Alpha's Summer Adventure

Last edited by Alpha eX on Fri Jul 10, 2009 2:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

SINO Centre
03-07-09

Today we had planned to go to the SINO Centre in Mong Kok for a bit of shopping. Mong Kok is very much like Akihabara in Tokyo, Geek Central, full of Anime, Games , Gadgets, Technology and everything else associated with geeks. I’m not ashamed to admit, i’m a big fan of Games, Gadgets and Technology.

We had to keep our plans for today a secret at the breakfast table when talking with Antonia’s mother as Mong Kok is a dangerous place to visit. Recently, there have been attacks there where someone threw acid down onto the street from a tall building causing a lot of damage to the public. Still, the SINO Centre is indoors and the attacker wasn’t likely to come back after security was heavily ramped up.

It wasn’t till early afternoon we finally got out of the house and arrived at Admiralty station and got on the train to Mong Kok station. It’s a short and inexpensive trip to Mong Kok from Admiralty and we was there in just a few minutes.

Pictures of Mong Kok

Today we were heading to the SINO Centre, a tower block shopping centre with many shops selling gadgets, anime and games ect. I had no idea what to expect but was recommended it by a few people so I was excited. A short walk from the station and we had arrived.

We spend a lot of time in the SINO Centre looking around the shops. Many sold similar things but there were a few that really stood out. You’re not really allowed to take pictures of the shops and the stuff they sell but I got a few sneaky shots where I could.

Party Games Shop

This shop sells all sorts of puzzle games and interesting quirky toys and games, mostly imported from Japan. There was a lot of cool things in here, I was very tempted to spend a lot in here but held off.

3 Cubian

Nothing really special about this shop, sells a load of random cheap gadgety type things. You’ll find lots of interesting things in here. There are many shops like this but I like this one the most.

Brick Shop

This shop sells Lego and lots of it. Many interesting sets and merchandise I haven’t seen before. A fun shop for me as I am a big Lego fan.

Gima Street
Frogs. Lots and lots of frogs. This shop is full of all things frogs, keychains, badges, watches towels, notebooks, stationary. I like the colour green and I like frogs so despite its cuteness I liked this shop a lot. Good for froggy gifts.

Hobby Figure

I’m not a big fan of Anime Gashapon but if you like this sort of stuff, you’ll love this shop. It’s full of Anime figures and gashapon. You can buy single figures or full sets for what seems like a fair price.

Qui Qui

This shop is one of my favourites. It’s full of cute character products ranging from keychains to giant plushes. Great for gifts and fun to look around if you like this sort of stuff.

We spent a long time shopping and looking around the SINO Centre. When we reached the top floor we came to a small Ice Cream stand that seemed to offer a million flavours. I looked and saw Lemon Sorbet so ordered that, as the guy moved all the boxes in the fridge to find the sorbet, I saw Lemon and Lime Sherbert so asked for that instead, as he went for that I saw Lemon and Lime Super Sorbet which I settled with, awesome.

We went back downstairs and looked around at the Game Shops, Antonia wanted a DS. We asked around for prices and EVERY shop offered an R4 with the DS. The prices were really cheap but then they were Korean, obviously imported at a much lower cost. We settled with one shop and got a Light Blue DS with an R4. After we got the DS, we left to go home.

I really enjoyed the SINO Centre, there were so many cool and interesting shops here but there’s one thing I did not like about this place, the fakes. There are a lot of fake products in the SINO Centre. I was very disappointed when I saw some things I really wanted but then noticed they were fake. Not everything here is fake so don’t avoid the SINO Centre, it’s awesome. It’s just most of the shops that sell a little bit of everything sell fake products but it’s easy enough to tell.
So if you ever find yourself in Hong Kong wanting to explore a cool shopping mall with lots of unique and interesting products, head down to the SINO Centre.

I'm glad I went here today, it was a lot of fun and I got a few cool gifts including the Shark Bag that I wanted since I saw someone wearing one in the arcade. I'm glad Antonia didn't mind spending so long in here, most people would be dragging me by the arm trying to get me to leave but we was in here for hours without her making any sort of fuss. The SINO Centre is defintly one of my favourite places in Hong Kong, we'll be going back to Mong Kok and other places like this in the future.

