Ticking My Bucket List: Hong Kong

Finally realized one of my postponed 2015 wishlist; to visit Hong Kong this year. Decided to fly there 2 weeks ago, and spent 5 days in Hong Kong and 2 days in Macau.

And this, was my first solo overseas trip! I'm kinda proud of myself!

My one week Hong Kong Itinerary was quite simple: 

• Day 1 spent mostly arriving in airport, searching for sim card, check in and went directly for Victoria Peak,
• Day 2 used to explore Repulse Bay, Stanley, and spots between Sheung Wan and Causeway Bay,
• Day 3 and 4 went to Macau,
• Day 5 spent exploring Mongkok to Victoria Harbor,
• Day 6 for Lantao Island and shopping for souvenirs around Mongkok area,
• Day 7, purely spent at airport.

So for overview I spent 2 days on the hipster Hong Kong Island, then 3 days on Kowloon Island. While Hong Kong Island is on the modern and western-ish side, Kowloon is a little bit more traditional. Loved the contrast from both of it.

As the photo were a little bit too much for me to upload; let me share several highlights that really impressed me on point!

The first one was taken at the famous one dollar million view from Victoria Peak, cost me hkd83 to ride the tram up here.

Snap these gigantic building along the walk to The Peak Tram.

Went on the outer side of Hong Kong too on the second day; Repulse Bay and Stanley. I can say I LOVE these two spots the most! TOTALLY my HIGHLIGHT of the whole trip ever!

Who hate beaches. Everybody love beaches! Except nobody is here at that time as it was quite cold to go to the beaches during Hong Kong winter. Not as cold as Japan though.

The walk continued to famous spots on Stanley; the Murray house and Stanley Markets.

Finish with these two, went back to the center of the city and walk from Sheung Wan to Causeway Bay.

Photos taken randomly in area around near Central Station.

Too much photo wtf can't share all I'm sorry.

Moving on to the Kowloon Island, it gave me a nostalgic feeling of a kind old Chinese movie setting where everything is so crowded, lively and more traditional compared to Hong Kong Island.

Impressed by how they can build such building in such small spaces.

My visit to several the Tin Hau Temple. I visited several temples around there and the style of each temple were almost the same.

And not forgetting the Avenue of Stars and Victoria Harbor!

Met the legendary Uncle Bruce Lee. My dad say hi.

And the finish point from my one day walk from Mongkok was this Victoria Harbor. Oh yes, I walked the whole day.

The Symphony of Lights show was a little bit underwhelming, but it was alright. I expect some crazy perforance though, such as firework and everything.. yeah.. You don't get your expectation so high for some reason.

To be honest I planned to explore Kowloon area for 2 days but it seem to be cleared in one day only, so with an excess of 1 day left (the sixth day) I decided to have a short impulsive trip to Lantao Island via Ngong Ping 360 Cable Car to see the Big Buddha and Po Lin Monastery which on the same area altogether . It was freezing up there!!

after that I just spent the day hunting for several souvenirs and a little bit of shopping. 

What I love about Hong Kong is that it was pretty safe for a lone women traveler like me as long as I pay attention to common sense of safe traveling. 

However what I love the most was it is very walk-able everywhere!

I walked from Sheung Wan to Causeway Bay one full day with stopping in several points such as Hong Kong Park, Cathedral etc and it was damn fun! I think I walked more than 25.000 steps at that day! Talking about being healthy. Moreover in Kowloon Island I felt that it was even closer to walk from one point to one point, I walked from Mongkok to Victoria Harbour which several stops too along the walk. Totally love it!

Hong Kong has been so totally nice with me and I'm soooooo glad I went there. I'm not gonna say it was my favorite place on earth but I wouldn't mind to go there again If I have some "empty" holiday period. Well, I will probably choose to go to new places though :)

Will talk about the food and moreover, Macau in the next post!

I hope I didn't postpone my post just like several months ago, again, hopefully.

Cheers to a great holiday I had!

Tokyo Disneysea Easter 2015

100 trips, same place, 100 different memories. Never cease to amaze me.

Indulge myself once again in what I believed as the best Disney World ever in the entire universe, Tokyo Disneysea.

and, Easter time this time!

Such a great, great, great weather, perfectly one tone blue sky hampered all around.

Easter's special performance: "Fashionable Easter" Parade.

When they have their own venice town.

"Green Bun". cold-served mochi-like desert each filled with strawberry, custard and chocolate cream. Holy shoot.

