Real House Husband of Guangzhou...

Haven’t posted in a while, but recently, we went to HK for a short break.  We stayed 2 nights first in the new Auberge Discovery Bay hotel.  Discovery Bay is on Lantau Island and is a planned development which doesn’t allow cars on the premises.  There are some nice restaurants and hiking is readily available.  Although, we did not get to hike at all due to the constant downpours!  Another convenience is that it is close to HK Disneyland.  So, we set out on a rainy Friday to tour the park and fulfill my wife’s desire to shop for HK specific Pooh souvenirs.  Hahahaha!!!  Yes, she is a big big Pooh fan.  Anyways, the rain made the park very manageable as the crowd was small.  We didn’t have to wait more than 15 minutes for any ride.  What was the busiest ride???  Of course, the Pooh Corner ride!

Yum.

Hong Kong Day 2 - We started early and went to Lantau Island to check out the giant buddha and surroundings.  Also, wanted to take the cable car ride up there… which was very very nice.  Really nice day again… we then chilled out at the hotel a bit before heading out to dinner at Temple Street.  We tried one of the popular chili crab places and ordered a couple of crabs, some mantis shrimps, clams, and etc.  Sat outside and had a few beers while eating good seafood.  After that…. we walked by the famous HK wonton noodle place and of course…. we decided to get a bowl because they are pretty small bowls after all… so it’s just like a small snack.  After we stuffed ourselves, we went up to the roof deck of our hotel and checked out the view while having a night cap drink.  So all in all… a really nice day!

Well, my parents are with us for a few days now.  They came in Thursday and we had a nice dinner last night.  This morning, we took off for Hong Kong for 2 nights before heading to Langkawi, Malaysia on Monday morning.  Couple of pictures from tonight…. first is the Mid-Autumn light festival at Victoria Park on Hong Kong island.  Second is a shot of Kowloon side as my parents rode the Star Ferry for the very first time.  Pretty night here in Hong Kong… perfect weather and pretty clear skies.

So, this past Thursday night, we took off for HK as the wife had a follow-up doctor’s appt and a PT session during the day on Friday.  We hopped on the train and the ride to HK was uneventful.  Checked into the Luxe Manor (one of our favorite hotels) in the TST area and we went out to eat at some nice restaurant.  Fast forward to Friday and all the checkups were great!!!  We’ll have to make a couple more trips in the next couple months, but I think the recovery is going well for Mrs. RHHOG.

So, we hopped into a cab and went to the China Ferry Terminal, which is pretty much due west of the Luxe Manor hotel.  We booked tickets with First Ferry and immigration and getting to the ship were all pretty easy and quick.  After getting on the ship, we took off from the harbor and headed to Macau!  You can definitely feel the waves, but overall, the catamarans are pretty smooth.  My wife is prone to sea sickness, so she had a patch on, which worked great.

We got to Macau in about 1 hour.  Really, it went by so quick.  Once again, we had to go through immigrations and after 20 minutes, we were through.  We then walked out of the terminal to where all the shuttle buses for the hotel and hopped on the City of Dreams bus, which will take us to the Hard Rock Hotel.

Hard Rock Hotel… I have never stayed at one and the reason I booked this hotel for this trip is because they had a good package for the “House of the Dancing Waters” show.  The show is at the City of Dreams complex and for those familiar to the Cirque show “O” in Vegas… it’s similar, but has more of a story line, I guess.

We checked into the Hard Rock and people were really nice and spoke good English.  Bear in mind that the main language spoken in Macau is Cantonese.  They had set us up on a high floor facing the Cotai strip (Venetian) as requested… and the view was really nice!  The thing is though… the Venetian looks… well, like the Venetian in Vegas!  Hahahaha.

Another nice touch from the hotel is the birthday brownie and the huge fruit bowl! When I booked the trip, I had let them know that this is a belated birthday trip for my wife since she broke her elbow around her actual birthday.  So, kudos to the Hard Rock for setting us up.  The brownie cake… very very good!  Loved the sugar guitar that they put on it.

