Something New

Feeling rejuvinated after my 8 hour sleep courtesy of Stilnox, I prepared for another shopping marathon and was ready by 9am sharp. Today, our first stop would be the H & M store at Central. Because we are overly ganado, we get there before the shop even opens! Jazmin and I decide to make short trips to Page One (naku, I think we entered every available Page One store in HK!) and to my favorite alley, Li Yuen East Street. Do you know how you buy things that are useless but you go and get it anyway because it's a good deal? Well, those are the kinds of things you will find at Li Yuen East.



I finally take my first trip inside the H & M store and it was 'okay'. Their clothes were average but the price and the quality were competitive. Since I couldn't find any biking jerseys for my spoiled husband, I just bought him shirts praying that I would somehow appease his craving for those damn jerseys. Big mistake. The shirts and the few items I had bought for myself turned out to be a heavy package which I had to lag around HK. Gosh, it was only 11:30 and my right arm was already stiffening up.

After H & M, we peaked inside the newly renovated Landmark mall before riding the MTR for lunch at Causeway Bay. In all my trips to HK, this is the first time I can remember being in Causeway Bay. My mom says we used to go there when I was younger but I hardly remember the place now that I was standing in the middle of Jaffe Road ready to feast on any restaurant that would catch our fancy. After about 10 minutes of walking, we settled on a place that had chinese symbols and a line out front and started our ritual of pointing at the food to be ordered. What a yummy resto! But as I said, its name was in chinese symbols so I can't even recommend the place to you. All I know is that it was on Jaffe Road....

After lunch, Maja brought us to the Laforet Mall. Its a quaint three-storey building which houses boutique shops that carry not so popular brands. I actually enjoy shopping in places like these because at least you dont stand the risk of wearing the same thing as the person beside you. The place was similar to maybe Granville or Greenhills but a little more high-end naman. You could still find nice pieces at reasonable prices.



After the trendy Laforet, Maja directed us by foot to the Times Square Mall. I forgot to mention that this was also Jaz and Ria's first time in the area. Upon reaching the place, we wasted time pa outside looking at the surrounding stores which of course baffled Maja. She couldn't understand why we were spending so much time there when 'heaven' was inside Times Square. True enough, upon entering the mall, the four of us disbursed and tried to enter as many stores as we could. There were just too many stores with too little time. After about 2 hours of roaming around, the girls finally gave up! Since the MTR was supposedly under the building, we decided to take the train instead of getting a cab. What a mistake! The tunnel leading up to the MTR was super loooooooong. Hay naku. And to top it off, we even had to walk from the Tsim Sha Tsui station back to our hotel. By the time I got to my hotel room, my legs and arms were in dire need of Alaxan.

Ria still had the energy to run around while the 3 of us rested. Before dark, Ria had gone back and was forcing us to get off our lazy butts since this was technically our last night in HK. Of the numerous stores we passed on our way to dinner, the one that caught our fancy was HOMELESS. When you have a tool wrench for a doorknob, you cant help but be curious at the stuff they had in their store. True enough, they had all this fancy, one of a kind items that would rival Ikea or maybe even Z Gallery. We had fun poking around and Maja even bought me a souvenir. Sweet.

For the third day in a row, we ate in Happy Garden again. Im sure you would think that by now we would be saturated with their food but as you can see, we were still very excited to eat at this place. As Maja so aptly described, we had a PIESTA! My rice quota for a month was ingested in that meal alone.






After dinner, we rolled ourselves over to the Star Ferry terminal where you could catch fantastic views of HK at night. It was actually a chilly evening but the skies were clear and it was our way of relieving ourselves of the sin of gluttony. Heehee. Our minds were dictating on us to head on over to Mongkok to do some night shopping but our bodies could no longer move. Even Ria had to raise the white flag! By 11, we were savoring our last night here as we took our slow stroll back to the hotel. Not to worry, we still have tom. for our last minute errands....

