| From Senado Square we walked up the path to our second destination which was St. Dominic's church. It was really beautiful inside. The ceilings were high and at the altar stood a magnificent white organ. It was like a church right out of a fairy tale. IT WAS MAGICAL!!! :D heheh |
The day started off terribly... I was locked out of my bank card and lo and behold, our SIM Cards didn't work in Macau and we didn't realize until we got there. Thank God we had most of our trip planned out beforehand. Here we're taking the bus from the ferry terminal to Senado Square. Here we got off at Senado Square. Since we didn't have internet we were praying we'd get off at the right stop. We wanted a picture taken of us but we were so scared asking people to take our picture because we thought they'd steal our phones. haha.... So as we walked up the street towards the ruins of St. Paul, of course we had to get the beef jerky. It was just simply too tempting to resist plus it was freaking delicious as hell...With our jerky in our mouths, we chewed as we walked up the streets of Macau. At the very top of the pathway, we came upon the Ruins of St. Paul. If anything symbolized Macau, this would be it. And of course, as the tourist we were, we took a ton of selfies. We explored the place and came upon a tomb/ museum... It was actually quite creepy.. there was legit a ton of skulls everywhere... Next we climbed our way up the Mount Fortress. It wasn't a bad climb but some parts of it were so insanely steep.. or maybe my legs are just short but I'm pretty sure the steps were hunourmously high... anyways, time to conquer the world. One step at a time. Yay to friendship hehehe I love how each pictures shows a different aspect of our personalities. They don't show who we are completely but they do paint a good picture. If only I could just remember the happy times and forget all the painful ones... There's nothing better than a cotton candy mustache. It attracts all the girls ;D JK chewing on beef jerky is quite attractive as well. XD We went back to Senado Square for dinner. We went to one of the most famous restaurants there because it was so highly recommended up I ended up regretting it... It was definitely a tourist trap and the food was just not that good.. So this spot was actually on my todo list but it was getting late so we decided to skip it. Our next stop was supposed to be the Venetian but as we got on the bus, we passed by so in the end we did get to see it. ^^ When we were on that bus, we had no idea how to get to the Venetian .We only had a bus number written down and all the taxis had gotten off for work. So we hopped on and prayed we got off at the right spot. We didn't hahaha but we asked for directions and we weren't too far off. Getting lost was part of the fun. XD Actually before we went to the Venetian, we went to this small food town right outside of it. We were going to get dessert, well they were haha cause I was just too full. OH wait, we got dinner here actually, the other place was lunch. I didn't take pictures of the dinner but we got Macau's famous crab bisque and fish congee. It was delicious but not picturesque, as is most good food ahhaa. But here we have Brian happy with his chocolate banana icecream waffle. ^^ The Venetian is gorgeous. The gondolas inside were amazing too. Too bad I never appreciated waiting in lines haha... BUT let me tell you, all the gondola drivers can sing sooooo beautifully. Their voices would echo in the hall and it was such a romantic moment... :D So another thing Macau is famous for is their portuguese egg tarts. They're egg tarts with black spots on top and they are heavenly. Supposedly this bakery called Lord Stow's Bakery was supposed to have the best portuguese egg tarts. So being the foodies that we were, we had to give them a try. They were pretty good but they've got nothing on this other egg tart place in seurng wan. I forgot what it was called but THEY ARE THE BEST EGG TARTS IN THE WORLD HANDSDOWN... And to end on a sappy note <3 This was hands down one of my most memorable nights in Asia. I was with my favorite people in the world, exploring new places and eating great food. I couldn't have asked for a better day.
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I don't think she ever gets sick of eating ice-cream X3 I think this was cotton candy flavored with pineapple. I honestly don't remember anymore ahaha That night I went barbecuing for the first time at a fire pit. I've done bbqs on a grill, and roasted marshmallows at campfire but for me, this was a first. Brian and I went to Lion's Rock Park where we set everything up ourselves. He'd never done it before and neither had I, so half the time we were just trying to figure things out. It was really fun though. Teasing each other with food, feeding each other and just huddling together outside.. It was exciting, it was thrilling, it was warm... I wish we had more of those moments. I really want to go back to those times when we were together. Everything seemed right. Those moments were perfect. Just sitting next to him, I felt like the happiest person in the world...
