Hong Kong Day 3 – Australia Dairy Co., Times Square, Maxim MX, The Peak & Blue Girl Beer

Moving on to the 3rd day in Hong Kong. I think most of you would be curious to know where we stayed during our 8 days in HK right? Well, it’s a guest house in Yau Ma Tei, pretty run down from the outlook, but at least it has all the necessary amenities required. But I chose this mostly because the owner is a friend’s friend, and the charge was really cheap! Only HKD200/night for the room, which translates to RM90/night! Compared to a reasonable 3 star hotel that charged at least RM350+, I was saving RM250 per night for 6 nights. (OK, pardon the condition of the room, it wasn’t made up yet after a night’s sleep. )

Room in Hong Kong

For breakfast, we took the LRT to Jordan to have a taste of the Australia Dairy Co. The hot milk tea was very smooth, in fact, it was the best milk tea we had in Hong Kong.

Hot milk tea

We also had the iced-milk tea, which was very refreshing. Also, even when the ice-melted, it didn’t give me a diluted taste of the milk tea. Still tasted good!

Iced milk tea

The star of the day was Scrambled egg sandwich. I read from blogs saying that their famous dish was toasts with scrambled eggs on the side, but I didn’t know how to order that in Cantonese. So I just ordered ‘Dan chi’, which translates to Egg sandwich. It was marvelous! We ordered one portion first to try out, and even Saucer fell in love with it and we had a second order of the same thing! Very seldom we order same food (for the sake of variety), so when we do it, it means the food is GOOD! Crispy toast on the outside and warm and delicious eggs inside. Heavenly is close to what we felt.

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Egg sandwich

Another specialty here was the Steamed milk with egg white. It was my first time eating such a dish and it was surprisingly very smooth like tau fu fa. However, after eating a few more mouthfuls, I found it to be a tad too sweet. I would have preferred it more if it was less sweet.

Steamed milk with egg white

Milk bottles outside the shop

Australia Dairy Co

Australia Dairy Co
47-49 Parkes Street, Jordan

After the filling breakfast (it kept us full til about 3pm that day!), we went to the nearest MTR at Jordan to go to Central.

Jordan MTR station

I absolutely loved the convenience of HK public transportation. There is no place that we can’t reach with their comprehensive network! We reached Central in no time, and were greeted with a whole new outlook of HK. If what we saw in Mongkok were ancient and worn-out buildings, what we saw in Central was a total opposite condition! Lots of very modern skyscrapers everywhere. Very impressive.

Central buildings

Skyscrapers in Central

Saw this statue just outside the MTR station, wonder who he was?

Man statue

Buildings at Central

witch was here!

It was going to be a day to explore Central, so we just walked around and stopped at interesting places. I remember a friend telling me that Sogo and Times Square are popular shopping malls there, so we asked a local on how to get there. She directed us to take the double-decker electric tram, also called the ‘ting ting’ bus. This was the cheapest transportation in Central as the fare was just HKD2 flat to anywhere in the island. As I didn’t know when to get down or press the bell, I just informed the driver where I wanted to go and asked him to alert me when to get down. So yes, I didn’t get to press the bell.

witch and Saucer in ‘ting ting’ bus

View from the top deck of tram

Another electric tram on the opposite direction

An ambulance blaring beside us

What was this cyclist doing? So dangerous!

We got down eventually at Wan Chai, and started wandering around the area. There was a busy wet market near where we got down, and we went in to have a look. There was plenty of seafood in the market, and they were all very fresh!

Wet market at Wan Chai

Seafood stall

We went to Sogo for a short while after that, and found that everything was too expensive! It was very much like Starhill or Pavillion in KL. So, we proceeded to the next mall which was Times Square. After a few more directions from the locals, we managed to reach Times Square successfully. *Phew* Every building is so tall in HK that it is hard to actually spot a building from far. *LOL* As expected, there were many shops around Times Square, huge LCD screens displaying ads and lots of billboards all around us. Very colourful.

Times Square

Lane Crawford from afar

People on the streets

Since we went near the Halloween period, there was this quirky house built right in front of Times Square, called the ‘Home of Mrs Shopaholic’. Cute!

Home of Mrs Shopaholic

Furniture went crazy

Interior of Mrs Shopaholic’s home

witch at Mrs Shopaholic’s home

Pretty chandelier

Weird and scary paintings with jutting hands *gasp*

Giant size dress

Outside the home was the famous landmark of Times Square, the clock tower.

Times Square clock

It was past 2pm and we were tired walking. It didn’t help that my shoes were actually hurting my feet. So we started looking for a place to rest and have lunch. I actually noticed this shop called MX @ Maxim (Mei Sum in Cantonese) very frequently around Hong Kong area, so thought of heading there for lunch. But luck was not on our side. It just had to happen that when we weren’t looking for it, MX was always in our faces, but when we wanted to hunt for it, we simply couldn’t see it after walking up and down for ages! *Argh* But we persevered and asked more locals and walked and walked, eventually, we found the place after more than 3o minutes!

Maxim MX is actually a fast food outlet, very similar to Cafe de Coral. We ordered a plate of rice with assorted meat on top including BBQ pork, duck and cuttlefish. As usual, the rice was huge! But we were so hungry, we wolved it down in no time.

Rice with BBQ pork, duck and cuttlefish

The iced milk tea here was served differently. We ordered the Special smooth milk tea, where the ice was placed outside of the cup. This maintained the taste of the tea even when the ice melted. The ratio of milk to tea was also perfect, without overpowering each other. I guess Hongkies really know how best to make their milk tea.

