given, a smoking room on the 8th floor (they were short on rooms). We couldnt stand the stench, as the smell of cigarette smoke filled the entire floor, and requested a change.


10 min later, we were shifted to our new room - on the 25th floor. Even greater view. Better still, this room was a corner room with 2 sides fully glass window panes. ^____^

Excited us found a hawk circling above, and took a nice pic of it. This is a low-res pic, when blasted to full-res, it makes a really really nice desktop wallpaper. Serious.

That's the west view, you can see a reflection of the double bed. Not a fantastic view, being blocked by an equally tall residential building.


The north window, fantastic view of the Victoria Harbour, which is what we woke up to every morning, of ships and ferries passing by.

From the North Window. That blurry building in the background is ICC (International Commerce Center), which is under construction and will be complete in 2 years. Will be HK's tallest building upon completion, and together with IFC (International Financial Centre) tower two, the current tallest building in HK, will form a "dragon's gate" for Victoria Harbour which is supposed to be very auspicious in Feng Shui.

Our Very first meal in HK, and that's Beef Tendon Noodles. Looks pretty good eh? It's just as tasty... and did I mention it costs only 18hkd?

Tucking in!

After lunch, we actually tried travelling by foot...until we finally figured out the map's scale is actually pretty small. It took us half an hour to get to the nearest MRT station, when it was a mere 1cm on the map. T-T

Anyway we got to where we wanted to go. Central, or Chung Wan (中环)

The Ritz, which Clarisse originally booked, but was transferred to a lower-grade hotel as she was only a trainee, can't claim so much ^_^|||

Bank of China Tower. Very nice design which people have come to naturally associate with HK. It was the icon of HK before the IFC sprung up. Clarisse says: It's ironic, but Bank of China has got such a beautiful building in HK, but not in Mainland China.

Mandarin Oriental Hotel in front, and HSBC Main Building in the background.

IFC Tower two. Ever since I saw the design before it was even built, I could not help but label it the Hong Kong Dildo. OK, STOP THROWING STUFF AT ME.... It's the design, ok? I can't help that it looks like a dildo. Anyway it's the current icon of HK, and after ICC is complete, it will be even more so.

Cheung Kong Centre, right beside Bank of China Tower.
That's where Clarisse's office is, on the 63rd Floor.

ICBC Tower and Citibank Tower, side by side.

St. John's Cathedral, right beside Clarisse's office.

Not fully sure, but I think that it's the Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre.

Cheung Kong Centre as viewed further uphill.
The last pic was the front, this is the back.

I can't remember the name of this building.
Nice architecture anyways.

Why were we moving uphill? Here's da answer:

The fountain at the entrance to the Peak Tram. Very long que, but the que moves pretty fast. Shows how efficient the Tram service is. We were headed for Victoria Peak, a very popular sightseeing location in HK, especially so in the night.

I'm telling you, this guy is everywhere on Victoria Peak. I think he's like the ambassador of Madame Tusauds or something. Here's one of him at the foot of the hill, at the Peak Tram station, and there were at least another 2 of him that we saw at Madame Tusauds (without even entering the gallery), who knows how many more there are.

That's where we were going - the Sky Terrace.

Bought the tix, and a display showing traditional mechanics for the peak tram.

So what's Victoria Peak? From what I read, in the past when the flat areas of HK were overcrowded with people, the rich chose to build their homes higher and higher up Victoria Peak.

Not long before it became prime estate, and the rich commuted between foot and peak via Human-Powered Sedans. Eventually, as more and more lived there, a tram became necessary, and the tram brought along tourism to the peak.

The tram. Alighting on one side, and once it's emptied out, left door closes and right door opens, and we shuffle in like penguins into a cave.

That's us in the tram.

That's the back of the tram as it zoomed up the hill.
It was moving at quite a fast speed. Pretty cool effect eh?

The beautiful residential buildings by the mountainside.

The entire Central region as viewed from the Tram, as we near the peak.

Nice colonial-styled building atop the peak.
It's a preservation building still under works.
Nice lamppost too.

Clarisse posing with Bruce outside Madame Tusauds. We didn't buy the tix for Madame Tusauds, as we thought it's all over the world, and altho the HK one is famous, it's still a little expensive for looking at wax figurines.

The Peak Galleria, one of the 2 big shopping malls on Victoria Peak.
The other is the Sky Terrace.

Nice piggy in Peak Galleria. Clarisse couldn't resist taking a photo with him. ^_^

Sky Terrace, from the roof of Peak Galleria. The roof of Sky Terrace is where we're headed, and that's where the best view of the nighttime Central skyline is.

We had our dinner at some atas fusion restaurant at Peak Terrace, and believe it or not, this is exactly what we see beside our table.

I dare say it's the best view from a diner you could get in HK.

Food was good, but expensive. Definitely not value for $$. We clocked about the same cost as at the Ritz Turkish Buffet, but we ate a lot more at the Ritz. The lamb chop was a pitiful portion, and it tasted almost as good as at the Ritz, but only almost. Thumbs down for this one.

Only plus is the view and the nice ambience. which caused us to be unable to take any nice pix in the dim lighting.

After dinner, we went with our tickets to what the highlight of the evening - the roof gallery of Sky Terrace.

This was the view, I'm sure u can recognise at least two of the buildings - The HK Dildo in the background centre, and the Bank of China tower in the right.

Less visible is Clarisse's office, which actually has words scrolling down it's side all night. You can spot it on the left of the BoC tower.

With the wind blowing in our faces, I took off my trench and gave it to Clarisse, and we spent about half an hour there, just quietly enjoying the scenery.

Before I proposed to her.

And she nodded in tears (of happiness hopefully).

As we left, we took a pic of the eatery directly opposite of the restaurant we had our dinner at - The Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. It's a theme restaurant, the theme obviously gotten from Forrest Gump.

It was only a few days later that we read that this place has really great tasty shrimps. Like Bubba said in the movie,

"Anyway, like I was sayin', shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey's uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That- that's about it."

It's a pity we didn't have our dinner there. But there's always a next time. Given that the Asia HQ for GS is at HK, I believe we'll have a chance the next time. Ok that's quite a few acronyms at a go.

Up next: Day two.