Walk It!

My last day here in the shopping haven that is Hong Kong. I am so glad to be going home – I missed my hubby beyond words. My feet are ecstatic. They missed Mr. Foot Spa at home.

Before we left for the airport, we attended mass (in Chinese) somewhere in the island. And what do you know. WE WALKED again. For hundreds of kilometers from the hotel to the church and back. People here are always walking!! And it was then that I have affirmed to myself that I cannot live here.

HK should modify its tourism slogan to Live it! Love It! But be prepared to Walk It!

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

I went up two mountains today! One via a (purple) cable car (no, I didn’t chose the specific car, although I was of course, hoping for one. It was destiny!) in Ocean Park and the other one via an old-fashioned tram going to Victoria’s Peak.

The cable car ride was tolerably scary, but simply breathtaking. I can hear the screeching of the cables as we ascend, cross and descend the mountain. And during the ride, my friend (who had tried this same cable car ride before) told me that there was a time that the ride experienced technical problems and they were suspended at the side of the mountain for at least 20 minutes. She could have told me that AFTER the ride!!! But I guess, it made the ride more exciting. Gladly, we reached the other end of the station without any glitches. Whew! During the entire ride, I just concentrated on appreciating the picturesque view of the ocean and the mountain. Wait, did we properly close the door of the car? There are no seat belts in here!

I did climb a mountain on foot before (Mt. Makulot in Batangas). It was also breathtaking – halfway during the climb, I can’t breathe anymore. Mountaineering moron that I am, I brought two liters of water in my backpack. I want to go back already and just wait for my group at the bottom. Gladly, I did not. No matter how physically hard it is, I finished the climb. The view at the top was worth all the pain and fear.

The tram ride, on the other hand was just ok. It was just like the slow ascent during a Log Jam/Raging River ride without the sudden drop to the water at the end. Riding a bus in EDSA is more bloodcurdling.

I guess that is always how it is for any fearful and difficult experience. During that critical moment, you are ready to give up and will give anything to just go back to your safety mode. But once you have conquered the fear and extended your threshold for pain, you come out satisfied that you completed the task and extra proud that you did it.

Well, I am talking about mountain rides/climb here. As for those other monstrous ride (e.g. Abyss Turbo Drop, Space Shuttle) in Ocean Park, well, you can’t make me place my butt there even if you offer to pay me a million bucks. Ok fine, you can call me chicken!

Shop Till You Slump

Today is shopping day, Amazing Race style!

DETOUR! Detour is choosing between two tasks which you need to perform to get to the next clue, each with it's own pros and cons. Normally, the first one is physically harder, but will get you to the next clue faster. The other one is less demanding physically, but will take longer time to finish. Well, in this special HK leg, there is a new twist. The difficulty was not imposed on our bodies but rather on our pockets. Tsim Sha Tsui vs. Mongkok.

In Tsim Sha Tsui, we can opt to do our shopping along Canton Road and Parklane Avenue which is just a stone throw away from our hotel. But this choice will empty our wallets and max our credit cards in just 3 hours. In Mongkok, we need to take the subway and alight on the third station from Tsim Sha Tsui. Although this is farther from the hotel (meaning we can’t go back to our room easily to load off our shopping bags and go back to more convenient and less-tiring shopping), Mongkok offers good bargains via its Ladies Market. And most importantly, IKEA (per my pre-trip research) is in Mongkok. Because of the latter, I persuaded my shopping buddy Mac to choose Mongkok!

So just guided with a map of HK, with our well-planned shopping get-up and limited pocket money, we took the MTR to Mongkok. Compared to our MRT, HK’s MTR (Metro Train Railway?) is so sophisticated. Although looking for the correct entrance/exist is confusing at first with the labyrinth of hallways, escalators and signs, their transit system is so high-tech riding the train is so exciting and pleasant. Tsim Sha Tsui Station. Jordan Station. Yau Maa Tei Station. And finally Mongkok Station. As we alight, I noticed some people crossing to the other side for a differently colored train (which I learned later is the Kwung Tong Line). So that is the interchange. Cool!

First stop. IKEA. It was what I imagined and envisioned it to be. Actually, more! Truly any homemaker’s heaven. They even have showrooms of various designs of rooms in a house. I only have one word for the experience. Breathtaking! I can stay in this store the whole day and never get bored nor tired. Unfortunately, because of shipping concerns, I can only look, drool, feel, admire (and take a picture sitting on it), drool again and sigh over my dream PURPLE sofa. Why don’t we have an IKEA here in the Philippines?!?! After the whole morning going from one section to another, and almost spending half of my shopping money, and after completing our shopping experience in this famous Swedish store by dropping for a quick late lunch in the Ikea Café, we bid farewell to my now favorite store in the whole wide world. Sigh! As I leave Ikea’s door, I promised myself I will be back again soon. Preferably in another country/branch.

Now the challenge of this Detour begins. Loaded with our many and heavy IKEA shopping bags (take note! we bought all sort of home stuff from delicate light bulbs, extendable bathroom mirror to plastic bag containers), we proceed to our next stop, the infamous Ladies Market. After making several stops in street corners to consult our map and asking several not-very-so-helpful and irritable locals, we found Ladies Market (I realized me and my friend will be great AR teammates, we are good at this! We didn’t get lost at all! And we didn’t fight with each other). I initially thought LM would be like MBK of Bangkok which is housed in an air-conditioned building. I was wrong, it was indeed a market, numerous stores/stalls lined up in the streets of Mongkok, under the blazing sun and within the humid environment. Just like our very own Baclaran. More so, haggling with the Chinese is harder than with the Thais or the Filipinos. The latter are more friendly and pleasant. But hah! They will not get the best of me, the master negotiator! I got all my bags, shoes and shirt purchases for HALF of the initial offered price. Beat that!

Thus, as we go along the streets of the Ladies Market -Nelson St., Shantung St., Soy Street., Dundas St., Hamilton St., Pitt St., the shopping bags in our arms accumulate. And when we finally decided to stop our challenge and call it a day, we realized we are already in the next train station in Yau Maa Tei. We have walked that far!!!

My arms now ached from the load. And my feet…my feet! They hate me now. Thank God for escalators in the subway.

We have deposited our shopping bags in the hotel and had dinner already. Hey! There is still extra time left, it is not yet midnight! And I don’t want to go to bed yet! Thus, we end up doing the Parklane Avenue Detour as well. We just can’t get enough.

As I am preparing for bed tonight, I am officially wishing for feet replacement. I wish I can just take them off temporarily like shoes. Huhuhu….

Live It! Love It!

It is my first time here in Hong Kong. The skyscrapers were remarkably awesome!!! (now I can just imagine my awe when I see NY skyscrapers in the future!). Makati seems to bow in comparison. Everything seems so advanced and well planned too. To begin with, the airport in Lantau Island is truly world-class in terms of infrastructure and system. Then, there are those colorful two level buses and their strict schedules in each station. Everything here is ON-TIME. The escalators and tranporters have a recording that tells you to ‘alight carefully’. The traffic lights are even blind-friendly. They make this irritating (after four-days of hearing it day in, day out) sound to indicate a WALK and a STOP. And the shops! Yes the shops! They are everywhere. And better yet, they all have this great and welcoming sign all over – BIG SALE!!!

I’m beginning to love HK.