We got something for Pudding too...

The Mongolian Circus
04-07-09

I wasn’t feeling very well this morning but don’t worry, it wasn’t swine flu. We had tickets for the Mongolian Circus at the Cultural Centre, a large theatre that hosts the big shows in Hong Kong. Antonia had actually performed here as a solo artist when she was younger, she was a popular child star in Hong Kong with a lot of press coverage. I was looking forward to the show, we was going with Antonia’s parents but I wasn’t feeling well at all and didn’t think I’d make it, thankfully, I got better in the afternoon and rushed to get ready.

I hurried to get ready for the time we was due to leave, 6pm. I had just finished getting ready, wearing casual clothes and making my way down to Antiona’s room, her dad was wearing a suit, very posh. I got to Antonia’s room, she was looking great wearing a pretty dress looking just a posh as her father. I stood there in my T-Shirt and Jeans, “I have to change now”. I hurried to wear something better, nice shirt, dark jeans, looked alright, went to get my black belt to finish it off. I couldn’t find my belt, only my casual light brown belt with a large buckle. I ran back to Antonia’s room to explain, she tried to find me one, which she did, I hurried to put it on but it was horribly sticky, like glue. It didn’t fit so I took it off then looked at my hands, covered in a thick black tar like substance. I hurried to scrub that off as Antonia’s parents grew impatient downstairs. I had to settled with the casual belt but wore my jacket over the top, keeping it out of view.

We got to the theatre and walked around the harbour area for a bit before we took our seats. The theatre was almost full and we had a programme to read on our seats. We was seeing a show called, Genghis Khan, a Mongolian Circus which aimed to pull a younger audience and families back into the theatre. After the Kung-Fu show in Beijing, I was very excited to see something similar.

The show was amazing. I had never seen anything like it! The first act was 5 unicyclists, doesn’t sound impressive? Well, the unicycles were 3 Meters high, the riders were riding them while balancing bowls on their heads, they then continued to throw more bowls from their feet to head, catching them in the bowls already there. The act went on where they were throwing bowls to each other while riding, it was incredible.

The show was made up of about 12 acts, some not as good as others. The highlights for me was the unicyclists and just a few more which I will try to describe. The Hat Act was a large collection of jugglers who could swap hats very fast, they continued to do acrobatics and form human pyramids while still swapping the hats. The other act that really stood out was The Lambs, a collection of acrobats in pairs who threw their partners in the air allowing them to continually do flips in one spot. It’s very hard to describe but it was jaw dropping, I’d never seen anything like it and highly recommend a Mongolian Circus.

I would try to describe more but as you must have noticed by now, my English skills fail me so i’ll sum up the show. Incredible.

After the show we got back in the car and drove a very short distance to The Peninsula, a high class hotel equal to that of the most expensive in London. This is why we were dressed smart, Antonia’s parents had booked a table here for dinner after the show. We went to a Swiss restaurant called Chesa, a classy yet comfortable place to eat, low light and not too much noise. The food was great but like all expensive places, the portions wasn’t very large. We had a nice meal and headed back home. I couldn’t take no photos of the food as it would have been rude and a little strange.

Despite a frantic start to the day, a had a great evening. The show was amazing, like nothing I had ever seen before, much better than the Kung-Fu show, it was nice of Antonia’s father to offer and sort out all the tickets for us, otherwise I wouldn’t have had the experience. The meal after was very good, it was nice to speak more with Antonia’s parents, I feel a bit less hated by the father now as we spoke for most of the meal.

Oh and an important lesson, Always pack a black belt!

Did you post the wrong photo of what you got for Pudding? All I'm seeing is that Lemon/Lime Ice Cream photo again....

Zenigame wrote:Did you post the wrong photo of what you got for Pudding? All I'm seeing is that Lemon/Lime Ice Cream photo again....

Yeah I did :fp:

Doing about 5 updates now so i'm a bit careless with the links in the posts. Thanks for pointing that out.

