Finally the day came, for which we were eagerly waiting. I was very excited about this trip as it was my first trip after marriage to a foreign country with our families. Though the trip did not start smoothly, we had fun. At around 8.30 pm I received a message from Cathay Pacific informing us about the delay of our flight by an hour. We had booked a Meru cab for 9.30 pm and it arrived by 9.45 pm. In spite of the delay we decided to go to the airport and finish off the immigration and other formalities before time. We thought it was better to go early then pass time in the airport rather than running the last moment marathon.
The bumper prize offers started from the moment we reached Kempegowda International Airport (KIAL), Bangalore. Mom and dad were boarding the flight to Hong Kong from Chhatrapati Shivaji International airport, Mumbai. When we were almost near the airport I received a call from mom telling me that her visa had a problem and she will have to repeat the online procedure for visa application. Boom goes the first bomb; the Hong Kong (HK) visa application site was down and would open only by 1.00 am (HK timing). Luckily due to dad’s contacts they could get help to sort out the problem as it would have been difficult to fill the form in a situation where you start thinking that maybe you won’t be able to fly even.
Here, in Bangalore we reached the airport and went straight to the Cathay check in counter, where the second bomb blasted. We were informed that there was some issue with my brother-in-law’s visa. We had to re-apply for the visa. So we started the process with the help of a mobile (mind it) no desktops and no laptops and with the help of a person from the Cathay customer service department. We tried again and again but the net refused to help us complete the application. There was just a visa difference between us and Hong Kong.
My father-in-law was helping the person to fill the online application form, and that’s when I realized this airport was still in the 18th century man!!!! Why aren’t there any desktops in the airport to make the processes easier? And the best part is they were asking us, a bunch of people who seriously looked like we were going on a fun/family trip, whether we have laptops. Arrey! we don’t even carry our own laptops (only laptops given by the company) to official trips and they want us to carry laptops for family trips!!!??? (Just kidding). Also we were continuously being told that we need to fill the visa application on our own (true, and agreed), still there was this person who was patient enough to help us out, as we were also in a tensed situation. What I mean is that if everything is self-service, there should be proper facilities also that would help us to do the things on our own. I agree youngsters like me can somehow manage the situation (still was little tensed) but what about the elderly people. Will the authorities tell the same thing to them to fill the form themselves? Now even if we think its ok we will manage the show the internet was like a tortoise. It was not even stable.
Anyways continuing with the trip, we finally won the battle with the internet and went ahead for immigration. Before we could finish our visa application my mom called up telling me that they had already finished the whole process and were ready to board the flight. After a hell lot of confusion, all you need is a cup of coffee. I tell you it was some kind of a bad tech day for us. We went to have some coffee and the machine literally disowned the printer. We had to again wait for the bill. Waiting never ended. We were waiting for the coffee, then to board the flight puff!!! By the time we could think of a time pass, the time had already passed. In short the only time pass that we had was to re-apply for visa!!!
Finally the time came to board the flight. We boarded the flight and sat in our seats. After all the safety instructions were announced (no personal demo given) I decided to watch something on the in-house entertainment (TV) provided. Guess what…..my TV got hanged and did not budge from a single channel. I tell you it was really really a bad techie day for me!!! It didn’t even shut down. So that’s how technology seemed to be angry with me for the whole 5 hr flight journey.
Day 1- On the Hong Kong isLand
After a 5 hr journey we landed at the Hong Kong International Airport located on the island of Chek Lap Kok. I was awestruck by the scenery from air. The airport was located on a small piece of reclaimed land on the Kowloon bay.
Hong Kong airport (photo not taken by me)
We finally reached the Hong Kong airport. We walked towards the immigration counter. There we were asked by one of the immigration officers to go and join the Indian line which was formed in the next lane. The moment we joined the line another officer started shouting at us and asking why are you standing here. He was quite rude. Why are these immigration officers so rude? I know you have to be very careful and see to it that some immigrant don’t enter illegally, but that doesn’t mean all the immigrants are terrorists???!!! They can be a little gentle with the citizens. This is the case everywhere. So shouldn’t that be changed for the better? Anyways with a poker face the immigration officer approved our entry into Hong Kong. The moment we came out after immigration there was the customs and excise department where the officers were waiting for people who would like to declare any of their items. One lady started clicking pictures, immediately the officers caught her and took her to the side, as taking picture in the custom section is an offence, but I was not able to see how she was penalised. We had fixed a point for meeting my parents in the airport. We caught up with them and moved towards the city in a city bus.
