5 things about Hong Kong

I have just returned from my Hong Kong trip a while back. I'll try to summarize up this trip experience into 5 things that I felt were part of the trip. All these are strictly in my opinion and be ready for lots of rants! xD 

 5 THINGS ABOUT HONG KONG BY ME!

1) I felt my claustrophobic 

Space in Hong Kong were really very maximized when it came to their usage. There were buildings everywhere, people everywhere, even the walkways seemed pretty narrow. I prefer to have my own space, I'm pretty particular when people are too near to me as it sorts of intrudes my comfort zone. The trains were really packed when it came to their peak hours, especially if you're heading to central in the morning on weekdays. The hotel that we stayed in was pretty small but it was cozy so it wasn't that bad. But I really disliked walking on the streets with people everywhere and having umbrella 'fights' with others as our umbrellas jostled and bumped into one another's on the walkways. 

2) The queuing 

I have to admit I'm not a really patient person and I usually avoid queening if I can help it. I queued a lot in Hong Kong. When in Disneyland Hong Kong and Ocean Theme part I think half the time of the seven hours we spent there were used on queuing. That wasn't the worst part. I think the more uncomfortable thing was point number 1, my claustrophobia, when it comes to queuing. Queuing made me feel trapped and I don't really understand why others must stand so close and near me that they were bumping to me even when the queue was not moving. It just made me very pissed and my mood was just so bad. They were good during those rides with adrenaline rush and then they were gone once the queuing cycle starts again. Oh well. I guess this is training for my patience. 

3) The stairs

There was a lot of stairs. I felt fitter after my trip to Hong Kong! xD The MTR were filled with stairs (mostly escalators were only for going down, you'll have to climb up the stairs to exit the station and there were some exits without any escalators and you'd just have to climb up/down the stairs everytime. On our trip to the Ngong Ping Buddha, the flight of stairs to the bottom of the Buddha was jaw dropping. I felt so accomplished after climbing up the whole staircase with only a few pauses. On my way, I can't help but be thankful that I can still climb stairs (albeit being breathless and all). I'd better travel when I'm younger and before I get older and my health declines and I can't take such kind of exercise anymore. 

4) The food

The dimsums were great- Tim Ho Wan was awesome. It was really affordable and yummy. I missed the BBQ pork buns, the gui hua gao and the yummy carrot cakes. I think we ate wanton and fishball noodles for at least 5 times over the span of 5 days. The variety of food choices were mostly Chinese food on the streets. Shopping malls have more food options. 

5) Early retirement to our hotel

We returned to our hotel and concluded our day of exploration in Hong Kong pretty early everyday, at about 8plus pm daily. I guessed we're just so tired. (I don't even know from what? Walking too much? Queuing? The rainy weather?) It felt a bit wasted going back to our hotel so early while the night is still young but we couldn't really enjoy much further. This made me miss the night markets that we enjoyed when we were in Taiwan last year. 

I've decided to include our itinerary here too. All these are going to be memories for me :') Since I'm such a forgetful person, I'll force and discipline myself to record more stuffs by blogging and typing them out instead of just leaving all these experiences in my brain to rot and fade away. 

Day 1: The Peak

Reached Hong Kong around noon. Was deciding between taking MTR to our hotel or the bus. Took the bus instead (got an octopus card, the card's really useful you can get it to pay for transport- buses and MTR rides,  for paying food at a lot of shops,and even for making donations for wildlife conservation efforts in Ocean Park!). Ate fishball noodles for lunch (I forgot where, oh no my memory is failing me). And we set off for The Peak. We took the MTR to central and walked to the tram ticketing place. My gosh!!! The queue was horrifying!!! It was so long and the place was so crowded that I felt like I didn't want to go anymore. I just didn't want to queue and squeeze with the crowd. But of course I didn't say that out, my friend planned the itinerary and I didn't want to be a spoil sport. We queued for at least an hour, (if you can, do bring an electronic fan like those they use in theme parks cos the place is really stuffy or you can be like us and use the pamphlets to fan ourselves-so cost-saving! xD) And then!!! To our horror, we could've actually just tapped using our octopus card and joined another shorter queue that didn't need to wait for an hour because we had the octopus card and could just pay the entrance fee with that and not queue for an hour and buy the tickets!!!!  All these exclaimation marks are not enough to express my feelings at that time. !!!!!!!! I was trying so hard to control my temper. I really need to learn to be more patient and also more loving of other humans although I really hate crowds. God help me. Amen. 

Then was squeezing through the tram to the peak. The peak was okay, pretty nice view from the top (you have to pay to visit the peak's 360 viewing floor or something like that). Took some touristy photos. There was some filming of a korean variety show. Not sure what it was though. And we managed to watch a while of the night lights showing below on the skyscrapers and then we left before the crowd disperses. Then back to hotel.

Day 2: Disneyland Day! 

I loved the tickets haha! I got the one with Woody from toy story printed while my friend got the slinky dog from Toy story. And then queuing for rides, had lunch, more queuings and back to the hotel. My favourite part of Hong Kong's Disneyland was perhaps the Toy story area with the exciting U shaped car ride (like an extreme pirate ship) and just the decoration there in general. 