Out of Bounds

In the past, I used writing to relax me and to take me away from the stress of office work and family duties. But during the last few days, my stress reliever and guilty pleasure has been reading some heavy gossip on the net. I have been consumed by the Brian Gorrell blog and his outrageous stories about members of the Gucci Gang. At first, it was interesting but now, it's just turned into an ugly slugfest of hurtful words and accusations. So to veer away from that, I shall continue my beautiful adventure with my beautiful friends who don't indulge in alleged nefarious and illegal activities. Heehee.

When these girls say, be ready by 9 am, they are knocking on my door and ringing my doorbell by 8:59 am. For a person who goes through many rituals before dressing up, this was indeed a challenge to me. Unlike my roommate the bumbero (her term, not mine!), she can wake up at 8:30 and be out that door by 9. As you can see in the picture, almost all the shops along Granville are still closed as we make our way to the Star Ferry to take us to the Hong Kong Side.







Upon arrival at the IFC, lo and behold, the shops are still closed. Well, most of them were except for a few here and there. We decided to go inside Lane Crawford and look around all the latest clothes by those well-known fashion designers. The clothes looked really pricey, alam mong mamahalin sa tela palang! And of course, they didn't just look pricey. They were very expensive as well! Maja and I looked at one another and sighed. We turned our attention to the more affordable make-up counters and consoled ourselves with a few Shu Uemura purchases.



By 11:30, I was getting cross-eyed since I skipped breakfast to make it to my 9am call time. I convinced the girls to have lunch about the same time we chanced upon Crystal Jade. The first thing that struck me about the place were the words XIAO LONG BAO written underneath the restaurant's name. Yum! Memories of Shanghai. I was super excited to eat that soupy dimsum once again. And the place did not disappoint! We ordered just enough dimsum, yang chow fried rice, deep fried dumpling and spicy peanut noodle soup to get us through the afternoon for what would be....the Maja and Ria shopping extravaganza.

Maja directed our cab to the Hong Kong Island-South Horizons district better known as the Ap Lei Chau area. Its a good 30-minute ride from IFC and its already in the vicinity of Ocean Park. Talk about outskirts! Anyway, our cabbie brought us down at the SPACE outlet. This shop is Prada-owned and despite the fact that the clothes and leather goods were already of last season, the quality was still outstanding! Unlike Ross or Marshalls, you don't have to siphon through loads and loads of stuff before you find the one you want. In fact, it was like being in a Prada store at the mall. The one thing though I couldn't stand was having to deposit your handbag at the counter. Hassle because you have to hold on to your wallet while shopping.

After the SPACE outlet, we took another cab to the Horizon Plaza which was described to us as the Lane Crawford warehouse. OMG. This is where the girls literally went crazy. Marc Jacobs, Kate Spade, Pedro Garcia and all the other brand name designer shoes selling at 30% off. All the clothes and the bags and almost everything at the store was 30% off the discounted price. It was really a steal! Too bad I was wearing my killer boots because it was really a hassle for me to be taking them off and putting them on. It didn't seem to bother Maja and Ria though. They ended up with 5 pairs each! After going to about five more floors and with no more arms left to carry our shopping bags, we took a cab back to our hotel so that we could unload then shop again!



I had just dropped my shopping bags and was about to sit down when Maja and I hear someone knocking on our door. It was Ria and Jaz ready to go to Harbour Centre na. My gaaaaaaad. Patawad. I need to rest kahit 5 minutes lang. So the 2 giddy shoppers left us and headed straight for Canton Road. Maja and I left about 30 minutes after as we took a leisurely walk towards the Ocean Terminal. Look, look, shop, shop until we ended up in Toys R' Us. We finally met up with the 2 giddy shoppers and even bumped into old law school classmate Stef Baltao who also happens to be Ria's first cousin. From there, we dragged our aching feet to....you guessed it! Day 2 in Happy Garden. After having all the rice toppings we could eat, we headed towards the other end of Canton to the coveted LV store. I was so sad when Anna and Rica's bags were both out of stock! Its as if it was my loss as well. Heehee. Maja could no longer walk the mile so we took a cab back to the hotel after getting disappointed at the LV store.