City bus. Photo courtesy Karthik S (My Husband )
Our plan was to reach InterContinental Grand Stanford, Chatham road, Tsim Sha Tsui, and take some rest and then roam around for some time in Kowloon city and then in the evening leave for Causeway Bay where we had booked a home stay through airbnb. We were waiting for my husband to come back from his workshop (for which he had actually come). I don’t know what made me so tired, the moment I lied down on the bed I dozed off to sleep. All of us took a small nap and after waking up we decided to explore the nearby places. We were on the streets of Mody road (not Modi), Nathan road, we came across ‘The Peninsula’ building, and a space centre. We walked along the Victoria Harbor for some distance. This harbour is situated between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon Island. This harbour also has experienced a lot of reclamation on which the shores of both islands are situated. Finally from there we came back to our hotel. After returning to the hotel, we had some nice cup of coffee, some green tea and some snack that we had carried. By the time we finished our drinks my husband was back and we decided to have dinner in one of the Indian restaurants named Sangeetha Veg in Kowloon city and then left for our service apartment which was on the Hong Kong Island.
This home stay was located in a prime area near SOGO mall. A very busy area especially during the night-time. But the homestay was really good; in spite of the noisy streets the rooms were very quiet and comfortable. Being a vegetarian it was difficult to adjust to the food in a country like Hong Kong where most of the people are meat eaters except in the monastery (will give details in a while).
Luckily, being an ‘Indian‘ we carried our food everywhere. This time we carried Thepla (it’s a kind of flat bread made out of Fenugreek leaves) with us. Very handy, very tasty. And of course the pickles. Yummy!!!! But no worries friends, there are a lot of Indian restaurants nearby.
We caught a cab to reach to 500 Jaffe road where our temporary home awaited us. These cabs were really cute I must say. They have red cabs, green cabs, blue cabs and some other cabs too. All have different fares and are seen in particular places/territories only. And they were very particular about the seat belt.
So be careful if you violate their rules you have to pay heavily. You have to pay extra for baggage (6 HK$, varies for different cabs). Finally we reached the place where the homestay was located. We reached there around 11.00 pm, but I felt as if it was 8.00 pm or something. the place was so bright and happening. We were standing in front of the building named ‘Malahon apartments’, 509 Jaffe road. That’s the place where we were staying. You need access to enter the building. The residents there carried a key card which is scanned at the entrance, thereby allowing them to enter. The home that we were living in belonged to a person named Charis (din’t contact him/her personally). The apartments in that building have a lock code (do not know if all buildings there have it) which needs to be entered to enter the house. Charis had messaged the code to Karthik before we reached there. So we entered the code, went into the house, dropped all the luggage, occupied the rooms and decided to sleep. The next day we were planning to go to Macau and we had to leave at least by 9 or 10 am. We had to arrange for some breakfast for the next day. So Karthik and myself went down to the streets to buy some bread (our saviour), yogurt and some fruits. It was very comfortable to roam around on the streets safely. No one staring at you when you are affectionately holding your husband’s hand in the public (not that I bothered much about that here in India), still no one to stare at your short pants and comment on your character. It was really awesome. So that was day one in Hong Kong.
My dad is very passionate about cooking (although its mom who cooks daily) and serving people. So he was the chief Chef for all four days of our stay. He started making breakfast for all of us. All woke up by 7.30 am and started getting ready for the trip. We had ‘Thepla’ for breakfast. We packed some thepla and munchies for our trip just in case our stomach starts growling. The Turbojet was taking us to Macau, so yup it was a Jet ride . We were supposed to board the ferry from Honk Kong – Macau ferry terminal. To reach the terminal we decided to take a Tram. It was my first time on a Tram. In India Trams are available only in certain cities, and it’s not available in the city that I live in. There were lot of trams on the road and they were slow, but they also stopped at signals like other vehicles.