So let me take a #selfie... haha Got thai food at my favorite thai restaurant in Hong Kong :D much happys Sensei sure loves pomelo salad. Though I admit Greyhound cafe has the better pomelo salad. We also bought beef pancakes from this famous halal place. The line was so long but we just placed an order and peaced out. Came back for it a bit later and snuck this into the thai place hehe It's the dough looking thing on the left. So delicious. XD Here's the obligatory selfie with our food :D
OKay.. I admit this is a really late post and these next few posts are all going to be half a year late. I'm back in the U.S. , Boston actually, well Waltham in particular haha... but I've finally had some free time on my hands and something got me thinking about Hong Kong again and just looking back at some of my posts, I knew I had to finish my trip to Asia. So here it is ^^ for memories sake. So my boy came to visit me in Hong Kong yay and no yay. Thinking back in retrospect, that was an amazing and miserable week. But on a totally random tangent, omagawd , I was wearing the friendship bracelets that my friends got me for leaving... (I really did love them, but they fell off my wrist without me realizing soon after...) anyways, here we are at an old fashioned HK Cafe. I tried to order the toast with stuff inside but I ordered the condensed milk by accident #somanysads. This was a total tourist trap, the service was bad and the place was a little too dirty for me... So on we went. We originally wanted to go to the Australian Milk Bar because we had heard great reviews but the line literally went around the block so we gave up. We went down two blocks and went to the bootleg one instead. The milk pudding wasn't that bad but I'm just not too fond of milk pudding in general but the company was great ^^ I couldn't have asked for any one else. I will always remember you sensei because of how welcoming you were in Hong Kong (well for more than that too ahahah of course). Later that night....
Thanks for the wonderful night on that veranda. It will really be a night I won't forget ^^
I really wanted to go hiking at Sai Kung but since it was rainy yesterday, it would've been a bad idea. I still went to get seafood there though. There is literally a street called seafood street in SaiKung with many michelin star restaurants there. As soon as I walked in, there were lines of tanks holding lobsters, crabs, oysters, clams, scallops, fish and other animals I'd never seen before.
Since the stores weren't open at 11, we decided to walk around the town a bit. It reminded me of chengchau and tai-o with its alleyway-like streets, and small stores. By lunch time, we'd been to every street in SaiKung town. When I got hungry, we decided to go to Sing Kee Restaurant which is a michelin star restaurant. I don't always trust that guide but at least it's a guaranteed base standard.
Next came these long mollusk clam things. I'm not sure what they're called but I've seen them in supermarkets before. They look like this really long tongue sticking out of two shells. This actually might have been the first time I ate something like this. These 4 clams were fried with Thai herbs which really brought out is natural flavors. And of course, we got veggies, because I cannot live without veggies. I am not even kidding. haha
lot when I was small. I miss those days and this jelly reminded me of that. Overall, we had a nice time at the restaurant. It was quite noisy but then again, so are most Chinese restaurants. It's customary to be loud because it gives off a more joyful feeling. The only thing that sucked was the bill ... lolz... It was definitely on the (very) pricey side, considering we only ordered 4 things. To burn off some of the calories we ate, we headed over to the harbour where all the boats were. I came across this boat that was selling fresh scallops. By fresh, I mean they catch it, literally shuck it in front of you and hand it to you in a little plastic bag. And the entire transaction happens on a fishing boat.
It was a gloomy and cold day but that also made it the perfect day to get seafood.
