one HONG KONG weekend

I don't have the luxury to travel to HongKong so a one-chance visit there (for free!) was really SOMETHING.  To make the most out of that visit I had to stay out of bed for as long as possible.  It's crazy but that's what one would normally do given the favorable short time. :-) You can just imagine how tiring that was.  But at the end of the trip, I didn't feel tired at all.  It was exhilarating!

It was a good thing we were staying at a hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui.  This place is a shopper's paradise it was just awesome to see those great shops along tiled streets for a non-habitual shopper like me.  And as expected, since I'm not the usual Hongkong tourist who goes there to have shopping spree,  all I did with the people I went there with was window shopping! It's best for my eyes and my pocket.  It's not bad really if you have other plans that suit your budget. ^^  What I'm saying is like locality immersion.  And that's what we most did during the very limited trip.  So the first thing in mind, eat anything Dimsum!

They say that if you're unable to eat Dimsum in Hongkong, it's like not traveling to Hongkong at all. So we went to a popular dimsum house  in Harbour City.  I can't quite remember its name but it was packed with locals and foreigners alike and the waiting list of eaters was like eternity.  It took quite some time to have our turn and then we had to hurry for others to have theirs. We were always in a hurry even when eating.  That's the sad thing about this kind of trip. But what would you rather do when you had it already for free? ^^  I enjoyed the hurried meal we had and that was the first time I'd loved the taste of a non-hot/spicy noodle.  That's the one on the top center of the photo page below.  (How stupid I didn't try to get the noodle's name.)  I guess this restaurant is the best in the area for budget travelers.  

Food we ordered at the restaurants we went to (names)

The location of this restaurant is somewhere the eyes can find pleasure in when pockets can't give you much. In our case, we spent about an hour roaming around the mall, just before 6 pm.  Then we had our dimsum dinner done just 15 minutes before 8 pm.  So conscious with time, right? The thing is, just near this shopping building called Harbour City is the Avenue of Stars.  This is the best spot in Kowloon peninsula to see the 'Symphony of Lights' from Hong Kong island, shown every 8 pm.  And it's just 5-minute walk away from the mall.  As you can see in the photo page below, the weather condition during our visit was not the best in Hongkong (It was early in May and there are a lot of storms during the summer there.  What I think, though, is that this time of the year is good for a Filipino traveler since it is a lot similar to the Philippine weather).  It rained most of the time, and during that evening when we hurried to see the symphony of lights, heaven was pouring down.  But we made it through the rain! (song) Below is the shot of a rainy symphony of lights show.  Although it didn't seem like a show of lights in this picture. Haha.

The avenue of Stars during the day and the night

                                       

There's also one thing that we budget travelers didn't want to miss during that short-trip:  HongKong's EGG TART.  This delicacy is the best thing you can give as PASALUBONG (present) to your friends back home. For a very affordable price, we were able to buy them fresh from the oven.  We bought several boxes of these tarts in a shop somewhere near the Central Mid-Levels Escalator, the longest outdoor covered escalator in the world so far.

the sought after egg tart 

Using these escalators, we found our way to the tart shop.  And it's photo time again.

On the way to the tart shop

After we got our Tarts

So there was a lot of walking around during our short trip.  We found a small Filipino community near the tart shop.  This was where my friend posed for a shot with the displayed fruits (like it's not in our home town. lol).  I even caught a glimpse of a strayed dog which I thought do not exist there. Funny.  What's very helpful for us was really finding time to look at any maps we could find.  This is another good thing about HongKong.  It is really "tourist friendly" with the availability of maps right where you need them (this is a perspective from an inexperienced traveler, though.)  And people can communicate in English effectively so it's not hard to ask for directions and any other information

Shots while Gallivanting 

Because we couldn't afford the luxurious items of the neighboring shops in Tsim Sha Tsui, the night market near there was our sole destination for shopping. ^^  This is where all the bargains are.  If you are a regular shopper in Manila's Divisoria or Baclaran or Carbon Market and Colon Street in Cebu, you won't worry so much about the buying rules here.

Enduring the wetness of the night at...

Of course, even with the establishment of OCEAN WORLD, which we were unfortunately not destined to go  :-), HongKong Disneyland is still a destination first-time visitors wouldn't want to miss going to.  It's what fulfills a HongKong trip. And with this, our money-and-time-budgeted trip was a super success!
 ^^

some of our presentable shots from Disneyland

There might be no more chance for me to go back there again and I'm just so happy I made the most out of the weekend trip I had there.  Unforgettable.  Thanks to English Fella Educational Corporation. ^^