Take me for a ride!

"The Table is Waiting".

Milk tea flavored popcorn. OMG.

Asian we are, selfies we took.

4 of us. 4 memories. Unforgettable trip.

And that's, how the day ends.

Sucks.

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Take me there again~~~

Tokyo Disneyland Christmas 2014

Another bucket list came true!!!

Last time after I went to Disneysea, I promise myself to go to Disneyland in Christmas to see how will it be on Christmas. Especially after saw this ad.

The ad was so inviting.

Wah. And after I went, how it turned out to be??? AWESOME. Crazy awesome. All the cold was worth it.

I went with Shelley, my work colleague plus my friend from Singapore!! She works for Muji also fyi. Hahaha. This time since the weather is nice, we targeted all the show plus taking photos, knowing that we arrived there quite late around 11.00 in the afternoon, we don’t have much time to queue for all the rides (which without taking fast pass in the morning, waiting time is average 1 hour for the famous attractions). So in the end we only enter the lousy attraction one which required less than 15 minutes waiting hahah.

Disney Christmas feeling start getting pumped up from the station!!

Start from the gate we were surprised by the big Christmas tree in the middle of the World Bazaar Venue. Took all the photos!!!

And yet we can see here all the people wear costume dress as cute as possible while in Disneyland. Really makes you forget all the difficulty in the world hahahah.

Walk a little bit further, we found the Cinderella Castle, the iconic building of Disneyland. Too bad at that day we have no time to explore the inside, so from here, next journey to Disneyland planned already. Smirk smirk.

The Bazaar Venue from the castle side POV.

Finish taking selfies, we went for the Pirates of Caribbean ride. Quite interesting, but not mind-blowing enough. Just amazed by how the dolls were so unbelievably real-life looking. Finish with the ride, we wait for the “Minnie oh Minnie” Performance show, however too bad due to windy weather, the show were cancelled, but in the end all the cast come out and and say hi!

Feeling quite hungry, unwilling to have a proper meal yet, we went queuing for several stalls that sell chicken teriyaki sticks for 430yen each, turkey legs for 540yen each, mickey strawberry churros for 140yen each, and I bought white chocolate popcorn bucket for 2100yen! Regular popcorn is only 400yen something each cup though, however I have to buy the bucket, Mr Potato Bucket damn cute HAVE TO BUY.

On the middle we prepared for Special Christmas Parade which was to be started on around 4. Shelley brought picnic sheet, place it near the parade line (everyone do that..) and while we eat Turkey Leg, we sat and wait. Too bad I didn’t take too much photos since I record all of the show.

It was, well, happy. This happy feeling after the show that cannot be described. Sooooo happy. It was quite a show. However, there’s still several show that we have to watch so we left the spot  and decided to went in for some shops and buy several accessories and souvenirs. And of course, take photos too.

In between we make a visit to A Small World ride too. It was quite fun.

Our proper meal after the ride was Mickey burger (came as a set, with drink and potato for 1100yen) and I brought another Mickey Strawberry Cheese cake for around 400yen If I’m not wrong.

And too bad, after the meal, my phone completely out of battery, so I cannot take anymore pictures so all these picture are from Shelley’s camera and phone.

After our dinner, we didn’t stroll around that much, but we saw all the parades such as “Electrical Parade Dreamlights”, and the newest projection mapping show on Cinderella Castle “Once Upon a Time” plus the fireworks about 20 minutes each.

Electrical Parade was fabulous.

Once upon a time?

IT.

WAS.

MAGICAL.

I saw the show twice on 7 and on 9 which I didn’t regret because the first show was minus the fireworks due to strong wind, however on 9, all the fireworks came out and it was magic. It was a kind of a show that even a good camera can’t catch how fabulous it is, we can only watch the beauty by our own bare eyes. Fantastic.

Finish with all the parades, we decided to do our last stop of shopping and Shelley brought one big pooh doll, while I buy Mickey Christmas Decoration to be put on my apartment door and until now It still hanging nicely by the way, even though Christmas was over hahahah.

See all the pooh rage. 

Reaching train, we both become jelly, too tired but the euphoria is still high. We don’t know we were that tired until it all finished. It was quite a trip.

And so, with this one day trip to Disneyland is over, but the magic still works until now.

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That’s why we planned to go to Disneysea again next time next year soon. And can’t wait for that time to come!!!!