Wala pa talagang 5 minutes, Ria and Jaz were at our door again! These girls take too much vitamins! As soon as we get down to Granville, I head to the first shoe store I see and buy myself a pair of FLAT shoes. It's really against my religion to wear them but at this stage of the game, I needed them to survive the rest of the trip. We go through the whole street, cross-over and make a few purchases and by 11pm, we call it a night. I can't believe we have 2 more days to go and I'm this tired! I must recharge....

Field Trip

Let me first introduce to you the Cast of Characters:
Ria - marathon walker, obsessive compulsive shopper, light packer and stilnox survivor
Jazmin - page one afficionado, tiger skecher, Zoie's personal shopper and my drinking partner
Maja - roommate, outlet researcher, injured foot and happy camper plus Me!

The four of us left our hubbies and children in Manila for 4 glorious days in Hong Kong! It wasn't all glitz and glamor though...we had our fair share of dot.com moments.

Even before we departed Manila, our adventure had already begun. Ria gets questioned by the immigration agent about her purpose in HK. In her most sarcastic tone, she exclaims "shopping!" while looking back at us as if mocking the immigration agent. Kami naman, natawa! Naku Lord, akala ko dun palang, ma-ka-cancel na ang field trip namin. Fortunately though, he was in a good mood and he just let Ria's remark pass. Just when we thought we were home free, we get stuck in the airplane for one hour because one passenger who already had a boarding pass got detained at immigration (ala Jun Lozada?!). As such, his luggages had to be unloaded thus causing the delay. After our one hour wait, we were treated naman to a very heated verbal exchange between two passengers. Ay ya yay. Passenger A was upset because Passenger B's son kept kicking his chair. When A began giving dirty looks and making snide comments, B became agitated and very defensive. With comments like -- "Gusto mo bang patayin ko ang anak ko?", "Para kang walang pinag-aralan!" and " Kung gusto mo ng VIP treatment, dun ka sa VIP plane pumunta!" -- we didn't know if we could make it out of NAIA!

After what seemed like forever, we touched down in HK at 10:30pm. Even if we had a bus waiting to transfer us to our hotel, we chose to ride the airport express so that we could get to our hotel faster. As soon as we got into the Ramada Kowloon, we all looked at one another and we burst into laughter. The room was kinda compact! And the bathroom was just double the size of the one in the airplane. Heehee. But I guess you get what you pay for! On a more positive note, the room was clean and the sheets smelled fresh. For the budget traveller, the Ramada Kowloon is a steal!

We dropped our luggages and with lightning quick speed, we walked to Canton Road for our first HK feast. We initially sat down at the Macau Restaurant on Lock Road but the girls didn't seem to be interested in trying something new. So we walked and walked until we reached Happy Garden. My girls were aghast when they found out I had never eaten there. After our meal, it was then that I realized why they were raving about this place. The food was gooooooood. I'm so glad I discovered something new.

With stomachs full, we made our happy trek back to our hotel occasionally stopping at the few open stores on Granville. We were eager to get some shut-eye to prepare us for the long day ahead....

Ground Zero

KB warned us that Saturday and Sunday would be the coldest days in our entire trip and his weather forecast proved to be accurate. During these days, the highest temperature was 5 degrees and it dipped to as low as zero degrees in the evening. My gaaaaad, it was freezing!

As mentioned in the last post, we decided to head back to Yuyuan since we were pressed for time during our first visit. We opted to have lunch at the World Famous Dimsum Restaurant located at the center of the Market. We weren't sure if that was just a description for the restaurant or its name was written in Shanghainese. Either way, the place turned out to be a treat! They had a variety of xiao long dim sum which I thoroughly enjoyed! My dad was also very happy because he found some pork siomai and hakaw -- low end dumplings according to our english speaking server. He was so frustrated with the xiao long bao! Lagi daw siyang napapaso! Heehee.




After lunch, we all parted ways. Cousins Inc. decided to spend the afternoon at the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum (SSTM), Samahang No Kids went to the Urban Planning Museum while the Oldies stayed at Yuyuan to indulge in a little retail therapy. The cab ride there was long and tedious. Just entertained ourselves by taking pictures of the busy streets and the huge and imposing structures. When we get to SSTM, we have to wait another hour as KB and family decide to take the train because they don't allow 4 adults plus one child in one cab. Hello! The 'adults' were aged 12 and 8! Oversized nga lang. Heehee.