So, this past weekend, we went to Hong Kong again as the wife has a follow-up with the doctor to get her cast removed.  I posted earlier about the brand new Madera Hotel and for the incredible rate that I got, we were very happy with the room.  It is for sure a 4 star and the rooms are super nice and modern/contemporary.  We also liked the Jordan location as it’s a short ride from the Hung Hom train station and also convenient to TST.  Jordan itself has tons of restaurants too and has a more of a melting pot local feel.  Another plus, the train station is much smaller, so you don’t feel like you need to walk a million steps to get to the train or get out to an exit.

Anyways, the doctor’s visit was great and the wife had a PT session the following morning.  It was raining like cats and dogs all day Friday, but Saturday was mostly nice.  We shopped a bit and walked around TST and Jordan.  We ate a lot of good food but as always, forgot to take pictures at most of the places.  The pics posted were from a Taiwanese Beef Noodle restaurant and then a Dim Dim Sum Specialty Restaurant.  The dim sum specialty place (Sunday morning) was really tasty and cheap compared to the Maxim’s City Hall Restaurant - which is fancy, but also super delicious.  We went there on Saturday morning after PT as the wife often went with her family when she lived there.

Now, the funny or the not so funny part of the story if it actually happened was that we almost did not make it back to GZ on Sunday!!!!  We checked out of the hotel at a little past Noon as we planned to take the 1:10 PM train back to GZ.  Never has a problem with going to the train station and then purchasing a ticket for the next train…. until of course this time.  We got there and went to the ticketing office only to see a sign that said “All tickets for through trains for today are sold out”.  Seriously?!!?!?!?!?!?!  I mean, there are like 8-10 trains daily to GZ and we are only half way through the day and they are all sold out????

We were then trying to figure out what to do???  Stay an extra night, but the wife really needed to get back for work meetings… so maybe take the local train to Shenzhen, cross the border, and then try out luck getting a train from there to GZ???

It was at this moment that we saw the big travel agency right near the ticketing office.  We went there asking if they had train tickets for sale, and the first time, they said… “nope, all sold out”.  We were bummed out and then walked around a bit for 5 minutes trying to decide further on what to do…  That’s when I noticed another little crowd by the same travel agency…

We walked back there and I saw people throwing money down on the counter and walking away with little tickets… looked just like train tickets!!!!  We then asked again, and this time a different guy asked how many?  We said 2.  He said, can you leave soon?  We said, yes!  He took my money and came back with 2 tickets for the 2:47 train and said… “Don’t be late!”.

We did not bother asking them how they got the stack of tickets they were reselling???  We totally wondered what da heck is going on and what the travel agency is doing as they did not even charge a surcharge for the train tickets over the regular ticket office…. We just were so happy that we got tickets and tripled check the tickets to make sure they were legit!

My guess is that they bought out a ton of tickets for the day for tour groups and also a big convention in GZ.  They must have had a cancellation and therefore had extra tickets to resell.  Weird stuff, but whatever!

And we’re heading to HK tomorrow for the weekend to see my wife’s surgeon for a follow-up. The plan is for her to get her outer cast taken off so he can examine the wound and take X-ray to make sure the fracture is healing well. We also will try to maybe get some PT sessions in so that we can learn the rehab exercises.

Since we have to go to HK, we’ll take advantage of the situation and have a little fun too. Hotels are generally crazy expensive in HK, but there is a new hotel called Hotel Madera, which is a 4 star boutique hotel that just opened. I was able to snag a room for two nights at their crazy $888hkd rate. Now, I have no idea how good the hotel is and it’s located in Jordan, just north of the TST area. Still very happening with lots of shopping and restaurants and let’s be frank…. HK is small and it’s easy to go from one area to another via metro or taxi. Anyways, if anyone is looking for a decent stay at a cheap rate…. you might want to give Madera a look and give them a call to inquire about the rate as they seem to have more rooms available if you contact them directly as oppose to agoda, asiarooms, booking, and etc.