Special smooth milk tea

The club sandwich came in a huge portion too! Each piece had a thick chunk of egg, ham, tomato and cucumber in between 3 slices of toasted bread. Very delicious and healthy. The fries were limp and soggy though.

Club sandwich

Guess what? Just for the sake of trying French toast in HK, we ordered one. I actually didn’t find it too amazing, compared to Kim Gary’s version. The peanut butter was scarce, and the crust of the bread was just not right. It was hard and bland.

French toast

After our late lunch, we took the electric tram to Admiralty. From here, we’re supposed to take a bus 12A to get to the tram station of The Peak. This is a little tricky. From the tram stop, we had to cross the road to the opposite side where there was a McDonald’s. The bus stop was at the side of McD’s. Also, you have to be clear to tell the bus driver that you want to go to the tram station of The Peak, not The Peak itself, because there’s actually another bus that goes directly to The Peak. Once we alighted from the bus, there were signboards directing us to the tram station, where the queue was starting to grow.

Waiting for tram

One more tip, if you want to see the view from the highest point of the peak, do purchase the combo ticket (HKD48) at the tram station, which includes return tram ticket + entrance to Sky Terrace. The ignorant me didn’t know what Sky Terrace was and just purchased the return tram tickets (HKD33). If you purchase the combo ticket at the base station, you could save HKD5/person.

The Peak Tram

Saucer and witch inside the Peak tram

Once we reached the station at the Peak, there was a mall with lots of shops and restaurants. I spotted Mr Bubba Gump there too!

witch with Bubba Gump

There was a long stretch of escalators to take to reach the Sky Terrace. Ticket to Sky Terrace alone costs HKD20, which was available at the entrance on top. But my oh my, it was so worth it. The view on Sky Terrace was spectacular. The sight was mesmerizing indeed, with so many colourful lights and buildings colouring the night sky. Simply breath-taking.

View from The Peak/Victoria’s Peak

witch at The Peak

Saucer and witch at The Peak

The night was also very windy and cold, simply romantic. It was slightly hazy, hence going at night would be a bit better than in the day time, I suppose.

The magnificent night skyline of Hong Kong

Billboards at Sky Terrace

History of the Peak Tram

Fabulous view

Us at The Peak

Just to show you the number of escalators we took to reach the Sky Terrace, I took this picture.

Escalators to Sky Terrace

Some sport entertainment outlet in The Peak

Outside the building

Malls at The Peak

The Peak Galleria

Walking outside the tram station, you would see a gazebo with a view of Hong Kong too.

Booth at The Peak

Gazebo at The Peak

After staying there to our heart’s content, we decided to descend for dinner. This was the place where we waited for our tram.

At the tram station

Once we reached the base station, we took the bus 15C to get to the ferry terminal. Yes, we’re going to take the ferry to cross over to Tsim Tsa Tsui (TTT). Even on the ferry itself, we were granted amazing views of HK.

View from ferry

Saucer admiring the view

Luckily the ferry ride was short and not as choppy as the one I had from Macau.

Flags at TTT

Gigantic billboard at the jetty

Since we were not that hungry yet from the late lunch, we decided to head back to Yau Ma Tei for dinner/supper. From TTT, we followed the signboards to walk to the East TTT MTR station. Along the walk, we passed by this picturesque hotel which was Hotel Peninsula. Couldn’t stop ourselves from camwhoring here.

Fountain at Peninsula hotel

Hotel Peninsula, Hong Kong

The Peninsula

witch at The Peninsula

It was nearly 10pm by the time we had dinner. *gasp* But the streets of HK were still alive, so were many of the restaurants. We chose a restaurant nearby where we stayed to experience the famous street side ‘dai chow’, complete with beer! Saucer saw many locals drinking this blue bottled beer and asked for it from the restaurant. It’s known as ‘Lam Mui’ or Blue Girl in English. The beer was very good! I’m someone who cannot accept the taste of beer because they’re always too bitter for me. Surprisingly, this Blue Girl beer agreed with my taste buds and it was very smooth and easy to drink.

Blue Girl lager beer

Table settings

Table by the streets

I wanted to order fried ‘lala’ or clams, so I told the waitress just that. But she looked at me quizzically, as if she didn’t understand me. I tried to describe the look of it in Cantonese, and even went to their aquarium to point it out. *LOL* And it turned out that they call it ‘hin’ instead of ‘lala’. How embarrassing! The fried clams were very fresh, and full of flavour. Coincidentally, the way they cooked it was very similar to how Malaysians fried it, so it was compatible with our taste buds.

Fried clams or ‘hin’

I also ordered ‘ku lou yuk’ or sweet and sour pork, and luckily this time, she understood what I was ordering, even though they don’t refer to it as ‘ku lou yuk’ locally. Just look at the plate of pork served! The portion was humongous! And each piece was huge and flavourful as well, without unwanted chunks of fat that sometimes you could find in Malaysian shops. I loved this dish to bits, even though we had a hard time finishing it due to its large size.

Sweet and sour pork

Last but not least, we ordered a fried mee with soy sauce, or ‘si yau chau min’. This was pretty normal and a tad oily. It was a little bland too, but luckily we had the flavourful pork and clams to eat with, so it turned out pretty good.

Fried mee with soy sauce

Ahh what a bliss to eat at 10pm and sleep at 11pm huh? Fattening! But oh so worth it. That meal marked the end of our 3rd day adventure. Really, everyday was an exciting adventure in Hong Kong, never a boring moment.

*Note: Read the rest of my Hong Kong Escapade here!