Trip - HK Day 2 - Disneyland (video)

The kiddies were so excited.  They've been waiting for today since I told them we were going to Disneyland in HK.  Everyone ate breakfast super fast and off we went.  There is a special monorail train that takes you there; they have Mickey windows.

Everyone waited patiently outside the gates while Mommy figured out how to claim the Klook tickets which we bought online last minute and saved a ton of $$.  We also bought the meal vouchers and we saved a bit on each meal.  We were able to get the fresh fruit juice with the combo, no extra charge.

Night time came too fast and Disneyland closed at 6pm!!!  Oh well.  We did watch the Lion King show which took a bit of time but it was really good and worth it.

We watched the fireworks at the castle before we left.  Sadly, we thought we'd have time to see everything and take photos but we didn't.  The below pics were the only pics we had of the castle.  

Trip - HK Day 1

This morning, we rushed to get to the Taishan bus terminal.  We had tickets for the 8:45am bus.  The terminal is only 10 minutes away from the hotel so we thought checking out at 8am will work.  But we didn't realize that checking out in China means that the house keepers have to inspect the suites before they give us the go ahead to leave!  So we didn't leave the hotel until 8:30am...and we got to the bus terminal at 8:40am.  We were all so worried...  Jas says bye bye Taishan!

The Wong relatives helped us buy the bus tickets, from Taishan to HK. We had to exit at the China/HK border, cross the border and then get on the next bus.  Unfortunately, it was then that we realized the bus tickets we had only dropped us off at Prince Edward in Kowloon and we needed to go to Wan Chai in HK.  This meant that we had to find our way to Wan Chai with all the kids, inlaws and luggage. 

As soon as we got off the bus at Prince Edward, we purchased a SIM card for HK, called the landlady to figure out the best route to get to the apartment.  She said MTR should be ok since it is not rush hour and we are only a few stations away.  We took the MTR and it took us about an hour to get to the apartment.  (we should have just taken 2 taxis).  The apartment was clean, had 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.  It was small but considering this is HK, it's actually a decent size.  

We had dinner plans with Lai Lai's relatives in Tuen Man so as soon as we got to the apartment, we dropped off our luggage and went out again.  It took us an hour on the MTR to get to Tuen Man.  Dinner took a long time and by the time we took the bus to get home, we were all ready to pass out.  

Trip - Taishan Day 4

We woke up early and after eating breakfast, we walked downstairs for a stroll.  We were on the shopping strip around 10am and we basically had the entire street to ourselves.  Shops were just opening up.  

Because we were there for a few days, we walked further out, into the non-touristy areas and this is how it looked like.  Very dirty and old, different from the tourist strip.

While waiting at one of the shops, we found one of our favorite places to eat...McDonalds!  The ice cream of course.  It was perfect for the tired and grumpy in the super hot weather.  Here's daidai having fun while tired Mama sat on the side.  We are so grateful that Daidai is no longer allergic to dairy.  It made things a lot easier during the trip.  

As this is the last evening at Taishan, we had hot pot dinner with all the relatives again.  Daidai is taking a snooze from the super busy day and only wants dearest Ye Ye to carry him.

Trip - Taishan Day 3 (video)

Today we visited R's great aunt (R's grandmother's sister) in Taishan and then saw Kaiping 開平, a small city next to Taishan, around a 30  minutes drive away.  Before we move on, here's a pic of R's leg from the day trip into the village yesterday.  Holy crackers!  He was eaten alive!

A very peaceful drive to see the great aunt and some distant cousins.  Being a great hostess, the great aunt wanted to cook some congee for us on her stone stove but we convinced her not to.  They still cooked with fire and wood!  Surprisingly, even though they are quite poor, they had funds to buy laptops, ipad and a video game system. 

After the short visit, we went to a nearby shopping district that had street vendors.  We walked around and ate street food including honey candy on a stick, tofu dessert, grass jelly coconut dessert and others.  We were here for about an hour.

After this, we went to a modern shopping center that has all these kid rides on the outside.  We didn't even go inside the mall and just stayed outside where the kids had great fun.  The adults enjoyed some bubble tea and ice cream.

We went for dinner at a place called Duck City?  The place was huge.  It's sort of like a food fair style restaurant where you can order from different restaurants but you pay for everything at the end of the meal.  I don't know why but at every meal, we order like 12 dishes even though we had 5 adults and 4 kids.  I feel so bad as we end up wasting so much food (there's a fridge but no microwave at the hotel).