Since so much time was wasted sa 'hintayan', we opted to just watch the 430pm showing at the IMAX theater instead of going around the SSTM. We were advised that two hours would not be enough to go around the whole area and so we wouldn't get our money's worth. Pero naman, yung movie, in Mandarin! Ano yon. Oh well, we might as well go along with the plan since we went all the way there na rin. Of course this did not seem to affect my two angels who were amused regardless of the chinese audio. After the movie, we made our way back to Nanjing for our 630pm appointment with the rest of the gang.


Since this would be our last stress-free dinner in the city, we opted for the buffet in the Tatler Restaurant at the JC Mandarin Hotel. To this family, buffet means eat until you can't breathe. Which is exactly what we did! Im sure nalito sa amin yung resto because even the kids were big eaters! They had to continously refill all the stations because parang dinaanan ng bagyo.

After dinner, the four of us crossed over to Plaza 66 to look around a bit and try to work out the calories we piled on. Plaza 66 is super high-end and you can go around the whole day without buying a thing. Ang mahal kasi! After our short stroll, we headed back to the hotel to get some sleep.

The 30th would be our last day here. As usual, we started at 11:00am na. We made our way to the Shanghai Uncle Restaurant as recommended by Dondi's HS pal and Shanghai resident Candy. I first caught a glimpse of the resto's ad in the cab we were riding. It looked a bit sleazy but open heart, open mind diba.

The place turned out to be the best restaurant we had eaten in! All the dishes we ordered were wiped out! We had noodles that looked like soba with little bits of chorizo sprinkled all over. It was also my first time to taste hamonado na duck (imagine duck jerkey). My dad also took a chance on boiled/braised pork. OMG. To die for. Melt in your mouth pork liempo--hard to explain. But my favorite dish was the shrimp wrapped in dory fish in black bean sauce. I wish I was one of those foodies who could eloquently describe a dish and its taste. But Im just your regular Joe and my kindergarten explanations will have to do. But you must, must try the Shanghai Uncle Restaurant while there. You will not be disappointed!

The rest of the afternoon was spent at the Westgate Mall on Nanjing Road. As mentioned, it was an extremely cold day and so we had to look for an indoor activity. This was also the only time we had to go shopping and buy something special for the kids. Believe it or not, I did not buy anything for myself. Nor did Reymond. We just bought remote control helicopters for the kids para lang masabi na may remembrance of Shanghai. It was just so cold (kahit indoors). It was difficult to enjoy the stores. Besides, hardly anything was on sale so we just saved our money. Dinner was just at the food court so that we could rush back to the hotel to pack up and catch our 12:30am flight to Manila.

To end our memorable holiday trip, KJ gets into a fistfight with a middle aged man at the airport, right before immigration. He, together with his children, my mom and her yaya get detained by the airport police. I was not around when the incident happened because I had to run to the restroom but as per the blow by blow account of the others in my group, nasingitan daw si KJ sa line and middle aged guy was talking down to him when he began to protest. Dahil bastos daw si middle aged man, binigyan daw niya. OMG. It was really a scary moment. I was so afraid to get stuck in this communist country where the term human rights is close to obsolete. Thankfully though, KJ had the sense to just swallow his pride and apologize to the parties concerned. We got delayed though for 40 minutes and everyone was giving us the evil eye when we entered the airplane. Oh well. Happy New Year nalang. What else could we say. We were just too happy to get on that plane and go home!

Ok ba? Ay naku. My family is never complete without any drama involved. So since nasa watchlist na kami sa Shanghai (heehee), I guess we'll have to settle for somewhere other than China next year. Abangan....

The Love Bus

It's not very difficult to get around the city because the taxis here are affordable and as long as you ask the concierge to write your intended destination in chinese characters, you will have no problem directing the driver to where you want to go. BUT since we were a group of 25, there was a degree of difficulty in gathering everyone and moving from one place to the next. Fortunately, our tour package comes with a half-day tour of Shanghai, complete with a nice warm bus and a very reliable tour guide in Alex.

