Showing posts with label kristine's travels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kristine's travels. Show all posts

Saturday, October 17, 2015

Kristine Le Voyageur: Hong Kong 2015: Day 2


Day 2: October 13, 2015


Our second day in Hong Kong started off with a bit of a commotion. You see, when we booked our trip with GJM International they informed us that the package we paid for was inclusive of free breakfasts for two mornings. So naturally, we went to the front desk to ask for our breakfast stubs. But hey ho hey, the front desk officer told us that there isn't any free breakfast included in our package. Believe me, it is quite difficult to argue with someone whose language is different from yours. So we just checked out how much hotel food would cost and after some thinking, decided to go out and just eat breakfast outside.

However, we were on a hurry to eat then because we didn't quite expect that we would have to go out and find food elsewhere. We thought that we will just wake up, shower, dress up, go downstairs and eat breakfast. We weren't quite prepared to go searching for food. That said, we just decided to eat at *drumroll please* McDonald's! As you may have seen in my previous post, McDonald's was almost right in front of our hotel.

It is what you think it is: macaroni soup with sausage (or burger patty for us pinoys) and an egg. 

After breakfast, we went back to the hotel and waited for our tour guide to pick us up for our city tour that morning. At exactly 8:30am, our tour guide arrived and quickly apologized for not having informed us about the free breakfasts we were supposed to have at *drumroll please* McDonald's!!! He gave us our money back and gave our McDonald's vouchers for breakfast the next day. Ergo, the mystery of the missing free breakfasts was solved. 

After that it was a blur of activities. We went around the city on a tour bus while our guide, Frank, told us important stuff about Hong Kong like how different Hong Kong locals are to Chinese people and where to go shopping for the right stuff. 

Frank, our tour guide, and the other passengers from Singapore and Malaysia. 


Our first stop was at the Golden Bauhinia Square



"Say cheese!" This photo was taken by the other tour guide, Mr. SorryIforgothisname. He later on charged us for a print-out of this photo that we didn't ask for! 


Our next stop was at Aberdeen Fishing Village, home to the boat-dwelling Tanka people.


At a jewelry store somewhere in Kowloon (sorry, I didn't listen attentively) where Manny Pacquiao and other Filipino celebrities apparently buy lucky charms and whatnots.

Our tour bus was late for picking us up from the jewelry store so who am I to resist taking an OOTD photo in front of this picturesque wall? 

I could be a "Lonesome Georgina" you know...

In all honesty, I wouldn't recommend GJM International to anyone because I was a bit disappointed about the city tour that we had. However, our Hong Kong trip wasn't really about becoming tourists in Hong Kong. One of our goals was to meet Papa's sibling and his family, and then meet with our Mama too. In some ways, the tour that we had was probably better because they took us to places where we were able to experience authentic Hong Kong life. And maybe that's what that tour was all about...

What is a Hong Kong trip without a visit to Disneyland? 






















For more photos, you can just visit instagram.com/krissstrawberry

There aren't enough words to describe our Disneyland experience. I could say that I felt like a little girl who has found a huge room full of toys and spent her whole day in there, but that won't be enough. I could also say that I felt like a wish has truly been granted by some fairy godmother and that I truly felt like dreams do come true in Disneyland, but that still wouldn't be enough. There simply isn't any word that could describe a Disneyland experience except MAGICAL. Hopefully, I could go back and rekindle that feeling. It won't be the same though. There are things that are truly more special when done for the first time.

Cheers to dreaming and believing and to amazing first times!

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Kristine Le Voyageur: Hong Kong 2015: Day 1

It's 5:37 am and I am typing this post on my iphone so please bear with my typos if there would be any. 

Technically, our first day in Hong Kong was spent in the airport. Our flight was at 6:20pm but we were at the airport early because we didn't want to be stuck in traffic or face any other possible delay and be late for our check in time. We were there for about 5 hours! 

    At Ninoy Aquino International Airport 





            While waiting for boarding! 

We got on the plane at around 5:50pm. We were both terrified at first but as the airplane took flight at around 7:00pm, we were able to relax and take some selfies. 




Here's an important question: Why are plane food so expensive? πŸ˜›

Before our descend, we had the most painful earache (whatchamacallit)! So that's what everyone was talking about! Nevertheless, we arrived in Hong Kong unscathed! πŸ˜›



              Touchdown Hong Kong!! 

We were met by one of the guys from Ann Travels and were escorted to the bus waiting to transfer us to our hotel in Kowloon. My sister and I were the only ones on the bus on a cold night and the driver was listening to a local radio station and we were strangers on a beautiful city who cannot speak the language and it was a bit scary! Haha πŸ˜‚ But hey, the beautiful architecture around was good enough to take our minds off of it. We arrived safely at Casa Hotel at around 9:30pm. 

Our hotel is surrounded by so many shops and it is near the subway! 

          The view from our hotel room

                        But first...πŸ˜‹

After we were settled nicely in our room, we contacted one of our uncles who is a Hong Kong local and we met him and his family for dinner! It was 11:30pm and most of the shops were closed already. We settled for a noodle house in front of our hotel. 



Our Uncle Manuel (our dad's brother) and his family! 


In front of the subway station! πŸš†

(Note: I will update these photos once we got home and transfered the photos to our laptops) 

Of eating authentic Chinese noodles and meeting relatives for the first time 

It was a first time for me to meet relatives from my father's side of the family tree. Meeting our Uncle was both surreal and comforting in some ways. Here's to hoping we could meet more from papa's family in the future! 🍻

In the meantime, my sister and I have to prepare for a big day ahead! We are going on a tour of the city and then to Disneyland (yayyyy!!!) in the afternoon! Can't wait to meet Mickey and Minie and the rest of the gang! ✌🏻️

Hope you're having a nice day wherever you are in the world! 😁 xo