Our Hong Kong Trip (Day 2)

5 Feb 2011 0730

I heard an annoying music that woke me up. Oh, it's just my alarm.

I saw a glimpse of you preparing yourself while I flipped over to the other side and think about the agenda for the day. We will be taking the 3:30pm boat to Zhuhai. But first, we will be visiting a number of places. We went out of our room 1108 (your parents were at 1111) to the lobby. As we will be staying at the same hotel on the 4th night, we decided to split our luggage to 2 baggages - those items which we will not be needing immediately will be placed in a bag at the hotel. The hotel charges HKD $5 for taking care of each luggage per day. Curiously, they count the balloon I bought for you as one baggage! We came here to play, so I'll be less particular about spending money =)

At 8am, all 16 of us were gathered for our first destination of the day. But of course, where will we have the energy to shop if we're on empty stomach? We had dim sum breakfast at a humble restaurant. I noticed that instead of having plain water for beverage, we had pu er tea. You comment that the dim sum was good. I can only remember the Siew Mai with prawn on top of it. Not sure about the names of other dishes =x

After the good breakfast, we're on our way to the Temple. It seemed to be a very well-known temple. Lots of people came here to pray and wish for good fortune and luck. According to Queenie, the temple site has got a very good Feng Shui. Rich and distinguished people like Jackie Chan used to stay around the area. While the others pray for good fortune, we took pictures around the temple and the beach beside it. A tower reports the temperature as 21 degrees. We also crossed over the longevity bridge before moving our way up to the coach. On the way we stopped for a few cans of warm Pokka coffee, which psyched us up from the blandness of the tea we had in the morning. We moved on to the headquarters of a well-known jewellery company.

At the jewellery, we were introduced to their flagship designs known as the Pinwheel. According to them, the pinwheel is a symbol of peace and good fortune. The host threw a question about what the designs on a particular pendant meant. The husband of the Michelle Chong look-a-like answered correctly (North South East West. I remembered cos I didn't get the Ang Bao! Hmmph!). After the talk, we were being shown the the gallery where various jewellery were displayed for sale. We looked around for a couple ring but couldn't find any. Queenie encouraged me to buy something for you. But I can't buy anything that's doesn't appeal to us at all.

We continued to another prominent spot in Hong Kong where we took pictures. I can't remember the name of the location we went to, but that's the place where we took the picture on the plate =) It had a golden sculpture, and further down there are tablets writing of Hong Kong's return to China in 1997. After this photo taking session we went to another I-dunno-what-the-name is location where we took a boat ride on the river. The scenery around the river is beautiful. There's even a floating restaurant on a large ship known as Jumbo Seafood. You bought some keychains for the kids. After tour around the river, it's time to go eat.

I realised that we're really eating at short intervals of 2-3 hours. The coach stopped beside a street. We had a go through a dark.. filthy and smelly alley before reaching the restaurant. I think you were affected rather badly by the filth that it affected your appetite. While eating, the camera-man Wilson came over with the plates which had our photos on it =) I like the plate, our photo was nicely taken =) The meal was good. Little do I know that it will be the last (paid for) good food we'll be having. After the meal, while you and your mom went to the washroom, a big fish jumped from a tank above to the one below, spilling water on your dad =x We had to walk through that alley again to get back to the coach. I heightened my alertness as I'm wary of places that are seemingly dangerous.

Our last stop before the harbour was another street where Bruce Lee grew up at. We took some pictures with a statue of Bruce Lee. On the way back, we stopped by a mobile ice cream shop where I bought a strawberry ice cream for you for the hot weather =) To the harbour and Zhuhai next. Your mom warned that Zhuhai will be even colder than Hong Kong was. The ship to Zhuhai was delayed for a while. We played some games on our phone before the annoucement declare that the ship was ready for boarding, and we set off for Zhuhai. Unfortunately, we were unable to get 4 adjacent seats and I had to seat on the opposite side with the brothers. They are generally fine, except that the brother I sat with tend to tilt his head over to my side while asleep. I shifted my body outwards a bit more and went to sleep myself. The 1 hour ride was bumpy and I got a bit giddy. As the PCCW signal became undetected by my phone, I knew we were reaching China soon. We alighted from the ship to be welcomed by an uncle tour guide.

Zhuhai was also known as the Romantic City. The temperature at Zhuhai is chilling, but bearable. We gathered as a group and went up the bus for the restaurant. I noticed that vehicles in China were left-hand drive, similar to the ones in the US. We went to a restaurant with a "VIP room" booked for us. For dinner we had braised duck and.. baby prawns. More like puny prawns that are so small it's cruel. We didn't had a good meal like we did in Hong Kong. The tour guide then gave us some options to "customise" our tour package. We had a choice to go to some opera, but in the end opted for just an "upgrade" to the meals the next day. At this point in time I was still feeling excited to be so far away from home in a foreign country. I know that the facilities in China may not be as good as we had in Singapore, so I was being open-minded to what China has to offer. After the meal which the more vocal people complained bad, we went to Yindo Hotel where we shall stay for the night. The hotel itself is rather luxurious, but they a blunder was made again! We got a twin room instead of a double =( But it does gave us a chance to snuggle together =)

5 Feb 2011 20:30

Since we had some time, we requested the tour guide to take us to a nearby market to do some shopping. I felt more comfortable shopping here than in Indonesia as I was able to speak their language =) Your feet were hurting like mad, and you tried to find shoes, but there are no suitable ones in that flea market.  You need bought something else at the RMB10 shop though =x (Though I forgot what exactly it is, I think it's a mirror) We also stopped to eat some dumplings at a stall, also catching drinks. While strolling down the street we can hear sounds of fireworks being let off. There's also McDonalds restaurants in Zhuhai. I grabbed some socks and A SHAN ZAI WHITE IPHONE at the market =x The interface was slow as hell and even has Java! After knowing the original price (RMB680) I was a bit hesitant in buying such an expensive toy. But with some help from you the price was reduced to RMB500, and I purchased one. It was actually a good feature phone with dual-SIM support, removable 1950mAh battery and microSD slot. It even has an exact replica of the Apple manual! Unfortunately, the charger is not totally compatible with the iPhone although the connectors are the same, as it costs your phone to turn itself off at around 57%. It was an expensive $100 toy but also an eye-opening one. It's not wasted too as dad is using its dual-SIM feature to transit to a new mobile number.

We went back to the hotel at 10pm. We will only have a short time to play in Zhuhai before leaving for Macau in the evening. While you were bathing I tried tinkering with the szPhone and laughing at what blotched job it was. We snuggle in bed in preparation for another day of fun ahead =)