Alpha eX wrote:Thanks for pointing that out.

It was for my benefit really. I really wanted to see Pudding.

Awww, look at him. :wub:

Peking Garden
05-07-09

Antonia’s watch broke, for someone who is bad at keeping time, this is a bad thing. Antonia’s father took us to Pacific Place today to get Antonia a new watch .

We looked around Pacific Place for a little while but none of the shops here had any nice watches so we crossed the bridge into another shopping mall, Queensway Plaza. It seems a bit smaller than the Pacific Place because it’s mostly corridors rather than a big open, spacious shopping mall.

We eventually made our way into a small watch store filled with watches, as you’d expect. We was in the store for quite a while before Antonia chose one, as the salesman was packaging it, Antonia’s mother looked at more watched and pointed another out to Antonia, she wanted this one instead. The salesman looked annoyed, took the one he was packaging back and got out the new one for her to try. Half an hour later we left the store with the new watch.

We made our way down to the food court back in Pacific Place. There aren’t too many restaurants here, just a few. We went to the Peking Garden, a Chinese restaurant that apparently servers very good Peking Duck.

And that it did, the duck was delicious. Antonia’s father ordered us a set meal which was served small dishes with the duck as the main dish.

First was a small dish of bean curd, not too bad. This was followed by quite possibly the best Prawn I’d ever eaten, it seemed to have been enlarged in some sort of growth ray out of an old b-movie, covered in a sweet spicy sauce, it was damn good and that’s coming a guy who doesn’t like seafood.

Up next was what initially looked like Shark Fin Soup, which I didn’t want to eat again. I left it aside until Antonia told me what it was, Bird’s Nest Soup. I thought this was quite cruel, to steal a birds nest, possibly throw the baby birds to the deep fat fryer then make a soup of the remains, what must the mother bird think when her nest and babies have all gone to the kitchen? I tried it but it wasn’t good at all.

Next up was the duck which usually I don’t like so much but here it was really good, the Daffy of Ducks. Usually, Duck meat is shredded into slices and put into a little pancakes with Hoisin Sauce.

This time we had the pancakes but we were also given the duck legs so we could eat the meat from the bone, this tasted a million times better than the shredded duck pancakes which I think taste a little dry. It was so good I was half tempted to order another duck just for it’s legs.

Sadly, we weren’t given more duck after the duck but instead we got ham. This ham wasn’t like the stuff you get in packets, it was tough and tasted very salty. I didn’t like this ham that much so tried the mushrooms which were quite gooey, I didn’t eat much of this.

After the ham was dumplings which had meat and some sort of soup inside. These were great but I think they would have tasted better if I knew how to eat them, when I bit them the soup gushed out back into the bowl so I had to eat it afterwards. Kind of feel like I wasted the flavour but was still good.

And after every good Chinese meal is the watermelon. We got more melon and even a few strawberries this time but I just stuck to the watermelon as it was lovely.

Quite pricey but a damn good meal. The duck was amazing, i’d never eaten it from the leg before so was surprised how much better it tasted. I have a new love for ducks now and can’t wait to eat it again. It’s a shame the little ducky pancakes are so dry, I think it’s the pancake you wrap it in that robs it off the flavour.

We got back home quite early but everyone was tired, including Pudding, who looked like he was either passed out or had been thrown forcefully onto the kitchen floor. Pudding soon woke up when he realised he could get lots of attention and some play time from us. He didn’t last too long until he stumbled under the table and fell asleep.

Alpha wrote:Up next was what initially looked like Shark Fin Soup, which I didn’t want to eat again. I left it aside until Antonia told me what it was, Bird’s Nest Soup. I thought this was quite cruel, to steal a birds nest, possibly throw the baby birds to the deep fat fryer then make a soup of the remains, what must the mother bird think when her nest and babies have all gone to the kitchen? I tried it but it wasn’t good at all.

You're kidding, right?

Winnie and the Pooh
06-07-09

Most of today was spent in the company of a young, attractive nurse, in uniform. Antonia’s father is a doctor who runs his own clinic, he asked one of his assistants to help Antonia with her errands today as she had to sort her Hong Kong ID out as it expired, causing problems in China.