When we finished exploring the harbour, we made our way over to Honeymoon dessert. This place has so many branches but the original one was in SaiKung and they definitely have amazing desserts. I got this mango pancake. It's a really thin fluffy mango flavored pancake that is wrapped around a fresh piece of mango and whipped cream. It was amazing. The natural sweetness of the fruit and the texture of pancakes went perfectly together. It was an amazing day with an amazing person. I'm glad this was one of my last excursions in Hong Kong. #noregrets
Because of all the stress and just going out a lot more frequently, my body has gotten really tired. I went shopping today and after a few hours, I could feel the physical fatigue dragging me down. I could also feel the outset of a migraine coming. It was like a repeat of the time I went to Tsuen Wan. I think I need to take it easy for now... I think I'm going to do less exploring and try to just go out for food now. Oh, that pikachu was from an event happening at One Square in TST. There were soooo many pikachus hehe. I think Vivian would definitely have wanted to come. Since I really didn't want to do any more exploring, I settled for just the food. Today I went to Thailand Roadside in Kowloon City. This is their assorted soup noodle and it was really good. I've always hated pork blood but here it's actually decent. So good... drools... There was a flat noodle base topped with a lot of veggies (covered here). On top of that, there were slices of fish cake, fishballs, cuttlefish? or squid? (which I think was actually raw but it cooked to perfection in the broth), fermented tofu, and cubes of pork blood (very smooth like tofu, they didn't overcook it at
Thailand Roadside 泰國路邊街美食 26 South Wall Rd, Kowloon City, 2716 3868.
Yuen Yuen InstituteWith only 2 weeks left in Hong Kong, the pressure is on to do as much and see as much as I possibly can. What I've been trying to do lately is to pick an MTR stop and go to all the local attractions there. Today's stop was Tsuen Wan. The places I had planned to visit were Yuen Yuen Institute and the Western Monastery. I ended up also going to a local shopping arcade and Sam Tung Uk Museum. It was a bit too much for me because by the end of the day, I was having a serious migraine (probably from the lack of good sleep lately).
Western MonasteryIn terms of traditional Chinese architecture, Western Monastery is definitely the one I find to be the most beautiful. Everything from the Chinese paintings on the ceilings to the marble finishings of the steps were breathtakingly gorgeous. It's a really serene place to be especially on a cloudy day. The only bad thing about this place is it's a very touristy spot so there were quite a few visitors when I was leaving. I had to wait for a good half an hour just to get down the mountain. That's a crazy amount of time to wait for a mini-bus in HK. Sam Tung UkSam Tung Uk was probably the most unique village I visited in Hong Kong. It use to be a Hakka Village but when Tsuen Wan was redeveloped, it was reconstructed into a museum. The walls and structure takes on old forms though and I really got a sense of what a Hakka Village must have looked like in the past. The coolest thing is, it's little a piece of the past situated amongst the high rises of the present.
Today was the last official class of my semester here at HKBU. It wasn't even an official class. Rather it was an outing to the Hong Kong Museum of Art. There's an exhibit for the four gentlemen of Chinese painting and since we learned about them in painting class, my teacher thought it'd be cool to have a tour. The four gentlemen are the plum blossom, the orchid, the chrysanthemum, and the bamboo. They are the 4 most basic elements of Chinese painting.
That's the Hong Kong Space Museum right outside the Hong Kong Museum of Art. crust was way too crumby and dry. I think this is the last time that I'm going to trust egg tarts found in blog posts. These places get way too famous and I feel like they are skimping on ingredients honestly. The egg filling actually tasted like baking soda...
Today was definitely very fun. I went out to eat with Pamela, a friend I met in film class. It's nice how we changed from being not that close to eating beef brisket noodle soup together at a mad local HK joint. haha...good times. We went to Sister Mah for dinner which was delicious in a simple kind of way. Then we headed over to Jin Jin Dessert where I tried double boiled egg for the first time. It was a bit too heavy for me.. I never was a big fan of custards. We talked about life for a while and then we decided to just jump on a tram going anywhere. Neither of us had taken the tram before but we thought it'd be fun and see where it went. It actually didn't go too far but it was definitely a worthwhile experience.