Trams were cheaper, around 2 HK$ and for senior citizens 1 HK$ approx. One thing that I observed was that you just needed to put the money into the box kept next to the driver in the buses and Trams. The driver never checked as to how much you are putting, but you have to be honest and put money in the box. Similar was the case for local buses (from airport you have to buy a ticket)
The nearest Tram station for us was Canal Road West (50W). It took about 15-20 mins to reach Macau ferry terminal (78W) from Canal Road West. As we went on our own without the help of tours and travels the HK tramway site was very useful for getting Tram schedules. After reaching the terminal, Karthik and my mom went in search of the ticket counter. The rest of us were taking selfies and each other’s photos and waiting for the two of them to come back. Finally after buying the tickets both returned and we walked towards the jet.
The turbojet was a beautiful red colored (my favorite color) boat. The price of turbojet tickets varied from 175 HK$(economy) to 400 HK$. Our turbojet was scheduled for 12.15 pm. It took one hour from the terminal to reach Macau.
We reached Macau by around 1.20 pm. Now, my husband has a very bad habit of throwing of any paper that he may not find useful. That day luckily he had not thrown the immigration slip that was given at the Hong Kong airport (they don’t stamp anywhere, it’s all small paper slips) and they asked for the slip (moral of the story do not throw any piece of paper till you complete your trip) at the airport as we were leaving Hong Kong. After finishing the immigration process, we came out of the Macau maritime ferry terminal, we were followed by many of the travel guides who were desperate to show us Macau on being paid. Initially we had no intention of hiring a guide but the weather made us change our mind. After not much of negotiation we hired a guide who agreed to take us around Macau for 1000 HK$ (we could have brought it down more though ). We all got into his car and thus Macau exploration started.
Our first stop was the Fisherman’s Wharf.
Roman Amphitheatre with family
Glimpse of Sands CasinoTaipa Bridge
This wharf was artificially built and was open to public by 2006. It is basically a theme park which consist of hotels, casinos, restaurants which gives it the 18th century look. When we were roaming around, we saw a newly wed couple getting their photos shot with different backgrounds. We managed to click one or two photos of ourselves too.
After exploring the wharf (at least part of it), we moved on to our next destination which was the Ruins of St. Paul’s. On the way to the church we saw a beautiful statue of Kuan Iam.
This was the statue of the goddess of mercy and it stood on a lotus like structure. We did not spend much time there and moved forward to the Ruin’s of St Paul’s.
We reached the Ruins of St Paul’s. I was just imagining how only one wall of the church was standing upright. When I walked through the gate and saw the church wall from the other side that’s when I realized that it was actually supported with some concrete and steel. There were tombs of various monks who lived and worked in the church.
The church also claims to have the remains of Father Alexander Valignano, the founder of the St Paul’s college.
Opposite the ruins of the church was the Monte Fort which was 400 years old. You could see almost complete Macau from here. It’s a three storey building and there were escalators to take you up to the open roof top. The roof top was given a garden appearance. There is a museum in the fort which is supported by the Macau government, which tells us Macau’s past and present developments.
Lisboa Casino Fort from the Ruin’s of the Cathedral
So from here we went to our final destination in Macau, that is ‘The Venetian’. On the way we spend some time at the A-Ma Temple. This was a tribute to the Chinese sea goddess ‘Mazu’. What I found interesting was that there were huge incense sticks coiled, hanging from the roof. We looked around the temple for sometime and then decided to move forward towards The Venetian.
The Venetian is basically a hotel and a casino and its model is based on its sister hotel in Las Vegas. First we headed straight to the top floor where all the shops were present. What a beauty! I felt like I was in Venice and at that point of time (6.00 pm) also it was so bright as if it had just dawned.
10th Anniversary of The Venetian
After climbing down, we were looking for a table where we could place the least bet. We came across The Roulette, where we placed a 50 HK$ bet on three numbers and we were so unlucky that we lost the 50 HK$. After losing the Roulette we went towards the slot machines. We tried our luck there also, and guess what we won (bet for 15 HK$ and won 25 HK$, ). The Venetian is an awesome place to visit.
