Birthday Holiday Hongkong Getaway

Leaving Manila

Tune Hotel

Chillin' after a 7 hour tip at Holiday Inn Manila Galleria

Silka Fareast Hotel Tsuen Wan, HK

Our room

At the Avenue of Stars

I've been working so hard and I deserve a break so I decided to take time off from work for 2 weeks for my birthday. My twin sister and I usually plan our travel at least 2-3 months in advance. While I decide on what country to visit and most of the research about the area as well as local hotel reservations, she takes care booking our flights and coordinating with the travel agency that will take us to where we are going. We were in Siem Reap, Cambodia last year but it was only for 2D2N and we didn't go through any travel agency because the hotel we stayed at offer tour packages to Angkor Wat and it's cheaper to arrange it there plus we'll be more comfortable not joining a group. This year, we decided to go to Hongkong and have it arranged with a travel agency for a 4D3N Free and Easy package. Despite our schedule difference I'm glad that we made it work, thank God our vacation leaves filed 1 year ahead got approved. We left Baguio at 7AM via Victory bus and it was a 7 hour trip to Manila. We checked in at the

Etude House, Mongkok

Sampan boat ride at the Aberdeen Fishing Village

Holiday Inn Manila Galleria in Ortigas overnight and took advantage of our employee benefit. Our elder sister and niece slept over then we head to Tune Hotel in Aseana, Paranaque the next day because it is closer to the airport (NAIA T3), our flight to Hongkong is at 7:25AM via Cebu Pacific. The weather was very cooperative and perfect for me to take aerial shots since I am seated beside the window...just right by the fire exit! Yes, my sister told me that she didn't know, geez. Although I was a little uncomfortable seated by the fire exit at first because the cabin crew will sit in front of you during take off and landing, I also realized that it's not so bad after all, I have a lot of space so I was able to stretch my legs. It was an easy, breezy 2 hour trip. When we 

The Big Buddha, Ngong Ping, Lantau Island

landed at the HK airport and as soon as we got passed immigration we purchased 2 Octopus MTR cards and a local sim card so we can get in touch with our travel agent that will take us to our hotel and get some rest. We were supposed to withdraw funds from NAIA but the Immigration Officer didn't allow me to go out anymore since we already have our boarding passes so we thought we'll just do that at the HK airport. Anyhow, it took us roughly 45 minutes to get to our hotel in Tsuen Wan aboard a mini van together with other Pinoys and our Chinese driver. We stayed at a 3 star hotel called Silka Far East which is quite nice. As soon the front desk staff swiped my credit card for incidental fees and gave us our breakfast vouchers we settled in our teeny tiny room and we can't be 'choosy' because we know what to expect since we've checked this hotel's website already and learned from reviews that most HK hotels aren't spacious anyway. We scoured the area after resting for a few hours but we're unable to withdraw funds from the nearby ATM machine we called BPI and have our ATM cards activated for international withdrawal unfortunately, we are still unable to withdraw and we got stuck with whatever HK bucks that we have until the next day. We woke up early to grab breakfast at the hotel before our tour. We waited for our bus and tour guide at the hotel's lobby. Day 1 is the start of our half day city tour. A tour bus with an English speaking Chinese tour guide drove us to our first destination which is the Avenue of the Stars where we took pictures for about 15 minutes. Thank God for our monopod we were able to take a lot of pictures together using my phone and we took turns in taking a few individual shots using our digital camera. I didn't bring my DSLR with me anymore since we can't use it for our monopod anyway and it's quite heavy. Next stop is the YSL 

Ladies Market in Mongkok

jewelry factory which I didn't enjoy at all because I'm not a jewelry fan and everything there was really expensive. The next attraction was just as boring, The Victoria Peak mid-level. We saw the Victoria Peach at a very far view you have to zoom in your camera lens or phone in order to appreciate it. I was getting bored of this whole tour already hadn't because of the Sampan boat ride at the Aberdeen Fishing Village. Honestly, I was quite hesitant at first to ride a boat but surprisingly I find it refreshing. Our half day city tour ended almost lunch time, our bus dropped us close to the Mongkok area so other guests can continue on with their Disney tour or whatever and we are starving we decided to have lunch and finally able to withdraw funds from a Standard Chartered ATM machine, yay! We realized that it was just that ATM machine close to our hotel that doesn't work with our bank (problem solved!). Our luck continues when I saw an Etude House in the area where I bought a black liquid eyeliner which is currently sold out in the Philippines and nobody can tell when it will be back in store again. Twinnie and I still have time to explore HK so as planned we went to visit the Tian Tian Buddha (Big Biddha) in Ngong Ping, Lantau Island. It was a long climb of 286 steps to get to the hugest buddha I've ever seen but it was well worth taking pictures when you get to the top where it sits comfortably overlooking the island. We had snacks and rested for a while then after dawn we went back to Mongkok to one of the shopping havens in HK at the Ladies Market for souvenir shopping. Back at the hotel we were so tired but we slept late. It's our birthday the next day and we travelled 30 minutes to Causeway Bay from Tsuen Wan just to see the Hello kitty Le Petit Cafe where we bought our birthday cupcakes. We originally wanted to go to the other Hello Kitty Cafe called Secret Garden but it is closed on Mondays and we're leaving HK the next day (sigh). Nothing much to do on our last stroll in HK we just had our last minute 'pasalubong' shopping. We woke up early on our last day because breakfast starts at 6:30AM and we don't want to miss it before our flight. The shuttle bus is supposed to pick us up at the hotel at 8AM because our flight is at 10:45AM but came late at almost 8:20AM we have  no choce but to hurry and look for the check in counter immediately at the airport as soon as we get there. We still have time after we checked in our luggages we had our MTR card balance refunded or our almost 100 HKD will be put to waste. We almost missed our flight back home and we're so not used to getting to the airport in less than 2 hours we came running to get to our boarding gate when we saw the LED light flashing 'Last Call' gosh! We landed safely in NAIA then checked in at Tune Hotel again so we can at least get an overnight rest before another 7 hour trip back home. Our HK getaway was worth it but of course there are still things that didn't go well as planned but that's part of the whole travel thing, you learn everytime. I might go back to HK but will possibly spend more on hotel accomodation somewhere close to the city and less on MTR fare. So where to next? Think tank.