• train ride
• 3 nights
• 2 different hotels
• lack of sleep
• relief

That pretty much sums up the past 4 days of an unexpected trip to HK.  No time to fully explain now but will in due time.  We are heading back to GZ today via train and then have to pack up for a long flight/trip back home home tomorrow!

Last one and one of my favorite pic…. IFC Hong Kong.

More HK.

Beautiful!

Hong Kong 3/11 Continued - So, we met up with the parents at the Star Ferry Terminal.  Located next to the terminal is gigantic Harbour City Mall.  We walked in there to look for a place to eat dinner and after perusing the huge list of restaurants, we picked Crystal Jade, which was a Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand restaurant.  They specialize in noodles and xiao long bao (soup dumplings).

It was a very good dinner and unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures as we were all busy chowing down and talking.  Good dinner and a good time!

The highlight for me was afterwards when we took pictures of the skyline from TST looking at the famous HK skyscraper skyline and also when we took the Star Ferry back to the Hong Kong island side… such a beautiful city at night.  I’m going to spread these few pictures out in multiple posts to give the maximum effect!

So, this basically concludes the 2 night trip to HK.  Great city and we will for sure be back again soon…  

Hong Kong 3/11 Continued - After getting back to downtown from Aberdeen, we took the MTR to TST and headed to the Hong Kong Museum.  This was one of my wife’s favorite museum in HK and she wanted to show me.  Basically, this is a natural and cultural history of Hong Kong in one large museum.  Beautifully displayed exhibits.  I was really impressed and had a great time.  I really liked all the recreated scenes and scenarios as the museum walked you through the time and history of Hong Kong from the prehistoric days, through British settlements, and modern day.

One of the highlights was a display of all the famous/historical secondary colleges (High School and etc) in Hong Kong.  On the wall was Sacred Heart College, which my wife attended when she lived in Hong Kong.  Very cool!!!

We were also pleasantly surprised by the cafeteria at the museum as we ate a light lunch there.  No pics, but I had a pork chop with rice plate and the Mrs. had a soup noodle.  

After the museum, we walked towards the Star Ferry terminal as we were to meet her parents for dinner.  On the way, we saw an Irish bar, so we popped in for a couple of pints!

Hong Kong 3/11 - We started the second day with a workout in the morning and then breakfast at the hotel.  We then headed out to Aberdeen, which is a seaside area on the southern coast of Hong Kong island.  I have no idea what to expect from Aberdeen and neither does my wife as in all the years that her family lived there… she has never been to Aberdeen?!?!?!?!  We took the shuttle to the IFC Mall again and then from the bus stop there, hopped on #70 to Aberdeen.  Pretty easy, and we sat on the very first row of the upper deck of the double decker bus.

So, Aberdeen is a great place to eat fresh seafood as there is a huge fish market there.  However, we went on a really rainy morning and thus did not really enjoy what it would have offered.  We still walked around a bit and snapped some pictures.  After battling the rain for a while for a few hours, we hopped on the bus and got back to the city to look go to the Hong Kong Museum to duck the rain.

HK 3/10 Continued - So, we headed back out to find dinner after a few drinks at the hotel…  We went to the Tsim Sha Tsui (TST) area and specifically Temple Street.  

Temple Street reminds us a bit of ChiangMai in that they are outdoor stalls selling stuff and outdoor restaurants everywhere.  Actually, I think this area specializes in seafood and especially SPICY CRABS!  We, however, were not in the mood for that, so settled in at “Free Go Yummy House”, which is like a phonetic and literal translation of the actual name in Chinese.  We had a folding table outside and sat on plastic stools.  The food was DELICIOUS!!!  Standouts were the mango shrimps in a light curry sauce and the sweet and sour pork (a HK staple).  Bear in mind, the real sweet and sour pork is made with pork ribs with the bone still attached.

After dinner, we walked through the market areas and checked out the Spicy Crabs restaurant and they were all packed with tourists and locals.  Looked really good and so we made sure to make a mental note for our next weekend trip back to HK.

So, we then walked around the TST area some more and then headed back to the hotel.  Great first day/night in HK.