[TRAVEL] Hong Kong Trip Day 1 - Arrival + Avenue Of Comic Stars + Avenue of Stars

 I've caught on the travel bug. Even in Singapore, I had not stopped exploring. When the pandemic eased and more borders starts opening up in January this year, my dear friend, Jessie shared with me that she and Kelvin will be planning a trip to Hong Kong during the Labour Day long weekend and they welcome me to join them on this trip. Without much hesitation, I agreed. To be honest, I haven't been on a holiday trip for the longest time and Hong Kong is a Country I've never been before. While I didn't know how to speak Cantonese, it seems fairly easy enough to bring my girl along so I was pretty happy with this travelling arrangement. Initially it was just the four of us but another 2 of Kelvin's friends joined us so it's a big group of 6 travelling together! 

Pre-departure photo taken inside Changi Airport T4

We are stepping on transparent panels that have fishes swimming below

It's my girl's first time travelling on an airplane

Our inflight breakfast - sandwich bun, muffin, cookie and some fruits

Handy Hong Kong MTR Guide

Onboard Hong Kong Airport Express. My girl is super friendly to everyone and get along well soon. That's her holding Uncle Sean's (in the background) cute hamster 

We took the Cathay Pacific red-eye flight from Changi Airport Terminal 4 which gave us more time to spend in Hong Kong. Slept briefly on the flight and reached Hong Kong International Airport at around 6am+ in the morning. From there, we need to take an Airport Express to the City area. It's a nice and comfortable ride. We also bought our Octopus Card which serves as our transport card for the next few days. 

Breakfast at Tim Ho Wan

After leaving our luggage at the hotel, we went to our first stop at Sham Shui Po to have breakfast at the flagship of Tim Ho Wan. There was already a long queue forming outside when we reached. Luckily, we didn't have to wait too long before we were given a seat at the second storey. I was told that they had renovated the store and previously it was without air con and quite run down but now it was really like a proper restaurant. Loving the dim sum there very much. 

Mandatory tourist shot at Ladies Market

Chilling at McDonald with some fizzy drinks

After the delightful breakfast, we walked over to Mong kok to visit the Ladies Market. It's like our local Pasam Malam and I didn't bought anything there. We wanted to visit some hobby collectibles shops but was surprised to leant that these shops only opened like 2pm or 3pm in the afternoon. So we went to McDonald to chill and played some Pokemon-go, I finally caught the Mega Slowbro. During this resting time at McDonald, I had a very pain stomachache so I went down to ask if there's any toilet located inside the McDonald but there wasn't any. So I recall there's one at the place where we went to see those collectibles shops and I went there. I had a hard time closing the toilet door and when I realised there's no toilet paper, I wanted to get out. That was the start of a horrific experience as I couldn't open the toilet door at all and I was locked out. In panic mode, I kept shouting for help for about 5 minutes. To make things worse, I didn't brought my handphone along. Luckily, an old lady helped me pushed the door open and I didn't mentioned this experience to anyone else since I managed to get out in the end. Lesson learnt is to bring along my handphone and WIFI everywhere I go. Even in Singapore, you never know when the toilet door could be spoilt. 

Guess this is also considered as one of the free tourist attractions

Photos with some of the painted figurines

Some of the bronze statues. I only recognised Old Master Q aka Lao Fu Zi

Yup, one of the handprints

We stayed in The Mira Hotel for this trip and it is located at Tsim Sha Tsui, one of the major tourist and shopping area in Hong Kong. Before it's time to check-in to our hotel, we went to check out the Hong Kong Avenue of Comic Stars which is just opposite our hotel in Kowloon Park. Do not confused Avenue of Comic Stars with Avenue of Stars as both are totally different attractions. The Avenue of Comic Stars hosted about 30 painted sculptures of some famous local comic characters and bronze handprints of about 10 distinguished local comic artists. I didn't recognised most of the comic characters but still it's a nice outdoor walk. Weather was cooling compared to in Singapore. 

We were low-key excited about the cute display that we took many photos here

As it's still not time to check-in to our hotel yet, we went to The One shopping mall located beside our hotel. Interesting to see that the display was actually for Keung To's birthday that falls on 30th April. Keung To is Hong Kong's heartthrob and singer. To celebrate his birthday, the local fan club even sponsored a day of free tram rides as a birthday gift to the idol. That's pretty meaningful.  

Hotel Check-in

Finally, we checked in to our hotel, bathed and rested until evening time where we gathered again to visit another tourist attractions. Was really tired so not much photos inside the hotel on the first day but I must say, the bed was really comfortable. 

Nice to be here

Glad we managed to find a nice spot for photos despite the crowd

Louise Koo's handprint, at least it's a celebrity I know of

Fun shots with Bruce Lee statue behind

From our hotel, we walked over to the Avenue of Star and watch the night light show. It was super crowded but we had a nice and relaxed walk. It feels somewhat like us walking along esplanade area and we got to see the skyline and Victoria Harbour itself. The night light show known as 'A Symphony of Lights' is a spectacular light and sound show whereby an array of colourful lights that is synchronised with music will be lighted up with the buildings opposite as the backdrop. It was a dazzling light and sound daily show at 8pm and lasted for about 10 minutes. This is a show not to be missed especially if you are a first timer to Hong Kong like me.  

Some dishes for sharing and my main claypot rice

For dinner, we walked to this place called Hing Kee Restaurant at Temple Street. It is famous for their Claypot rice, in fact there's three pages just on claypot rice for diners to choose from. We were lucky again as we didn't have to wait long for a seat. Very nice dinner. Love it. 

Temple Street

Temple street is one of the night markets, we took a leisurely stroll here and bought some little souvenirs back. Check out my next blog post on Hong Kong Trip Day 2 to Hong Kong Disneyland!

XOXO