Our first stop was the Jade Buddha Temple which is well, uhm, ahhh, ehhh --- just your regular temple. My newest discovery is that jade not only comes in green pala. Pwede rin ivory colored. They also had a reclining buddha --- but maybe just 1/100th the size of the more popular one in Bangkok. Look, look, snap, snap, struggle to get everyone back in the bus! Off to the Bund we go.



The most popular view of Shanghai you will see in all travel books and postcards is the view taken from the Bund. This area is the equivalent of our Roxas Boulevard and the Dhow Creek in Dubai. Accross the Bund, you will see the skyline of Shanghai with the Oriental Pearl Tower as its most prominent structure. Along the area, you will find restuaurants, coffee shops, benches to lounge on, people flying kites, food carts and vendors selling silly items such as the mutating pig. The toy is thrashed on the floor/wall/glass panel (dapat slippery surface) and instantly sticks like a blob. Afterwhich, it comes together again and in a few seconds, mutates from a blob back to a pig. Gets? Ay, very hard to describe but all the kids were amused! Lola Linda bought 7 mutating pigs for our 7 little rascals.

At this point, Dad is complaining that his head is already spinning due to extreme fatigue brought about by passing the lunch hour without eating. So off we go to the Tian Hao(?) Silk Worm Factory for our free lunch and tour around their premises. Its your usual tourist trap but I guess we are smarter now. You don't actually have to buy something! Lunch was not noteworthy nor was the factory and its goodies so I would rather not elaborate on it. The last stop for our tour was the Yuyuan Garden.



The Yuyuan Garden is a famous classical garden located in the Chinatown of Shanghai. Isn't that funny? Chinatown in China? Heniway, the garden was finished in 1577 by a government officer of the Ming Dynasty named Pan Yunduan. Yu in Chinese means pleasing and satisfying, and this garden was specially built for Pan's parents as a place for them to enjoy a tranquil and happy time in their old age.

The garden is located in the middle of the Yuyuan Market and it is a very busy place with hordes of people milling around. Alex was very strict with his instructions that we should stick together and that he would give us free time after the garden to explore the market. Obviously, the oldies did not listen to his plea. They were too busy negotiating with the street vendors that a trip to the garden that should've been over in 30 minutes stretched to an hour and a half. Ergo, no more free time for us.

While walking around the garden, Alessi decides to sit on a rock previously occupied by Yanna and Annika. Reymond had just put her down so he could rest his aching neck. In a blink of an eye, Alessi loses her balance and falls face first on a bed of rocks. OMG. I almost fainted when I saw the blood oozing from her lips. I was already bracing myself for the worst. Thankfully, after being checked by the 3 doctors in our group (naks), they were able to determine that her wound did not need stitches. But her lip was really swelling -- talo si Angelina. My poor baby. But then again, it could've been worse. So I'm just thankful it was nothing more than a lip wound.



Because of the deaf and disobedient oldies, we no longer had time to explore the market. Due to time constraints (the half day city tour had already stretched to 530pm!), we just decided to come back tom. to eat and explore the other side of Yuyuan.

Since we enjoyed our lunch yesterday, we opted to have dinner at the other branch of Meilongzhen along Nanjing Road. This particular branch was located in an old, authentic Chinese house so we give this resto 100 for ambiance. But the service--naku, poor! I consider myself patient compared to my parents and my brothers but even I was losing my temper with the very, very slow service. Ang bagal talaga. Duling na ang mga tao in between dishes. So my advice is, take the Meilongzhen at the Westgate Mall. Avoid the one on Nanjing Road at all costs!

We brought the kids back to the hotel and after dressing them down and depositing them to their lolas and yayas, the young ones decided to go 'templing' at Wujiang Road. This area is known for their street food and it caters more to the locals than to foreign visitors. Once again, we were demoted to pointing at food ordered by the surrounding table because NONE of the servers spoke english. Its a good thing this group is well versed in the art of sign language! Besides, Alex also provided us with a list of important words to remember (i.e. ice/cold=ping, etc.) so all we had to do was point to the food and to our list of words. We gave new meaning to the famous Filipino slang turo-turo!

