Was reminding the smarties that the next day we are going back to Singapore and they were like:”What? Come on, let’s stay a few days more…pleassssseeeeee!!!”. Come on…who doesn’t love holiday? I wished I can stay a few days more too! The fact is we have to get back to work and school and we have a return ticket. So I asked them why should we stay longer and they started shooting out the reasons like a machine gun which really “shot” me by surprise!
“There are so much more that we haven’t explore!”
“We haven’t been to the beach yet!”
“Hong Kong is sooooo big, we need more time to understand the people and the culture here!”
“We love the food here, we want to eat more!”……….more reasons but I couldn’t remember all
I don’t know what you think but I didn’t expect so many reasons from them within such short time frame. Maybe next time, we’ll have a longer holiday…hmm…
Well, what did we do on the last day? We went to explore their wet and open markets on the street. It was an eye opener for the smarties. At the same time also made them worried at the beginning, keeping a look out for cars which actually no car can passed through.
There were many stalls along the street and the smarties were running freely after knowing no cars were seen in the open street market. They were excited to explore those toy stalls and stopping at every of the toy stalls they spotted. Once we reached the end of the street market, they found an ice-cream truck. Of course, you know what comes next. Both get to eat ice-cream!
While enjoying the ice-cream, they spotted a shop selling traditional biscuits. It smells really good. We bought some to try as well. The uncle was really friendly.
On our way back to our apartment, we passed by a gui ling gao (tortoise jelly or turtle jelly) stall. Sounds yucky? Gor gor was asking what that was and I explained to him. I actually bought one for him to try out but he couldn’t master up the courage to eat it. Gui ling gao is a popular dessert and is made from powdered plastron (bottom shell) from the turtle with the mixture of other herbal products. It is classified as Chinese medicine due to its “cooling” effect and cleansing the toxins from the body after a person consumes it.
Mei mei knocked out after the walk in the open market street.
We stopped by the wet market and discovered some interesting stalls. Their wet market is really wet because of their live products they sell. You can definitely say the fishes are fresh since they are all swimming in front of you!
Near our apartment, there was this stall selling fish balls and other snacks. Their food taste really good and we have been buying from them a few times since we were here. The smarties love their fish balls because they are really bouncy and chewy.
It was dinner time and we had a hard time finding a place to eat as it happened to be their mid autumn festival. In Hong Kong, mid autumn festival is a big thing to them and they have lots of activities catered for this event. To me, it felt like Chinese New Year considering that every family will meet up for reunion meal in the restaurants.
We managed to find a place to have our dinner at 66 hotpot. If you love spicy chicken, this is the place to go. Their spicy chicken hotpot is really awesome. They even allowed you to add soup after that and cook noodle with it. Before the food comes, they will serve you a variety of sauces for you to mix and match according to your likings.
Variety of sauces
Spicy chicken hotpot
What to do if you do not eat spicy? Do not worry as they also serve non spicy hotpot too. The smarties get to have the clear non spicy soup based hot pot. Their service was fantastic especially with the kids.
See how they enjoyed their food.
Stuffing everything in…too hungry or too delicious??
Keep slurping on…
Dinner’s done and we headed off to watch the Symphony of Lights at Victoria Harbour. Weather was pretty warm and mei mei fell asleep again! Woke her up when it started but she couldn’t be bothered and I totally understand. Many of us there were actually expecting some fantastic “performances” but it was just some laser light flashing on and off. That’s it. Gor gor kept on asking:”That’s all??”. Well, at least we get to see nice night scenery.
We moved on to Avenue of Stars. This place is designed to recognize the film industry’s contribution in promoting Hong Kong and also to pay tribute to the names that helped make Hong Kong the ‘Hollywood of the East’. Luckily mei mei woke up at this time and I don’t have to carry her all the way. Whew!
Can you spot the full moon?
Life size statues of Anita Mui and Bruce Lee
Smarties found an uncle sitting by the river with really cool radio and music continuously playing out of it. He also sang along with it as well! He seemed so relaxing, singing and enjoying the beautiful night scenery and his music liven up the place too!
Walking further, we found one of the commemorative plaques has a bouquet of flowers on it. Guess who’s?
Next, we saw a cute statue, McDull. Smarties were fascinated and took picture with it before we headed off to the MTR. Cute huh?
The smarties had a great day today learning about the culture and history of Hong Kong. They get to experience the lifestyle of Hong Kongers and the food that they eat. The day and night street market for today was an opener for them as we don’t get to see this in Singapore.
I love to bring smarties to travel as they can learn a lot from travelling. They learn about culture, manners, how to interact with people with different culture/lifestyle, awareness, trying out new things, etc… the list goes on… Is really a great experience for both the parents and the child/children. Abundance of bonding time too!
Night street market
Alrighty, that’s how we spent out last day in Hong Kong. The next day morning we have a flight to catch. Till then, stay tuned for our next trip. Any suggestions where to go? 😉