Hong Kong & Macau Trip (Day 1 at Mongkok)

I'm doing another series of Travel Diary posts in the coming days, and this one will be my week-long trip to Hong Kong and Macau! I went with Panda and my sister. We booked the trip via Cebu Pacific a year ago (!) to take advantage of cheap rates (P4,174 for round trip Manila to Hong Kong and Macau to Manila flights). 

Our flight was scheduled around 7AM so we had to wake up early, leave home around 4AM, and be at the airport before 5AM. PUSH!

 Bye bye, Quezon City. My house is somewhere there!

See the stark contrast between the city and province?
 

Horizontal rain. I'm so amazed! Swa kaw lang. Haha

Hello, Motherland! CHOS.
 

We arrived on time at around 9+ AM, but the check-in time at our Airbnb was at 2PM. No problem, since we had to take a long bus ride from the airport to the city. The last time I've been to Hong Kong was when I was 7 years old, so everything was a blur. It's like experiencing the city for the first time. So exciting! Our experienced friend Tope of #TopeTravelandTours wasn't able to join us, but we were armed with his itinerary. (Thank you!) Sa airport palang, lost na kami. HAHA. We didn't know that we had to take the train inside the airport to get to Immigration and Baggage Reclaim. Okay, I'm so amazed.

After getting our luggage back, we took the Airport Bus A21 going to Bank Centre in Mongkok (HKD 33). We chose the bus, because it's more convenient with all our luggage. However, hindi ka puedeng babagal bagal sa bus, or else you will miss your stop (like we did). One stop lang naman. We just walked to our Airbnb which was directly beside Mongkok MTR Station. (So convenient!) We left our luggage at around 11ish and went to Langham Place, which was a big mall directly beside our Airbnb.

Hello, Monki! My sisters know about this store, but I don't. Hehe. Same owners daw sa H&M. Interesting! Ang mahal nga lang ng LAHAT na clothes na nakita namin sa Hong Kong for the entire trip. Wala masyadong nakasale. Huhu 😢 If you really want to shop for clothes, go to Bangkok instead.

I was able to spot cute accessories though! 😁

Also spotted this nicely embroidered jacket, but mas maganda pa yung nabili ng sister ko from Penshoppe. Blue and pink with sakura flowers! 😍

Time to have lunch! We went to the food court of Langham Place. Not exactly affordable, but we didn't think of going any further because we were running out of energy. 😮

Nice name! 😛

We chose CoCo Ichibanya since we rarely eat in that restaurant way back home. That hamburger steak looks simple, but it's a winner because it has gooey cheese inside!

We spotted Log-On, a store that sells cutesy stuff. To enter the store, you have to go up a rainbow staircase. Weee!

I love you, rainbow stairs!

(This one's my second favorite stairs next to the piano stairs in Mind Museum.)

HAPPY!

Cute game! We have Pie Face at Deantonni Hobby Cafe! 💖
 

The fiercest dog ever, hindi lang halata.
 

Christmassy figurines you have to build on your own. COOL!
 

Langham Place x Lego White Christmas Tree

We went around the mall and they have the longest escalators ever. Walang sinabi yung sa Shangri-La Mall. As in super haba ng ride, and you'd skip multiple floors with some of their escalators. Hindi nakakatuwa kung pagod ka, because this mall as 13 floors.

Disturbing basket of babies 😱

Fluffy cat 😻

Desi & Panda!

Nice name! LOL

Nice restaurant concept

While Cindy was looking for clothes, Panda and I went inside an arcade. Look what I saw!

Neko Atsume! SO CUTE! However, I don't believe in these doll-catching machines. The claws are too soft to even hold anything, as I've witnessed a lady try to catch these cuties but failed. 😒

Panda trying to catch his babies 🐼

SO PRETTY

I stopped taking photos afterwards, because the lady said I couldn't. Time to go to our Airbnb!

The Airbnb we booked was Hotel O, located at the Far East Consortium Building just beside Mongkok MTR Station (Bank Centre Exit). We booked this room for P3,450/person for 3 nights around 6 months ago. (Note that we were supposed to be 4 in this room, so  it's around P13,800 for 4 pax for 3 nights). Puedeng puede na! For an apartment in Hong Kong, this place was so spacious! Our host Elaine was so pretty and kind. 😍 The place was safe, because there's a guard at the building lobby, plus separate lock codes for the front door and room door + your own keycard.