Day 3: Ngong Ping, Sham Shui Po

We took a train to Tung Chung and queued for the cable tickets at the ticketing place just behind the outlet shopping mall of Tung Chung. The cable car ride was pretty long about 25 minutes. The view was great too. I always wondered how people managed to build cable cars. It seemed like such a huge undertaking with a lot of responsibilities. We went to the Buddha, took a walk on the wisdom path (I recommend trying that out) and ate at the vegetarian restaurant in the monastery. We went Sham Shui Po for dinner at Tim Ho Wan. The fashion street at Sham Shui Po's awesome! Affordable and pretty clothes!! 

Day 4: Ocean Park day! 

Took MTR to Admiralty and got to Ocean Park by bus 269 from there. Then same as Disneyland, we queued for rides, had lunch, queued for more rides. I really liked Ocean Park more because there were more exciting rides here (there were 4-5 roller coaster rides, 2 being more extreme with the loops). It was raining so we didn't really get to sit a lot of the rides. Luckily, there were aquariums and zoos indoor for us to visit while it rained. Ocean park's bigger than Disneyland too. You'd have to take a cablecar/ the express train to get from one part of the park to another. Then we went back to our hotel in the evening. I forgot what we had for dinner xD

Day 5: North Point, Hong Kong art museum, Sham Shui Po

We set off for North Point in the morning for the Duck Shing Ho egg rolls there. Queued an hour for it. Went to the museum afterwards. The museum was interesting. I particularly liked the one on porcelain trade on the third floor. There was some activity booklet that you could complete and it was pretty fun! We spent our afternoon there. Went Sham Shui Po again for some cloths shopping then headed back to our hotel in the evening. 

Day 6: 

Our last day in Hong Kong. We went to get egg tarts in the morning from Tai Chung bakery at the Star Ferry Terminal in Tsim Sha Tsui. Then visited the avenue of stars and got our laopo bings at Heng Hung bakery in the basement of SOGO. Had Japanese sushi for lunch. Yummy!

Took a bus to the airport, then it was bye bye Hong Kong! See you soon (?). Hopefully I'll get to visit Macau next time too and be of the legal age to have an eye-opening tour of the Macau casino. 

5 things to do when you can't sleep

Sounds familiar? This is so me. It's 2.30 am now and I'm still wide awake. I think part of it is because my sleep's cycle is completely screwed and I slept too much; I woke up at 12 pm today, so technically I had only been awake for 14 and a half hours.

Below are 10 things I'll do when I can't sleep. Feel free to adopt any of the 'useful tips' below:

#1: Listen to music

If I'm desperately in need to sleep asap, I'll listen to some classical music- no offense but I think they're really soothing and can help me feel sleepy quickly. I love piano pieces a lot especially Yiruma's piano performances. Pieces like 'kiss the rain' is a perfect lullaby for me.

Alternatively, if I don't feel like sleeping as yet, I'll listen to some upbeat Kpop songs. I'm an avid kpop fan. I find the cheesy bubblegum pop lovely and even the soulful ballads appeal to me. I'm recently addicted to Shinee's newest Japanese single 'Dazzling girl'. It's been on replay for the past 2 days.

#2: Get work done

This happens only on rare occasions (aka last minute datelines), I'll be rushing out my homework/tutorials/ projects before the dateline/meeting the next day. It's strictly not advisable, but old habits do stick. I find myself weirdly productive from 10pm onwards until 4am the next day. I have very steep working curve during those hours and even if I'm rushing out stuffs, they 'flow' to me. Identifying your productive hours are necessary.

Mine just happens to be around these hours. Probably don't help with my insomnia. I could probably change them if I want to, but the inertia to change is just so great. Oh well, we'll see how it goes.

#3: Read

This has to be my favourite! I'm a huge bookworm. My weekends are mostly spent holed up at home reading. I've spent this weekend of mine finishing 2 books, a book on past lives and another on the Myer-Briggs Personality indicator. I read a lot and spend a lot of money on books too. It's a great hobby of mine, and I'm really lucky to have my mum who's so supportive of my reading endeavours, paying for my books and all.

 And yes, reading do keep me more awake at night. It's not advisable to read before bed times as it'll probably keep you more awake (thinking and reflecting on the plots etc) but personally I find reading before I sleep something I'd like to do to 'conclude my day'. And I have this urge to finish a book in one sitting every time I hold onto it, especially if it's a page turner. That usually takes me at least two to three hours, and I end up sleeping late. Sigh. Yet, I'll still find reading worth sacrificing some of my sleep for.

#4: Eat

Cook, look around your kitchen for food etc. If I'm really hungry at night and can't sleep, sometimes it's due to the hunger keeping me awake. I'll get some drink (milk, don't drink tea/coffee, it makes it harder to sleep), and probably cook some instant noodles to eat too/have bread. With a full stomach, it's easier to sleep.

#5: Check facebook

Do some facebooks surfing and take comfort in knowing that you're not alone! There are bound to be night owls about (just check your online friends!). Start a chat, do some catching up with your online friends. And maybe after a while into the chat and the say 'gtg, I'm sleeping', you'll be peer-pressured to sleeping as well.