We had to get up at a time I forgot existed, 7am. We caught a ride to the clinic with Antonia’s father as he left for work at 8.30am, awful. We wasn’t at the clinic for too long before the assistant joined us. We left the clinic and headed for The ... ‘some sort of official bloody government building, in central’ as Antonia has just named it. It was very busy and not a nice place to queue up in. Antonia got her photos done while the assistant waited in line with the application. Sadly, the line was so big we had to come back later in the day as it was too busy.

Sneaky picture of the Assistant

We headed back to the clinic and dropped off the assistant and had a walk around the area. We was hungry so browsed the cake shops. We eventually made our way to Maxim’s, a famous cake company here in Hong Kong. It does a lot of local foods and cakes for festivals which it became famous for. Looking around the shop I noticed the cutest bread I had ever seen.

More Pictures

In the end I settled for a bun that looked like a caterpillar because of the shape and cute face. I’m aware that caterpillars don’t have cute faces. We continued to walk where I picked up two jars of Maraschino Cherries, the very same kind that I fell in love with in Beijing. I also got two Ice Cream Sundaes from the K-Mart for $11, bargain. Antonia wanted food where as I was happy with my snacks so we went to Fairwood, a Chinese Fast Food restaurant for a snack.

I wasn’t eating anything in here but Antonia got some sort of duck dish. As she was paying there was a loud crash next to her, some idiot had dropped his tray of food on the floor, contents going everywhere, including on Antonia. The poor guy looked so embarrassed he just ran, almost as if he was caught trying to steal the food, maybe he was?

After snacking we headed to Central to meet one of Antonia’s old work mates, Winnie (not the Pooh) We waited for a while at the fountain for her, while waiting, Antonia described her as tall and looked older than she was. I spent the next 10 minutes pointing out tall old grannies until she finally arrived, not looking as old as I thought but looked quite a bit past her age. Winnie was on her lunch break so we went off for lunch. We tried one restaurant but it was so busy that all 3 floors were full, we decided to go somewhere else. In a dirty back alley, Winnie led us into a small Chinese Restaurant.

There wasn’t much choice, there wasn’t even a menu, just a poster with 4 dishes for the day on it. I chose what looked edible, some pork dish. It wasn’t long till the food arrived, I assumed they had just taken it out of warm water, put it in a bowl and served it. It really didn’t look good.

Trying to describe the taste is what I imagine trying to describe what eating the contents of a skip out back of a restaurant would be like. The food was so bad I couldn’t eat more than a few peices. I ordered pork which was pretty much just pork bone. It didn’t taste like it was cooked, just left in a puddle out back. It tasted dirty and washing it down with the tea was like drinking the dish water at the end of the day.

Winnie seemed to enjoy her fried fish bits, I say bits because when I tried it, it didn’t taste like fish. It tasted more like styrofoam with a damp crispy coating. I usually enjoy deep fried food, even fish and tentacles which I don’t like, it’s usually the crispy coating that makes it edible but I drew the line here.

I tried to finish the rice but I couldn’t force myself past the taste. It was obviously unwashed and cooked in quite possibly the unwashed, first rice cooker in Hong Kong. Despite the awful food, I had a nice time hanging out with Winnie. She’s really friendly and easy to talk too, she invited me and Antonia out again for drinks with her boyfriend which should be better unless she’s taking us to drink out of a back alley tap.

Before we headed back to the clinic to pick up the assistant and head back to the government building, I stopped off at Beard Papa’s to get a crispy cream puff treat. They have these in the UK but very limited in the flavours and variety, here, they have so many and today I tried Mint Choc Chip which more than made up for the foul food at lunch.

The rest of the day isn’t very interesting from a reading point of view. We headed back to the government building to sort out the application for Antonia’s new Hong Kong ID and then went back to the office to pick up Antonia’s father before heading home for dinner.

I look forward to meeting Winnie again, hopefully I won’t always associate her with awful food. I’m surprised she enjoyed the food so much but I think it’s just because i’m not used to the really local restaurants. With Antonia’s new Hong Kong ID on the way, we can start looking into our next mini adventure...