The room was also clean and tidy, and there was more than enough space to move around. To save even more space, you can store your luggage under the bed. (There were no bedbugs, too!) The Wifi was fast and reliable. The speed of the internet was even better than that of the five star hotel we stayed in Macau - more on that soon. (What I loved about Hong Kong is I can connect to Wifi almost everywhere.) There were more than enough outlets to charge your gadgets with, too.

Four slippers
 

Flat screen TV and mini ref, which we didn't use. (I spy more outlets for charging!) Two bottles of water are replenished daily.

On the left, directly in front of the door, is the bathroom.
 

It's so tiny! When you shower, almost the entire bathroom will get wet. But we have no complaints, because everything was functioning well. The hot/cold shower was working, the flush was working, the faucet was working. The drain was never clogged. Even the bathroom is clean, no sightings of creepy crawlers ever.

Toiletries were supplied daily. There was shampoo, body wash, soap bar, toothbrushes, toothpastes, and an extra (soft) roll of tissue.

Hair dryer (I wish I had one attached on our wall at home, too.)
 

There were spare hangers too, located at the door and above the shoe rack.

After checking in, we had to rest first because our eyes were already red from lack of sleep. (We woke up 3AM!) But I wasn't able to sleep because I wanted to tire myself out so I could sleep earlier than 2AM (my normal sleeping time now). So while Panda and Cindy slept, I was just busy chatting with my friends online. (I sent Ness and Carizza my "pagod ako" selfie which I'm too shy to post here. HAHA)

I loved this cozy and clean Airbnb. It was so nice to have a neat place to crash our tired bodies into at the end of the day. I highly recommend Hotel O!

After resting, we dropped by Wellcome (MY FAVORITE). This was the moment I've waited for because I LOVE going to supermarkets, even here in the Philippines. When I went to Bangkok and Siem Reap, I charged towards the supermarkets with delight and hope. (Hope talaga? Haha) I was excited to see the unique things they had, which you can see in my blog sale/sari sari store. It wasn't the best idea to go grocery shopping while hungry, but when I got back to Manila, I realized that I should have bought more. (Always that regret.)

For dinner, we went to Cafe de Coral. I wasn't expecting this place to be packed on a Tuesday night, but it was. (And upon reading reviews and going here several times during our stay, I realized that it was ALWAYS packed. Good business!) It was so hard to find a seat, but God is always faithful. We prayed for a table, and we got 2 bigla. Hehe! (Thank you, Lord!)

I love Cafe de Coral because they're so efficient in all aspects. Their menu was on the wall. You order, pay, and get your order in just around 5 minutes or less. I don't know how they do it.

I ordered N4, because I read in Aisa's blog that this was good.

Tomato Minced Beef & Egg w/Rice + Tea/Coffee/Soft Drink/Iced Green Tea (Low Sugar) (HKD39)

The dish looks far from the photo. Parang ni-splat lang lahat. Haha. I hate saucy rice, but I finished this because it was so delicious! You had the option to change to cold drink by adding HKD 3, but since it was rainy and cold, I chose tea. Their milk tea was so bitter on its own. It's literally steeped black tea plus milk, so I needed an extra packet of sugar to make it better.

I wasn't able to note down what Cindy and Panda ordered, but I had pictures. The price range in this restaurant was very reasonable, and the food was good, so it's worth coming back to.

After that, we went to some Sasa and Bonjour stores. In Hong Kong, you don't really have to look for these beauty stores - they're everywhere! (Even those Korean brands we have here in the malls, they have stand alone stores in the streets of Hong Kong which was really cute.) Every Sasa and Bonjour store have piles of tiny perfume bottles like this. They're marked as "not for sale", but they sell it anyway. They're cute, but I wasn't able to buy one I really fancied. I think this is why most beauty stores here are not generous with samples. I tried repurchasing my all-time favorite Estee Lauder Double Wear Foundation in the malls in Hong Kong, but the only freebie they'll give is a sachet/packet of moisturizer. Meh, sa Rustan's nalang ako bibili.

Mongkok, you're so lovely!

We planned to go to Hong Kong Disneyland on Day 2 of our trip, but weather forecast was rainy all day so we moved it to Day 3. The next day was a trip to Causeway Bay and Tsim Sha Tsui! Stay tuned!

Love,
Helen

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