Rediscovering Hong Kong with visiting friends and family (Part I)

This is not something I would usually blog about, friends and family visiting me in Hong Kong, I mean I was their tour guide and shouldn't be blogging about their experience, but because of all these different groups of people's timely arrival (all of them chose the month of May and within one or two weeks of each other), I actually gained a lot from showing them around my city.

left to right: My cousin, Siming, visiting from San Francisco; Timmy, my cousin who lives in HK, us three making ugly faces on the glass table, LOL!

If you heard from me when I first moved back to Hong Kong, you may know that I went through a little homesickness for my life back in Toronto. I missed the calmness (in comparison to Hong Kong's constant fast-pace life) and the simplicity of just living each day as it came. Not only was Hong Kong too crowded and hot, but there was the fact that my mom was just a little too pushy about me finding my next job! In fact, as my mom proved yet again, Mothers DO know best, I got a job and that helped me to adjust to living in Hong Kong a little faster (at least that's what I think now anyways). So, yes, I was getting used to waking up and going to work everyday and routine things like that, but I was still a little hesitant to venture out into the downtown areas on the weekend and push through crowds.

Hong Kong's most famous post-card snapshot, from my mobile phone.

But with the imminent arrival of friends and family who are either first-timers in HK or haven't been back in like 10 years, I had to quickly figure out where I was going to bring them to shop, eat and sight-see. To be truthful, I wasn't really sure where to take my cousin, Phebe - visiting from Vancouver, (who was first to arrive), I didn't know what she wanted to see, or what she had seen before.... also I had to work during the day and could only spend the later afternoon and night with her. Which seemed to suit her fine as she sleeps in everyday! hehehehe... However, as usual, my worries were not needed, she was leaving for a trip to Japan a few days after arriving in Hong Kong, so what she wanted most was to get a camera. I ended up going with her to Mongkok where there are shops that sell the latest and professional camera equipments. After walking around and two days of consideration, she got the Nikon D3000, and just to show you what a simple SLR like that can do, I'll post some of her photos throughout this post.

She got a Nikon D3000, with a 18-55mm, a wide-angle (fisheye) lens, camera bag, extra battery, memory card all for about HKD $4,000. It's a good price, especially as she was able to take some lovely photos!

Here are some of my favourite photos, wish I was there!

Sendai, Japan

far left: look at the funny old man roasting/grilling fish... lol

middle photo: one of my favourite photos from this trip, this is the hole that you throw incense into, it's a huge container to burn incense in.

far left and middle: such pretty water!

She caught the last of the cherry blossoms... lucky girl!

They went on a boat trip to feed seagulls shrimp chips... the seagulls were crazy, there were swarms of them, and you hold out the shrimp chip and they will swoop down and carry the chip away.

After they returned from Japan, I wanted to take her to Macau, as she has never visited there before. To me, Macau doesn't offer much as I've been there more than once, and once is usually enough. It's really small, smaller than Hong Kong, and you can pretty hit all the "must-sees" in a single day. The weather was really beautiful, as you'll see from the photos we took, and we had some amazing food - Portuguese Egg tarts!!!!

My mom was holding my grandma's hand throughout the trip, so cute!

Later on in the day, after looking at a few casinos and seeing St. Paul's Ruin and buying some Beef and Pork Jerky for souvenir, I took her and her mom to the place where they filmed some Korean Dramas, and we ended up taking lots of photos of us playing with bubbles.

above: Tour guide took this for us.

left: Portuguese egg tarts from a food souvenir store that's quite famous in Macau and with Tourists, but we went to one later on that was even better! right: my cute grandma looking very suspicious while she eats her egg tart! hehehe... like someone is going come running into the frame and steal it from her...

And then while were eating our buffet lunch, not that great - but we got full, anyways the funniest thing was that we saw this group of 16 or so guys sitting a table and they were ALL DRESSED THE SAME! They had on baseball caps at exactly the same angle and t-shirts and jeans, it was soooo weird! It didn't really look like a uniform, unless they were in a break-dancing group of something, but then again, aren't you supposed to have your personality in those kinds of dances.... ?


Then we went to Coloane island, and that's where they filmed a couple of scenes for the Korean Drama Goong. (If you can find the video, watch the last 15 minutes or so of episode 24)

far left: a stranger just came over to our table, we think he's portuguese, and then he picked up my cousin's camera and took a photo for us. The thing is that it took him a while to focus and take a photo of us, so we were quite confuse, and plus he didn't explain himself... lol...


We saw these little girls blowing bubbles and we were tempted to buy a bottle and return to our childhood.



above 2 photos by my Yiyi (my mom's younger sister)





above: photos taken by Phebe Ho

We spent about 1-2 hours just blowing bubbles, my poor aunt must have been bored out of her mind, plus it was super hot that day!

Later on we went to dinner at a restaurant recommended by my friend's, Teresa, sister. Actually after we left Macau I re-watched Goong and realized that the chef was in the drama too!!! His name's Antonio, and he was super nice. He came out to pick us up and showed us the way to his restaurant, which is quite hidden. He then recommended some dishes for us to try.

Antonio, the owner and chef of the restaurant, was super nice to us, not only did he personally cook for us, but I think because of a misunderstanding, he thought that we were regulars at his old restaurant. Hahaha, it's kind of funny how he assumed we had been to his restaurant before (I think it's the one that is in the drama Goong, he's moved to a new location now). He got in really close for some photos with us.... don't know if you can tell from the photos but I was a little surprised! hahaha

Then, he made crepes for us! A live show! lol....
His restaurant is small and cozy, although with the huge flame, I was worried that the smoke detector might go off... :)

Some random shots from our trip to Macau...

Left: At the Macau Tower, we didn't go up, but we took photos at the bottom. I was actually lying down on the boardwalk to get shots... lol... my cousin has a photo of me on her iphone, but it's not pretty....hahahaha...

In the middle of talking....

Like this photo of me and Yiyi! :)