Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Accommodation, Food, and Shopping in Hong Kong

We stayed in Bridal Tea House Hotel at Li Tak Street, Tai Kok Tsui, Kowloon (利得街, 大角咀, 九龙) for six nights (please read our post Hong Kong, Macau, and Shenzhen Trip for our complete itinerary). Li Tak Street is around 50 meters long, with several workshops located at the sides of the street. The workshops make the street really greasy and filled with the smell of iron work.We were shocked for a moment when we saw the scene at Li Tak Street, and started thinking that the driver must had brought us to the wrong place. Then, the Bridal Tea House appeared in the middle of the street.

The hotel was small, but in good condition. We felt a bit comfortable after we realized that our room looked nice and it's bigger than we had expected (around 10 x 15 square feet). Room service, comfortable bed, tea making facility (sorry no coffee available), air conditioner, LCD flat screen TV with local channels, and hot water shower were available. When we started to explore the area in vicinity, we found many food stalls, eateries, convenient shops, and restaurants were located only one or two streets away from our hotel.

Then, on the second day, we realized that Olympic MTR Station is located just about 10 minutes of walking from our hotel. Third day, we discovered that Mong Kok MTR Station is just about 15 minutes away. Well, we would call the location strategic. FYI, the Olympic Shopping Mall is located next to Olympic station, while Mong Kok station itself is located at the major shopping area in Hong Kong.


Putting one small double bed and one single bed side by side, there is not much space to move around in the room (upper left). The hotel has utilized the limited space to squeeze in as much as the utilities as possible (upper right). Lower row shows the streets in vicinity of the hotel.


Streets around Tai Kok Tsui.

Generally, the food in Hong Kong is good. At least, suits our taste, except the wantan noodle at the Peak. We tried many local food, porridge, soy milk with you tiao (fried bread stick or fritter), wantan noodles, dim sum, roasted duck, roasted goose, steamed chicken, stewed pork, as well as some Japanese food, Vietnamese food, Taiwan delicacies, etc. We had our meals at many restaurants, shops, eateries, and small stalls, which most of them served nice food. 

In fact, we didn't really get into any shop with terrible food. Beside the taste, another good thing about eating at Hong Kong was all the eateries and restaurants that we had visited in Hong Kong were operating with air conditioners. So we could escape from the hot weather for a moment while we enjoying our food inside the shop. Now the down side- the price. A normal meal in Hong Kong can easily go up to HKD30. The price jumps double or triple in many tourist spots, such as the theme parks.

We took our breakfast in local eateries in vicinity of our hotel. Rice noodle row with beef or prawn (upper right), you tiao with soy milk (lower left), and different types of porridge (lower right) were some of our favorites.

Hong Kong dim sum is one the famous food in Hong Kong. We managed to find an eatery with delicious dim sum at Tung Choi Street (DimDim Sum Dim Sum Specialty Store, 112, Tung Choi Street). The taste of dim sum there was different from what we have in Malaysia.


We tried many types of noodles, such as wantan noodle (upper left), da-wan noodle or the noodle in big bowl (upper right), noodle with abalone (lower left) and Japanese noodle. All of them tasted good.

This is where we took our first dinner in Hong Kong. The eatery was small and everyone had to squeeze in the shop. Luckily, the food was delighting. It was located beside Tai Kok Tsui Road, about 70 meters away from our hotel at Li Tak Street.

We tried these pan-fried delicacies (upper row) from a food stall by the roadside at Mong Kok. We bought the roaster duck, goose, and chicken wing from a food stall at Tai Kok Tsui (lower row).

Tang yuan in ginger soup (upper left), mixture of beans and potatoes (upper right), almond papaya with snow fungus (lower left), and durian pancake were some of the desserts that we would like to recommend to all of you.

We spent most of our shopping time at Temple Street, Tung Choi Street (or Ladies' Street) and the area in vicinity for several times. Those are where the night markets are located.

Nathan Road is a happening place at night. We could see many shops with dazzling neon signboard stretching along the road. These photos were taken along the road when we were on our way to Mong Kok from Temple Street.

Tung Choi Street (or Ladies' Street) is really a red hot place for shopping, saturated with signboards and discount banners (upper left). The photo was taken right at the exit of Mong Kok MTR Station. The crowd started to form around 6 -7 pm (upper right) and the street became extremely crowdy around 9:30 pm (lower right). We bought several good quality Hong Kong themed t-shirt with HKD30 per piece from the market.

Compared to Tung Choi Street, Temple Street was less crowded during our visit. The northern side of the street is marked with this arch.

Temple Street was not crowdy even it was 8:30 pm (upper left). However, we could see some people were gathered at the food corner (upper right). Many items were sold with fair prices. Well, our parents bought a tea making set with HKD110, cheap if we compared to what we could get in Malaysia.

Overall, Hong Kong's night markets were not much difference from the night markets in Malaysia. In case you wish to buy anything from the night markets, please haggle vigorously. For example the tea making set, the original price was HKD300. We expressed that it was too expensive and we would only consider to buy at HKD60. After a few negotiation, we bought it with HKD110 (reasonable price for us). However, we did bought some items with the price a little bit higher compared to another stall. So, a survey might helps in ensuring a lower price.

We stayed in Hong Kong for 7 days 6 nights. Please visit this post to know more about our itinerary. We spent one day to visit Macau and Shenzhen as well. Let us start with Macau first.



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