So after The Venetian we left for the ferry terminal, as we had a ferry (Turbojet) to catch at 7.00 pm. Ok, the thing was our ticket was for 7.45 pm, but we reached there before time by 7 pm, so we decided to take the earlier ferry and they allowed us to take the 7.30 pm turbojet as the 7.15 one had already left. Now all were hungry here, guess what came to our rescue,correct! ‘The Thepla’. We had Thepla and filled our stomachs and now all were feeling sleepy and tired. So we just boarded the 7.30 pm boat and had a small nap. We reached the Honk Kong ferry Terminal and decided to go home (home-stay) by bus. In Honk Kong communication is a little problematic because of their accent. For example when we wanted to go to Jaffe road, we wanted to know the bus that will take us there, the conductor kept telling “LAMBATOO”, I thought it is some place somewhere in Hong Kong first, then I realized he is telling ‘number two’. Once we understood what he said, we were trying to ask them is it platform number two or bus number two but I don’t think they seemed to understand that. Of course it is difficult for us to understand them and them to understand us. It happens everywhere, we just need some patience to understand each other. Finally number two bus came and we hopped onto it and left for our place. There is one fact about the bus that I din’t mention earlier is that you have to give them exact change or you will not get your change back.
We reached 500 Jaffe road and went straight to the room. We kids (Karthik, My BIL, and me) wanted to try out something from here, some authentic Chinese food. So we let the senior citizens rest and we three went out in search of some good restaurant. We finally got a restaurant of the name Tam Chai Yunnan Noodles on the same road where we stayed and it looked very crowded. It had mixed crowd consisting of school students, office goers, couples, old people. The waitress gave us the menu card. We glanced through the menu card which was in Chinese (also translated in English). We tried to figure out what to eat as most of the food had meat as the main ingredient. So finally after a lot of research we decided to have veg rice noodles in tomato broth (which cost around 30 HK$). We ordered for only one bowl. The waitress looked at us as if we have committed some crime. She was asking us (actually looked like shouting at us), “three of you and only one bowl? ”. Somehow she got convinced and brought the noodle bowl with three empty bowls and some spoons and sticks . It was really tasty though it did not have much of the spices in it (like the food eaten by people in most of the parts of India), it was tangy and veggie…! Now anyone (maybe a crazy person like me ) who is exposed to some new technique (in this case, way of eating) will surely like to try it out. So we also started eating with chopsticks and dropping food here and there, but successfully completed the bowl. I think Thepla had already taken over the complete territory in our stomachs as a result of which all three of us could manage with one bowl of soup. So with a satisfied heart and ‘stomach’ we went back to our rooms and had a peaceful sleep.
For this trip we had taken a package of 924 HK$/person for a one day trip. We had a very heavy breakfast made by my dad which consisted of bread and caramelized banana and some milk for me and tea for the others. The tour assistant (we called him Arjun ) picked us up from the Metropark hotel in Causway bay, from where we were taken to the ferry along with the other groups.
My dad smokes cigarettes wherever he finds a smoking zone. There are smoking zones, where you are supposed to smoke; you are not allowed to smoke anywhere and everywhere. He was explaining the itinerary to us (as people were yet to come) and in between also mentioning about the smoking zones so that if anyone wants to smoke (that was for my dad) they can smoke. The remaining people joined us and we left towards the ferry. The ferry took us to Lantau Island in about an hour. On reaching Lantau Island we were greeted by our tour guide Mr Fen/Ben (not sure what we heard🤔).
Mr Fen explained to us the itinerary and the halt timings. According to the itinerary our tour starts from the Cheung Sha beach, the Tai O fishing village, the Tian Tan Buddha and Po Lin Monastery and finally back to Tung Chung terminus via the Ngong Ping 360 cable car. While traveling to our first destination, Mr. Fen was telling us about the sad history of Lantau Island, the people and about the younger generations who have migrated to the city for jobs and better life. Basically it can be said that Lantau Island is the countryside of Hong Kong.
We reached the Cheung Sha beach where we spent some time admiring the scenery, the sounds of the waves, and the fresh air.
