Hong Kong Day 3

There are a lot of little boutiques, food shops, and other shops around the hotel. BF and I woke up and went out to get breakfast and head to any mall nearby.

On Cameron Road, there is a very small shop that sells fresh fruit and vegetable juices. You can get a wide selection of fruit and even vegetables juiced: pear, dragonfruit, bittermelon, starfruit, kiwi, celery, tomato, carrot, orange, mango...Each is about $15 HKD, which is about $1.88USD. We went with the mango with sago (little tapioca pearls), which was only $8 HKD and came in a small cup (about 8 or 12 oz, I think).

We were trying to head to a mall called "The One," which was supposedly nearby but with my limp was much farther. Plus the rain started coming down a bit and so we stopped into some little restaurant for breakfast. BF got a plate of ramen with chicken wings and a bit of veggies. I got the Hong Kong style (french?) toast. The noodle plate was rather small and underwhelming.

 I poured sweetened condensed milk and some liquidy peanut butter on top of my toast. This is how the Hong Kong people eat their french toast: with condensed milk, peanut butter, and honey. Pretty tasty and different than the french toast I'm used to eating. Not bad. The price tag for these two items plus a drink was around $8.50 USD, which is very affordable.

 For lunch, we met up with the grandma and aunt, uncle, and cousins on BF's dad's side at Maxim's Palace. This restaurant is housed in what used to be a theater. Going inside, I was awestruck by the grandeur of the interior. There were two stories, chandeliers, and fancy wall decorations.

Click image to see full size of the panaroma shot!

Maxim's Palace is a dim sum restaurant. Ladies go around pushing carts with various dim sum, but we primarily put in orders from the papers on the table.

Fried noodle with some sauce, chicken, and bean sprouts

Bitter melon with fish

Honeydew panna cotta: yum!

Sweet tofu pudding with longan and dates

Everytime we go to dim sum, we get so much food and I get so stuffed by the end of it, trying a bite here, a bite there. Also ordered were char siu bao (BBQ pork buns), fried rice, beef rice rolls in soy sauce, porridge, and more.

We then went karaoking at Red Mr with the cousins. You can rent out a room, in which there are several couches, coffee tables, and a TV. A touchscreen next to the TV lets you browse music and then add music to the queue. They had a good selection of old and new songs, popular and not as well known artists as well. Some that we sang were: Britney Spears, Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, LFMAO, One Republic, Usher, Chris Brown, Lonely Island (I'm on a BOAT!), Justin Timberlake, Pink, Beyonce, Jay-Z and Kanye West, and Kelly Clarkson.

We spent over 3 hours in there singing. It was pretty fun. Each person gets 2 free non-alcoholic drinks. The parents (BF's mom, aunt, uncle) ordered some food for us: fried platter (fries, shrimp, onion rings) and a meat platter (skewers, cucumber with pork floss or something). BF's grandma came and stayed the whole time. I was soo amazed by her and felt a lot of respect for her because it's hard to be patient and stay doing nothing for 3 hours just to be with her grandsons. She also managed to nap while we sang really loud and horribly, which I thought was also amazing.

  A famous tourist attraction is the light show at the Kowloon Public Pier (south Tsim Sha Tsui), which occurs every day at 8pm. We gathered amidst the other tourists (and locals, I'm sure) on the edge of the pier and waited for the show to start. Across the water, you can see all the tall buildings and the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Center in Wanchai. At the start, the Samsung building has a large LED banner that proclaims "Symphony of Lights". Basically, lots of buildings light up with many colors in coordination with the background music. People can also take the ferry around the harbor to watch. It was a little underwhelming. Pretty, but I got bored after 5-10 minutes.

Click to see full-size panaroma image!

Once it ended, we headed back to the hotel while window shopping. BF's family stopped by a jerky store. Jerky in Asia is sooo much better than in America. The jerky is not tough; rather, it's sweet, soft, and super flavorful. The flavor is dynamic, not just like smoked meat flavor like in America.

I wanted to walk around a digest still, so we wandered a bit. Went into a McDonalds and was impressed by their McCafe. Totally classy like a Starbucks. Fast food usually seems to be so much nicer in countries other than the USA.

Cheesecake, lamingtons, and muffins!?

After this long day, we finally headed back and passed out on the wonderfully hard beds. I knew I was excited for the next day and fell asleep planning what I could potentially do and eat...