Not good food this time then.

Most of today was spent in the company of a young, attractive nurse, in uniform.

Sneaky picture of the Assistant

You've just lost a fan of this topic.

Zenigame wrote::lol: Not good food this time then.

Most of today was spent in the company of a young, attractive nurse, in uniform.

Sneaky picture of the Assistant

You've just lost a fan of this topic.

Somewhat redeemed.

:wub:

Another Adventure
07-07-09

Had to be up early today because Antonia had an appointment. I skipped breakfast so I could get more time resting in bed, I was really tired as I didn’t get hardly any sleep last night so needed to rest in order to wake up.

We arrived in Causeway Bay, Antonia went off for her appointment and I went off in search of Breakfast/Lunch. Just around the corner from where Antonia needed to be was a Yoshinoya, a Japanese Fast Food chain.

Yoshinoya is famous for serving awesome in a bowl. Awesome being the thinly sliced, juicy beef on top of rice with onions and in a tasty sauce. It later expanded to offer more dishes but the Beef Bowl remains my favourite.

There is even a diagram to help me explain how good the food is. I remember when LewisD first recommended this to me in Japan, I was in no hurry to try it as it didn’t sound that good but it really is.

After filling up on Yoshinoya I caught back up with Antonia and her mother. Yesterday Antonia had put in her application for her Hong Kong ID which she needs to travel around China, it’s like a visa. So with that in the works and ready in a day or two, we were off to the travel agencies to book our next mini adventure.

We asked Antonia’s mother to come along because she is not only good at bargaining but also knows a good deal when we see one. It didn’t take long for Antonia’s mother to find us a great deal for our next adventure, we’re off to Shanghai.

Using the same travel company, Hong Thai. We booked another package deal for 5 days but this time around Shanghai and the surrounding areas. Unlike last time, we will be hotel hopping but thankfully they are all 5 star. I’m not sure what to expect of this trip as I know nothing about the places we’re going to visit so i’m very excited as it will be a true adventure of the unknown.

With the trip sorted it was time to go get some more money by cashing in my travellers cheques. If you read my last blog, you’ll know I got screwed over by a terribly low rate on the cheques. We went into central to change these at the HSBC but the rate was very low, tried the next bank, even lower. It was getting annoying travelling around looking for a good rate and not finding one. I decided to wait till tomorrow and see if the rate was better.

It was dinner time so we headed into Landmark building to the foodcourt at the top. Apparently when Antonia was working here at a nearby law firm she used to go here all the time and said the food was good, so we off went.

The food court was not so big but had many types of food. The ice cream stall caught my eye but we went here for dinner first, desert later. So I decided to get something from the Chinese BBQ section. With Lemon Chicken on offer, I wasn’t even going to bother looking what else there was, ordered that in an instant.

Antonia settled with a mix of Honey Roasted Duck (which was awful) and Oiled Chicken, very soft and not as bad as it sounds.

We sat at a table right next to the desert stand, this was no accident. As we finished dinner I simply had to turn in my seat to order our ice cream. The ice cream stand had many flavours and a promotional offer, 3 scoops for $38, not bad, about £3.

We decided on three flavours, of course, Lemon Sorbet but we also got Sweet Strawberry and Honey Bee as Antonia declined my suggestion of Lemon Sorbet, Lemon Sorbet and Lemon Sorbet.

A short day but a lot was done, we had booked our next adventure leaving in just a few days! I’m very excited about Shanghai. I still have to sort out my money, hoping for a better exchange rate tomorrow...

You really are all about the lemon parties, eh?

Thanks for all these fantastic updates. Pudding is a legend as always. But I have to say the amount of sugar you must eat daily is quite scary. Even if you are slim, you got to watch yourself mate, you don't want diabetes.

Probably why you're not getting enough sleep at nights. Too much sugar keeping you awake. Or you're too busy sneaking off to a certain someone's room*, eh?

*Pudding's room, of course.