After having some fun on the beach we left for our next destination which was the Tai O fishing village. This used to be a very important trading and fishing port of Lantau Island. As now the younger generations have moved out of Lantau island, you can find very few fishing activity. You can find traditional stilt houses, many of which have been abandoned.
The old folks of the village are still continuing the traditional way of living and making a living by fishing and selling dried fishes in the local markets.
We were taken around the village in a boat. It just took us 15-20 minutes to complete one round and come back. The village was surrounded by beautiful mountains.
Mr. Fen also showed us his home which was in the fishing village, where he had stayed earlier and he also explained the reason why he left that place.
Mr. Fen showing his house on the hill top
As his home was located on the hills, due to the lack of proper roads and on time medical attention he lost one of his friends. So he shifted from that place. I think that’s what happens everywhere, people just think about only developing the developed urban areas rather than concentrating part of their attention and funds for the development of rural areas. Maybe the idea of the governments is to concentrate on a particular area and let people migrate from the rural areas and populate and pollute the urban area and after completely using up the urban land and fresh air then turn over to another area for urbanisation (I mean in a negative way) or another solution is to just go in for the development of both urban as well as rural locality so that there is no deficiency of land or air or water and facilities and everywhere everything is used up proportionately. Anyways….
Next we were taken towards the Tian Tan Buddha situated 15 mins away from the fishing village. This Giant Buddha (34 metres tall) was constructed in the year 1993 and the whole structure is made up of bronze. The Buddha is seen sitting on the lotus with six devas posed offering flowers surrounding the Buddha.
Next we moved towards the Po Lin Monastery. That is where we had our vegetarian food which was very tasty. The monastery only serves vegetarian food.
From the Monastery we went to the Ngong Ping 360 cable car station. So this was our last stop, from here the cable car was going to take us to the Tung Chung terminus on the north of Lantau Island. It was a beautiful 25 mins ride over the mountains and above the Tung Chung Bay.
In the Ngong Ping cable car we came to the northern part of Lantau Island from where a bus was arranged to drop us back to our respective hotels. We stopped the bus near Victoria park and walked towards Causway bay (our home). By the time we reached our place it was evening. We were all tired and we decided to take a small nap. After a nap we had some dinner. After some light dinner we decided to go out to have some ice cream and enjoy the night life on the HK streets. It was nice to walk on the busy streets. Even though the streets were busy the rules were followed religiously. I really liked the way the cars stopped when the signal went red, and some time was given for the pedestrians to cross the road. During that time no cars would break the signal (at least I din’t witness any law breaking), so people could cross the road safely. Some people were even fiddling with their mobiles rather than watching the road, that’s how safe it was to cross. Wonder when we will witness that here in India??
The reason why we were on streets was that we wanted to try out some new flavours of ice cream. So we kept searching the streets for some ice cream parlour and came across ‘Via Tokyo’ a Japanese parlour. When you do not know the taste of certain food item (especially ice cream) and especially when you know you may never like the taste, never buy it. We ordered for two ice creams one is Matcha flavoured and the other Hojicha (which looks like chocolate, but it’s not). Now Matcha and Hojicha are both green teas which are used in ice creams. Since we are not used to this kind of combination it was very difficult to even try it. I couldn’t bear the taste, the moment I licked it (was a softy) I really felt as if I was going to puke (no offense). Our folks managed to eat the two ice creams (luckily they shared both the flavours) somehow, I luckily just ordered for a plain vanilla softy and escaped the torture. After finishing our ice creams we decided to go back to our place. On our way back we saw an Italian Ice cream parlour (3 Italiani) where we decided to have a different ice cream to erase the taste of Matcha and Hojicha ice creams. Finally everyone picked up one ice cream of their choice and were very much happy to have a normal ice cream. After a wonderful day and a lively night we went back to our room and went off to sleep .
Day 4- Final Day in Hong Kong
The day arrived when we were to bid farewell to Honk Kong, but before leaving we planned to roam around the city (Hong Kong Island) and enjoy the city. So as usual the chief chef (my dad) made us breakfast, bread, butter/jam after which we immediately got ready to leave. The Peak Tram (PT) was on our list, which was yet to be explored. So we took a metro (MTR) from Causway bay station, got down at the Central MTR station and walked towards the PT.
