Taipei 2014

We took a short vacation to Taipei this March holidays. It was fun because it was a new country for us and surprisingly, the boys really loved it. The most curious thing was that Kieran was so adventurous in his eating habits this trip as he tried almost all the street food that we bought!

Day 1: Arrived in Taipei
Arrived at Taoyuan Airport and from there, it was an easy transfer by bus to our hotel near Taipei Main Station. The ticket booths are just situated right when you walk out of the airport. We took the Kuo Kwang transportation and it was only NT125 per adult all the way to Taipei Main Station.

That evening itself, we headed out to Ximen and tried the street foods there. And Kieran surprised us as he was really adventurous and tried everything that we bought. From the 臭豆腐 to the Oyster Mee Sua!

Hong Kong!

Took a short trip to Hong Kong with the family. Our last trip to Hong Kong was in 2010 and thus it was nice to revisit. And it is a familiar enough place to bring the old folks to as we already know where we could go and there was no need to hunt for new places to eat/ shop/ sight-see.

We stayed at the Marco Polo Gateway Hotel this time (vs Marco Polo Prince in 2010) because of its convenient location. It is about 5 min walk from Tsim Sha Tsui MTR station and it sits amidst the Habour City Mall. Lots of food and shopping within walking distance. The room we stayed in was not very large, looked a little old, but it was clean. (MP Prince was much nicer, but of cos more expensive too!) We were given a king-sized bed in the room plus an added single bed. The boys slept on the single while we had the king all to ourselves!

We actually had to wait for the rooms to be ready as we were a little early. So we went off to have lunch while we wait. First stop for lunch definitely had to be at Cafe de Coral (where else??!) It was Pork Chop Baked Rice for the husband and Char Siew Rice for the children again. That's like our must-eat place in HK. Having said that, we seem to have cured this addiction to Cafe de Coral after this trip. No more craving for it anymore. We used to have to have 1 last baked rice at the airport before we leave, but not this time!! 

After we were done with check in, we still had an afternoon to go somewhere. We decided to go up to Victoria Peak. The boys were excited that they got to sit on the Star Ferry to Hong Kong Island. That is like the one cheap activity that they love every time. 

To get to Victoria Peak, we had to go on the tram ride up the very steep mountain (or hill). It is always a very fun ride as the tram goes up (and back down) at probably more than 45 degree incline! But there is really nothing up at the top of the peak. Some shopping and some sight seeing and that's about it. 

See how tall Kieran has grown! He barely reached the top of the bus the last time we were here!

Dinner was at Fuk Yuen. They didn't have the roasted duck that night, and so we ordered the roasted goose. Think duck is nicer than goose. The funny think with this place is that, each time we go, the ordering process changes! The first time we went, it was with my aunt and uncle. there was not much problem in ordering then. Then 2nd time we went, in 2010, they had some set menu that we could order from and it was great. This time around, there was no set menus, and we ended up ordering like a vegetarian steamboat (cos we couldn't really understand the menu). Not sure if we'd try it again the next time we head to HK!

Frankly, I couldn't really tell if it was duck or goose. But I thought it was a little "smelly".

The next day was Disneyland day. Set off early and did all the usual rides. The only difference was that the weather was too darn hot! Kiefer was tired by the time we REACHED the park! I felt that too! It was just too darn warm to really enjoy ourselves. Note to self: Cannot do theme parks in summer!! It was so warm that we actually gave the 3pm parade a miss. Just walked by as the parade started and went on into the air-conditioned Golden Mickey Show. Kiefer missed half of the Golden Mickey Show again. We went for the 330pm show and by that time, he was ready for a nap and so he dozed off halfway through the show (just like the last time. :P)


HK DL had a new park area, the Toy Story Land. There were 3 rides there, Toy Story Parachute Drop, Slinky Dog Spin and RC Racer. The boys had a lot of fun with the Parachute Drop and Slinky Dog Spin. We went on the Slinky Dog Spin 3/4 times back to back. RC Racer was kinda scary. Only the Daddy went on it. 

HK DL closes at 8pm (early eh?) and so we'd "chiong" till closing time. The kids snacked the entire day and thus, we only had "dinner" when we got back to the hotel and that was 10pm! No one's complaining (definitely not the kids) as they had fun. The old folks were  upset that we didn't feed the kids though. :{ Oh well...

For the record, we finally got to go on Space Mountain. Despite going DL so many times, we somehow never got the chance to ride it. It is usually closed for some reason or something. We all went up on it and we loved it. I love rides that have hard turns. As long as they do not loop and no high drops. :) The flashing lights did make us quite dizzy though.


Next day, we went Ngong Ping. Other than the cable car ride itself, there isn't anything that's really of interest there. Once we got there, we just found a table outside Starbucks and sat there, while we waited for the rest of the folks to finish their "exploration" of the place. The kids munched on cereal and subway cookies. Hubby and I enjoyed a cold Snapple. Not a bad way to spend the morning I would say. 

View of HK International Airport from the cable car.

 
Lunch was at a sushi buffet at the Republic Food Court upstairs. Wanted to do to Federal Court Restaurant initially but it was jammed packed with people at lunch and it was just too hard to get seats for 12 people. The sushi buffet was quite cheap. Only HK$68 per person. And we could order as many salmon sushi as we wanted. Pretty good deal. Kiefer slurped up 3 bowls of cold soba!

Kiefer really picked up his chopsticks skills on this trip! He uses the choppies fairly well now!