After stuffing ourselves silly with food that only God knows where it came from, we made our journey back to Jin Chang. We were already dreaming of our dimsum lunch at Yuyuan tom.!

Lumpiang Shanghai

I did not find a single restaurant in this place serving my daughter's favorite lumpia. Instead I am greeted by the coldest weather I have ever experienced in my whole life! I had the bright idea of taking my family for our annual Christmas vacation to Shanghai without fully understanding the situation I was getting my entire clan into. As Maja would say, JUSKO. Shanghai was freezer temperature!

The good news is that we really got a good deal for this trip care of Cebu Pacific. Our airfare including accommodations, daily breakfast, airport transfers upon arrival and departure plus a city tour with a very able and learned tour guide cost us all but P16,000 buckeroos for each person. Beat that! If for that alone, this trip was well worth it.

We landed a little before midnight in the Paris of China. We are met by Alex -- a Shanghainese well-versed in the English language. We were so impressed by him! He brought us to the Jin Chang Hotel which would be our home for the next 5 days. Jin Chang is not 5-star! But it is clean, spacious and the staff could speak reasonably good english. In a land where hardly anyone can understand what you're saying, this is a very important consideration! Our daily breakfast though had much to be desired. If you want authentic food, then this is the hotel to go to! But if you are used to the typical omelettes, bacon, sausages, etc. then I suggest you order out the night before and then just save the meal for the next day. Heehee.










On our first day here, we head to Westgate Mall for lunch at the Meilongzhen Restaurant located at Level 6. My husband was dying of laughter because I initially told him we would be going to Gateway Mall. Ang layo naman daw ng Cubao from here! Ok, so Westgate pala! This mall is located on Nanjing Road--the equivalent of Nathan Road here. We chanced upon this restaurant while browsing thru the lonely planet book Paolo bought for Mom. We were treated to some great Shanghainese cuisine which consisted of basically your typical chinese food except it's less greasy and less prone to high blood! My newest discovery is their xiao long dim sum whose very unique feature is soup inside the dumpling. The others hated it and thought it was too messy to eat but I actually enjoyed it! Just be very careful though because the soup inside can burn! You just have to find a technique to it!


After lunch, KB directs us to their train system and we make our way to the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium. It is the biggest aquarium in Shanghai and reputed to be one of the most beautiful ones in the world. The Aquarium has a total built in area of 20, 500 square meters and it sits right beside the Oriental Pearl Tower. The kids had a blast! Ika nga ni Carlo, 'this is the best day of my life!' That boy is so sweet! I would recommend the SOA for anyone who will be visiting Shanghai with kids. Even a big kid like me couldn't help but be in awe of their exhibits!

But you know my family and we cannot have a vacation without any drama involved. KJ decides to hitch a ride back with us to the hotel since he got left behind looking for some USB cable wire he allegedly dropped inside the SOA. He obviously didn't find it in the 20,500 sq meter facility and so he kept muttering and cursing inside the cab for the whole ride. HASSLE. It didn't help too that we were travelling during the rush hour. What should have been a 20 minute cab ride that would typically cost 30 RMB stretched to close to an hour with double the fare! I was near tears!



We got back to the hotel barely in time to make our 630pm departure for the Chinese Acrobats show. This was a treat! Although it was at times bordering on freakish, it was entertaining nonetheless. They had the sisters with no bones, juggling hats, hoolahoop matrix, magicians, balancing on chairs, playground rollers, swinging in the air on a piece of cloth, going through hoops, etc, etc--man, these people did not stop moving for an hour and a half! The highlight of the evening was 4 crazy motorcycle riders inside a round metal cage going at each other's tail at what seemed like lightning quick speed! Grabeh! Sorry Gab, I was too busy watching the show that I forgot to press the REC button on my video cam! I'll try to see if my bro caught it on tape.

The show ended at 930pm and we were dog tired to go anywhere else. We were looking forward to our city tour tomorrow. Yipee! No more taxi cabs! At least for a day!