Day 1 – Birthday in HK

This year, I had the longest birthday celebration ever. Well, it officially started 2 days before my actual natal day, April 22 that is. That was the day, Mom and I flew to Hong Kong. I secured an early flight so we could maximize our trip. We took a PAL flight (not promo fare, hah, hah!) so we boarded at the NAIA Centennial Airport.  Apparently, the day before our flight, April 21, was a bit too grueling experience for me. I still haven’t booked any accommodation and hadn’t completely packed our things. Obviously, that was not the usual me. The traveling Winkie would normally secure hotel bookings at least a month before every trip and have packed her luggage one week earlier. Well, it’s really a long story why those things happened. Thanks to the internet though (and my friend Vida), I was able to get online bookings via hostelworld.com. I just opted for a cheap and ultra affordable inn slash hostel slash guest house. And I didn’t regret it.

Coming to Hong Kong for the third time still got me excited. But what got me more excited was the PAL flight. Aside from the fact that it was my first time to go to HK via PAL (Oh yes, I’m a sucker of Cebu Pacific’s zero fare), we boarded on the airline’s newest aircraft, the Boeing 777. It was really huge as compared to the usual airbus that I used to board into. Plus, I got to enjoy music and movies during the entire flight… eventhough I’m just in the economy section. LOL.

Here, see the beauty of Boeing 777:

Since I just got us basic hostel accommodation, no free transfer was included in the package. Mom and I had to do public commute to the hostel. We took the A21 bus which brought us to Tsim Sha Tsui. The hostel was located at the 12th Floor of the Chung King Mansions. I got it for less than PHP9,000 (around USD200) for a 5D4N-accommodation.

It was pretty nice. Comfy beds. Clean bathroom. Free wifi. Just right accommodation for the right price. LOL. The downside though was there were only 2 English channels in their TV set. BBC and Pearl channels were my only bestfriends during our stay there. But what the heck, we are always outside the hostel the whole day.

It was a bit past 2 p.m. when we settled in our room. Mom and I opted to go out, find something to eat and start with our afternoon walk in HK. Oh yeah, I wasn’t that much prepared in terms of itinerary so we just let our feet take us to places. Besides, I have never really explored Kowloon that much during my first trips as I always got to stay somewhere in Central. 🙂

We walked further down Nathan Road and looked around so I could plan for our next 4-day stay there. Since I looked so harrassed and exhausted, only Mom was able to do some photo ops near the HK Coliseum. And here is her best shot (Oh hah, sounding so very America’s Next Top Model huh? LOL):

Noticed the road? It’s kinda wet, isn’t it? Apparently, it rained when we set foot in HK. I now believe that I bring the rain with me. I’m such a rainmaker, LOL.

That’s Nathan Road 🙂

Since I feel a bit more comfy being in the Central District (pasosyal talaga, hahaha!), Mom and I decided to have our late lunch there. Plus, I needed to go the the Worldwide House, a sort of Filipino mall, to have my money changed to HK dollars and get discounted Disneyland tickets. Yep, I always buy my amusement park tickets from there. A ticket is originally sold at HK$350 (roughly Php 2,100 or US$48) at the Disneyland proper while I got ours for just HK$315 (around Php 1,860 or US$ 43). So, I basically saved a total of HK$70 on our Disneyland tickets. Some discounts there, eh?!

The rest of the day was spent walking, malling and browsing.

At around 6pm, I felt a bit odd so I dragged Mom back to the hostel. For the second time in the history of my travelling career (hahaha, I like this term!), I got sick on the first night. I had a terrible headache so I just opted to rest early.

To be continued… super bitin noh?! Hehehe!