And we're off... XD I love exploring and going to this monastery definitely confirmed that for me. I love the feeling of trekking off and just getting to see the local culture and sights. The climb was no joke though. Thank God it was nice and cool. Otherwise we would've boiled in the heat all the way up. As the name suggests, there are 10,000 buddhas on this mountain in all and everyone of them are different. Some of them scare the heck out of me honestly.
next two days were lost and I had so many pictures of food in there... sighs... oh wells.. at least I borrowed a phone from a friend so I can continue with these explorations and food adventures.
I was seriously expecting so much from this place.... and boy was I disappointed....
This is my second time going to Wan Chai. The first time seriously sucked because we had no idea where we were going. We wanted to YOLO our trip but that isn't exactly possible in Hong Kong. What ends up happening is that you just sun burn on the hot streets of HK while wandering around trying to figure out where you are. This time was a little different. I'm more free now since I've just finished my papers and projects. Finals are a bit away so I have time to actually plan what I want to see and do.
you can actually also see the IFC building from here. They're actually building a ferris wheel right next to IFC. It looks like the London Eye to me but I wonder if it'll be done by the time I leave... Next I headed back towards Wan Chai station. There's a street market right opposite the station. I thought it would be a nice place to find some souvenirs for my friends. The first time I had anything with Kiwi juice in it, I was absolutely disgusted. It tasted like sugar and candy to me (Hi-Chew actually haha). But the more I drank it, the more I could stand it. And this one with Aloe is one of my favorites. So after getting that porkchop bun, I nommed my way up to the Blue House. It's a historical HK building that was restored to preserve its unique architecture.
classic tunes. It really did show a different side of Hong Kong's past that you wouldn't be able to see elsewhere. Since I had a bit of time before class started, I decided to keep going up the street. Lo and behold at the end of the street was a park that led into Yuk Hui Temple. I totally did not expect to find this.
I'm so glad I came to Wan Chai again. I got to see so many different sights of Hong Kong and I had a must-try snack while it was hot and steaming. It was definitely a productive and fruitful day.
Only in HK is it 82F one day and 62F the next. Yesterday it was hot with even a tshirt on but today, I saw people with coats on. Such bipolar weather.. I will never know how to dress... So I decided to make the best of the time I have left here and try as many must-eat foods as I can. And I'm going to start one at a time, one each day. Today I tried Islam Food. I can't really read what the Chinese name is but apparently this place was ranked #1 restaurant in Kowloon City for 2014. This is their most famous dish: Veal Goulash. It is seriously so good. The meat was flavorful and when you bit into it, the juice comes pouring out...It reminds me of a Shao long bao on the inside while the outside is a fried breadish dough. Definitely a must try in Kowloon City. That's the shredded beef and onions. It was good but it honestly wasn't anything special. Plus there was a 1:3 ratio of beef to onion. Shirley is not amused 😒 This is the view from the seat of a double decker HK bus. It kinda scares me how close they get to other vehicles... The random snack shopping continues. Never have I ever eaten croissant chips. Lololz xD Going to miss HK food.... I'm going to miss a lot of things about HK. I think I'm going to miss the classes I'm taking now. It was a seriously road to get here but I can honestly say I don't regret taking any of the classes that I am. I'm learning so much about not only what they teach but also a new perspective to life. Hahahaha I'm not trying to be philosophical but study abroad seriously changes your life ^^ I am seriously going to miss this view from the terrace outside my painting class. And this weather... It's like 75 on average still. Trekked up Lions Peak. That's the view from the halfway point. It's a really gorgeous view of Kowloon. We made it to the top!!! And it's literally the top hahah. We expected a flattened out area where we could maybe rest but it was a steep climb all the way up to the peak. It was really rocky and the path was only barely wide enough for one person at a time. I loved that moment when we finally reached it though. Best. Feeling. Ever. That's lions rock. It's supposed to look like the head of a lion and if you looked really close (with a bit of imagination, you'll see it). XD Even though we finished the climb to the top, we kept trekking on the mountain till we found the perfect