Desert and Durian
09-07-09

Today we was up early to meet Tina for desert. We agreed to meet in Causeway Bay, what is now my favourite place in Hong Kong. We decided to go get desert at the World Trade Centre shopping mall, where the Namco Arcade is.

On the way to the desert place, we noticed an ice cream shop. It looked good so we decided to go get some ice cream before desert. I say we but it was really me who instigated it.

Me and Antonia shared a double scoop of Mint Choc Chip and Yakkult flavour ice cream. Why no Lemon? Because there was none, madness! They did have a lime which they had to get me a sample of from out back, I assume it was from a spill on the floor because it tasted nothing like Lime or any ice cream, just frozen garbage. Tina went for Green Tea and Yakkult as a double.

The Mint Choc Chip was lovely but the Yakkult made me want to vomit. In fact, the Yakkult tasted like warm vomit, very tangy. Tina seemed to like it, but then again, she was also happily eating Green Tea flavour ice cream which is awful by default.

After the ice cream, we went for desert. The ice cream was just an appetizer... Tina took us to a place called Honeymoon Desert which sells Chinese Deserts. The place wasn’t too busy.

I wasn’t sure what to try but Tina and Antonia had already made up their mind. They ordered me Durian pancakes. If you haven’t heard of Durian, it’s basically the smelliest fruit in the world, it smells awful, so bad most hotels ban it. So they pancakes arrived, they was green and looked very good, I took a bite and nearly threw up.

The smell is VERY strong, it just hits you, like landing head first in a trash can. The taste was just as bad as the smell, every bite released more of the smell. It was foul, i’d never try it again. I’m told you either love it or hate it, I hated it but at least I gave it a try.

After the desert place Tina had to leave to go meet Johnny so me and Antonia went off shopping. The other day we saw an advert for a 50% sale at the Converse Outlet store, which we didn’t know where it was. We went back to look at the advert and saw it was in the LCX Centre in Causeway Bay.

Nearly an hour of searching, we finally found it. As we got to the Converse Outlet store, we were disappointed by the lack of cool Converse. Just across the way, I saw something awesome which made me wander at a fast pace towards it.

It was a giant Loco Roco just outside a Playstation Playzone which was very empty, so empty I thought it was closed. It wasn’t, it just had PS3 games to play, obviously no one was interested but still a cool place. As I wandered through I found the coolest shop in Hong Kong.

Xplus is the type of store I love. Full of fun and interesting gadgets and toys that aren’t limited to drooling toddlers, quirky things that you’re likely to find around a designers desk. The store is made up of stands each for a different brand, so it’s like a shop full of mini shops. I spent a good half an hour in here and think it’s one of the best shops I’ve come across in Hong Kong to date.

Photos of Xplus

On the way out from Xplus and LCX we stopped off at a small Japanese Restaurant for dinner. I had pork cutlet curry and Antonia had something with Eel in it, automatically uninteresting and disgusting.

Today was fun, lots of desert and found what is now my favourite shop in Hong Kong. If you’re ever here, make sure you track down the LCX and go check out Xplus.

It’s 3 days later and I still have the taste of Durian in my mouth.

Off to Shanghai

In a bit of a rush now but it's 4:55 in the morning, we're up very early for once but only because we hardly slept. Just a quick update to announce we're now off to Shanghai and won't be posting for 5 days unless I can grab a connection at one of the hotels we're staying in.

We're off to the airport soon, finished packing and just need to put the laptop and charger in my rucksack.

I'm really excited, can't wait to get to Shanghai, one of the first things we'll do there is travel on the fastest train in the world!

Time to go, hope you've enjoyed the last 6 updates I did last night, wanted to be upto date before I left.

Cya!

Alpha do you have a pic of what was inside those two weird pancake things or were you to busy yacking?

EDIT: Also if you find them try some of these Lotte stick things I have been reviewing on my site recently! I had the coffee eclair ones today .. pretty good

I always get hungry reading this topic. Not so much when you were talking about the garbage pancakes though.

Enjoy yourself in Shanghai and make sure you get loads of photos, as ever.

Alpha's Summer Adventure

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