After lunch was just shopping at the Tung Chung outlets. Shopping wasn't fantastic. I only came away with a pair of Esprit shorts, husband, a pair of Columbia pants and a tank top for Kiefer. Shopping in HK this time around wasn't fantastic. I ended up getting all my stuff from Uniqlo and H&M. We saved a little because of conversion and stuff at Uniqlo were priced a little cheaper than that in Singapore. And as for H&M, I just don't usually walk into one in Singapore. Don't go town much in Sg. :P


Dinner was at The Sweet Dynasty (糖朝). It was just a 5 minute walk from the hotel. Wasn't too expensive, food was quite food and portions were large. Will definitely go back there again.

Didn't do much on our final day. Had a dim sum breakfast at Red Star Restaurant (at Harbour City itself), which was pricey and not fantastic. Should have returned to the other one that we went, across from the hotel the last round. Some more shopping at Harbour City, ventured out onto the streets (nothing much) and we left the hotel for Kowloon Station at about 430pm. Last bit of walking around at Elements and we left for the airport. 


Had our dinner at the airport. Didn't eat Pork Chop Baked Rice again, :P and we discovered a nice Japanese restaurant Saboten. I just found out that we have that in Singapore too! The Katsu was really crispy and what fascinated me was the self-ground sesame seeds that they gave, even though we were eating at the airport food court!

Flight back by Jetstar was delayed by 1.5 hours. We just sat on the plane waiting for the engineers to sort out a problem with some indicator. And so we just sat there for 1.5 hours. Other than that, it was pretty uneventful and we landed at Changi safe and sound at about 1.30am.

Hong Kong 2010

This year seemed to be a long year. We've worked really hard and we thought we'd deserve a good break. As we did not really make plans to go anywhere (tho' there were some talks of doing a road trip to Penange, which didn't materialise), hubby looked around for somewhere to go and chanced upon a great deal on Jetstar Asia. And thus, a late booking and off we went to Hong Kong!

The last time we went to Hong Kong was in 2008, and it was only a short 2 day transit on the way back to Singapore from Shanghai. On that trip, we didn't do much, except for some shopping and eating. 5 days (12-16 December) in Hong Kong this time around meant that we could do some sight-seeing.

We arrived in Hong Kong at about lunch time. After dropping the luggage off at the hotel, we set out to look for food. The first meal we ate had to be at Cafe de Coral. That's like Hubb's favourite place in HK. He simply loves the Pork Chop Baked Rice.

The boys had loads of fun taking the Star Ferry across Victoria Harbour almost everyday. It was definitely a cheap and good fun. They enjoyed the breeze and looking at other ships out at sea.

This time around, we did some touristy stuff like going on the cable car ride at Ngong Ping 360 and also took The Peak Tram up to Victoria Peak.

On our cable car ride across to Lantau Island, we met with a fog and it was so misty and foggy that the cable had to stop moving for about 5 minutes! We were left dangling on the cable. It actually felt a little scary initially, but when we looked down, we realised that we were actually very near the ground as we were just above the slopes of the mountain! :P

Super misty halfway across to Lantau island

View from the cable car

The boys enjoying their cable car ride.

 And we definitely had to visit Disneyland Hong Kong this time around. In 2008, we brought the boys to the entrance, took some photos and we left! :P This time around, we spent a fantastic one day in the park. The park is rather small and most of their rides are really for small kiddos like them. It is suitable for the boys, for older children (like ourselves!!), there was really nothing much for us there.

Look! We've got Donald with us!!

The favourite Disney character for the day has to be Buzz Lightyear. They enjoyed Astroblasters immensely and went up on it umpteen times! They also took photos with Buzz whenever the opportunity arises.

Last but not least, some photos of the yummy food in HK:

Roast duck @ Fuk Yuen (Mongkok)

Tau Huay (竹筒豆花) in a barrel at the dimsum place near the hotel

Super yummy spring rolls at the same dim sum place

Did I mention we flew Jetstar? It seems that at the Hong Kong Airport, Jetstar does not have a walkway for passengers to embark and disembark. We arrived in Hong Kong and disembarked on the tarmac, we left Hong Kong the same way! However, the day we left, the temperature was a freezing 8 degrees celsius! The wind was blowing and it was really, really cold! It took some time for everyone to walk up the steps into the plane, so much so that Kieran actually had the chance to pop into the cockpit for a chat with the pilots! However, I must say that the service on Jetstar is really pretty good. Very friendly and helpful flight attendants. It's just that the plane itself is rather old and doesn't seem to be cleaned well (you see crumbs when you lift up the hand rests) and the toilet really smells. The seats were really quite cramp too. My knees almost touched the seats in front of me and I am not really very tall. Maybe it's just the planes for the Asia are smaller? We were not allowed to bring food up the plane, but they didn't really check as the boys brought 1 pack of cereal each in their backpacks. I think they are quite ok with children's snacks. Even then, the food on the plane is not too expensive either. I saw on the menu that a portion of chicken rice was about $8, although it is not standard-sized portion but it's pretty decent. I think it is fine to fly budget on a short 3-4 hour flight, but I really wonder how it will be on their new 11 hour flight to NZ??!!

Look at my crazy wind-blown hair!

As usual, our seasoned frequent flyers are just so comfortable in the plane! The small one knocked out and was asleep a little while after take-off! :D

Watching Jaws on the iPad

Munching on his snacks

It was almost 1am by the time we touched down at Changi Airport and collected our bags. The boys missed their toys so much that they immediately started playing with their toys when the got through the door! They were energised by the nap they took on the plane itself! It's the poor mum and dad that are darn tired! :P The next morning, we literally left the boys to their own devices while we slept in for another 2 hours or so!! :P Still, we look forward to our next trip out of Singapore!! :P