spot to watch the sunset. Hours of walking for maybe 15 minutes of sunset. It was worth it though and the process was exhilarating too. When we finished the climb, it was really dark outside already. It didn't help that we got off the wrong stop on the bus. All that didn't even matter though. We all just really wanted to get food because we were so hungry after the long day. I got the curry beef sizzling rice with cheese. It was so good. I ate like there was no tomorrow HAHHAAHA. Twas a good day xD The snack adventures continue in Hong Kong 😍 If I have the choice, I'd definitely choose savory over sweet any day. Hence the love for beef jerky Lolz. But seriously though, I thought this was a Japanese imported product when I saw all the Japanese characters on the packaging. Not until I flipped the bag around did I see the text in micro small, "product of the PRC." My first thought was deceptive marketing but then again, it is quite beneficial for producers to claim their products as Japanese. They can charge a higher price and gain consumer confidence. I just don't like what it says about Chinese products though. They're effectively saying that Chinese products are somehow lacking and therefore, it is better to go with Japanese branding. As a Chinese American, I can't help but feel a little disappointed that Chinese producers would even have to do this. I look forward to the day when "made in China" no longer has the connotations of low value and labor-intensive. Kudos to Sarah for the inspiring hashtag, took up lifting just recently x3 and I'm feeling better than ever (also more aching than ever but no pain no gain). My new challenge to myself is to try a new Asian snack everyday while I'm here. This might not sound too healthy but then again, I'm gyming a lot everyday hahaha. It's so fun anticipating what they're going to taste like especially when I can't read any of the labels. They're like little adventures in a bag. XD Lately this has been my night ever night... Just casually staying up late into the wee hours of day, trying to finish these papers and projects.. But I'm really enjoying this, I love my topic for my politics class, and even though I'm only a quarter way through with more than 20 pages to go, I'm enjoying researching and learning more about the American perspective on China's military and economic growth. I haven't even started my film paper yet but I want to write about so many things that I don't even know where to start. I think I'm starting to understand what people mean when they say "you don't really work wen you enjoy what you do." I'm so glad I came to Hong Kong. I'm learning so much here. 😊 Living by this motto with a slight change >>> Keep Calm and Stay Fit A healthy body makes for a healthy mind #livingdiscipline #healthylifestyle It's been a while since I've seriously blogged. So much stuff has happened in these last couple of weeks and honestly I think it was the roughest time I've gone through since getting here. I was overwhelmed by school, homesickness, social problems with friends, my computer breaking down, pressure to find an internship and even relationship issues. It just felt like my life was spiraling out of control. I think it was then that I really had to step back, pray and trust God with a lot of my problems... I kept overwhelming myself with stress when what I really needed to do was stop and pray. And it took me a while to realize it but I did. I stopped and prayed for the comfort and trust. I can't say that all my problems have been solved but now I'm no longer burdened by weights. I've made amazing realizations about myself and others during this week and I don't think it would've been possible without God stepping in. I thought my life was being turned upside down, but it was just Him trying to teach me about myself. I'm so grateful for all that He has done for me especially this week, for the people he has put in my life and for the experiences that make me who I am now. It was definitely hard getting through this period but I think this week was truly special. I've come to appreciate this stress and really embrace being here where I am now. Special thanks goes out to my wonderful roommate who has seriously helped me out so much and has been supporting me whole heartedly. I don't know what I would've done without her. So to celebrate a tough week being over, we went out to get Korean chicken at an authentic Korean place called Goobne. It was soooo good. It's actually my first time getting korean food since coming to Hong Kong and I was so happy with the chicken. It was so flavorful and moist. We left with bloated tummies and full hearts. 'Twas a good night indeed ^^ |
ShirleyAsia | Hong Kong NYC to Boston to HK
Babson Class of 2016 Work Hard | Play Hard | Sleep Hard | ~ I love the beauty in details~ Archive
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