We bought peak tram tickets costing around 52 HK$/person (round trip) approximately. The Peak tram is funicular railways which carries passengers to the peak and back. There are some people also staying up in peak, they commute via peak tram. People can also ride cycles up-to the peak. The inclination at which the tram travels is marvellous. Everything looked tilted. The ride in the tram is a must when you visit Hong Kong.
After reaching the peak we had some fun with some 3D photo shoot and photos with the wax statue
The sight from the peak was breathtaking. All skyscrapers trying to outdo the other in touching the sky.
We also shopped for some souvenirs to be given to our relatives. This ‘shopping’ took a lot of time. We needed to go back to the room and get all our stuffs (packed almost everything the previous night itself) and vacate the place, have lunch and then leave for the airport. We took a bus to a Vegetarian Indian restaurant named Khana Khazana which was somewhere in Wan Chai. It was just 10 mins walk from Jaffe road, but since we had luggage we decided to take the bus (bus no. 10 from Sino Plaza). We got down at Southorn Playground and walked towards the restaurant (5 mins walk). We reached the hotel, we kept our luggage in a place and occupied some chairs near the window to have our lunch. The restaurant was located in Wan Chai and was very good. They offered both buffet as well as plated style service. We passed our time by chatting with the waiters. We had a decent Indian food and a good chat. After lunch we caught a city bus towards the airport. My parents and our flight timings were different as we were flying back to Bangalore and they were flying to Mumbai. Their flight was on time, but our flight got delayed by an hour or so. After we finished our immigration we went towards the gate and waited for boarding. There was a lot of time for boarding our flights. My dad wanted to buy some alcohol for a relative of ours, so we (Dad, Karthik and me) went to ‘The Whiskey House’. In the mean time the ladies wanted to buy some chocolates for distribution in office, for maids and so on…Then we were sitting near Starbucks, so we had some coffee. Starbucks always gives small cup holders to carry the coffee cups. Karthik, dad and myself were exploring the cup holders, the way it was folded etc. After the cup research, Karthik and my mom started calculating the expenses incurred for the whole trip. My father-in-law who is a retired banker was listening to the discussion. Even after giving the final figure he wanted us to recheck the calculation as he was not ready to believe that the total expense was very low (a perfect banker). After a lot of heated arguments and discussions he was finally convinced.
Sr. No. Item Expense/person (INR) 1 Flight 47,000 (from Bangalore)
2 Room 2857 3 Lantau Island 8000 4 Macau 1143 5 Macau ferry 1400 6 Misc (restaurants, food items bought) 10,000 Total approx 70,000
Karthik and me went for a romantic walk on ‘the travelator’. We noticed a book store and decided to check out some books. I like to read Dan brown books and had heard that his new book had released recently. So I went to check if that book was available, but it was out of stock, disappointing! . Coming out of the book store we went to check the flight schedule board, where it was displayed that the flight to Mumbai was also delayed yipieee!!! (some more time to spend with them). So now both our flights were ‘supposed to’ take off at the same time. So the waiting continued…. After sometime we started feeling hungry, so we were hunting for something (again authentic food before leaving Hong Kong) to eat. We went to the food court and bought some egg noodles with vegetables, which neither of us enjoyed . Our time to board the flight came and we boarded the flight for Bangalore. The flight took nearly 30 to 45 mins to take off due to air traffic. Finally after almost an hr we took off. This time I was sitting next to Karthik, who was asleep for most of the journey () and I was watching some cartoons () and within 5 hrs we reached Bangalore. We booked two uber cabs to go home as we had some luggage. After reaching home sweet home, we were cherishing the memories of the trip. As it was Saturday night, we were happy that we might get a day to rest and get charged up for the routine that starts from Monday. After some chat about the enjoyable trip, we greeted each other goodnight and landed on our beds and dozed off to sleep craving for more such beautiful trips together.
This trip was a very short but refreshing trip with our families, giving us long time memories.
Hoping to share more fun-filled family journey experiences with everyone.
My Family Trip To HONG KONG Finally the day came, for which we were eagerly waiting. I was very excited about this trip as it was my first trip after marriage to a foreign country with our families.
