After a day at the beach with the salt water and sand, there is one thing i desire to do; an area for me to wash up so that i do not have to endure the stickiness on my skin and sands dirtying our room back in the hotel / resort.
It's always good to visit the washrooms before we take the local transport and while there's no private bathroom like what we encountered after Similan Islands (via Seastar Andaman Tour); i am happy to be able to just wash my feet after my four islands tour at Krabi.
You can consider washing up using the pail in the toilet but do keep in mind the fine of 1,000 baht if we were to contravene their "no shower in toilet" rule!
Problem is; i am not comfortable to wash my feet at the above area outside the washroom! Brownish and god knows how long the water was already there! I could have use the same pail in the toilet to wash my feet but i found a better option.
This huge water tub behind the washroom! So if you were at Nopparat Thara Pier, do remember the water tub at the back of the washroom where you can wash your feet with clean tap water.
I have been focusing quite a bit on Kovan Food Centre recently but there's actually another hawker centre in the vicinity and it's within a walking distance of less than a kilometer!
Hougang 105 Hainanese Village Hawker Centre, also known as Lorong Ah Soo Hawker Centre in the past, has an interesting name resulting from its location which used to house the uncommon Hainanese village in a predominantly Teochew region.
It's not my first visit although my last one was quite a number of years ago! In my search for good food, the appearance of a queue is somewhat a reliable gauge and the longest i found at the hawker centre was from the above Yong Seng Teochew Fishball Mee.
My order - mee pok dry fish ball mee (no pork liver) and a serving of their deep fried beancurd skin. The latter was one of six available sides that were featured prominently on the signboard; prayed it would be good.
Fried Beancurd Skin - let's start with this first. The other five sides were popiah, tau kwa, fish cake, ngoh hiang and handmade fish cake. The one i had came with the chilli sauce dip and it tasted suspiciously similar to the ones you get from wuxiang prawn cracker stall.
Delicious and crispy, there seemed to be a thin layer of fish / sotong paste wrapped in the middle of the skin before it was rolled up. Even though nice on its own, you can use the accompanying dip for that extra oomph. I have a question; why was this item not offered in our typical wuxiang prawn cracker stalls?
Mee Pok Dry Fish Ball Mee - to be honest, i thought this was more a minced meat rather than a legit fishball noodle and this stemmed from experiences with teochew fishball noodles before (click here).
I had mine with chilli and vinegar and while it was flavourful with a generous serving of crispy pork lard; my personal preference is still Li Xin. In addition, the fish balls seemed to have a rougher texture. Broth, surprisingly, was tasty and would make a perfect base for fishball / meatball soup.
100 baht, most expensive, was way beyond my budget and i settled for the second cheapest at only 25 baht! The lady boss immediately put it into a metal grill basket and toasted over burning charcoal.
By itself, the grilled squid would still be a bit too tough to bite off and that's when the above roller equipment came into the picture; it would help to tenderize the texture and make it nicer to chew.
Delicious on its own with that good, old smoky taste; i would personally prefer if it can be a bit more charred though. For an extra layer of flavour, you can also dip it into the accompanying sauce (consisted of sweet chilli and peanuts).
I have been to quite a few observation decks in Asia and frankly; despite my fear for height, i do enjoy visiting them as the view up there is usually spectacular! Hence, it would be a great injustice if i were to remove sky100 from my Hong Kong itinerary!
Located on the 100th floor of International Commerce Centre and connected to the Kowloon MTR station, the published rate of HKD $188 (about S$33) for Hong Kong's highest indoor observatory was a bit steep. This is when KLOOK comes into the picture as i paid only S$23.49; a discount of about 30%.
It was so tempting to get the fridge magnets as souvenirs but i would be crazy to pay S$7! Okay, maybe i will if it's more than just a picture imprint which i could have replicate to a certain extent using my DSLR and some photoshop editing.
Looks like some kind of 3D projection that's similar to the Singapore Light Festival. In its 10th installment this year, i am ashamed to admit that i have never checked it out. Maybe i should this year.
Mystical passage; am i travelling in a time machine?!
High speed lift bringing us from the 2nd to 100th floor in mere 60 seconds! I was impressed with the use of television on the lift ceiling; it countdowns to the second and the use of clouds as background made it seemed like we are shooting into the sky!
If only the floor had a television screen showing the ascent; away from the ground. That would have been so cool!
A display screen above the buttons reflected the date, time, humidity and temperature. And i don't think i have shared that we would be at a height of 393 meters in a few moments!
The 100th floor.
Walking along Victoria Habour; arguably one of the most famous one in the whole world, it felt as if we were on high heavens although the sunken, drawn to scale model wasn't that realistic. Oh well, can't help being a bit imaginative.
The view beckons....
It's not the first time i have mentioned that the skyline of Hong Kong is drop dead gorgeous! There were just so many skyscrapers, commercial and residential, and it's amazed how the government manages to squeeze so many of them!
Even Alex was in awe!
Ranked 13th on TripAdvisor for the things to do in Hong Kong; i found it baffling that the crowd was pretty thin on a Sunday afternoon! Anyway, better for Alex and I as we hate to jostle for photo spots with tourists; some can be so rude and inconsiderate.
Looking like a ship from far; the building in white is actually a private clubhouse called Pacific Club. Guess i wouldn't be able to afford it anyways. Even if i could, i think money can be better spent elsewhere.
Terminal for the iconic star ferry! I had planned beforehand and that would be our next destination after sky100. It seemed so near yet it took us quite a while to reach the terminal; shall explain later.
Hong Kong Island ahead of us!
This short building, amidst the giants in the area, is the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. Right outside is The Forever Blooming Bauhinia sculpture; "a gift from the Central Government to mark the 1997 handover".
I can see the Peak Tower from sky100! If i can see it from here, i guess i can safely assume the visibility at Victoria Peak would be fine. Turned out i was dead wrong as conditions at night were way different. How i know? Because we decided to drop by The Peak later that same evening.
For such a built-up island, one would assume there would be bridges connecting Hong Kong Island with the mainland. Surprisingly, there isn't any even though there are three underground road tunnels; one of them, the Western Harbour Crossing, was right next to International Commerce Centre.
I absolutely didn't know that the landmass is Lantau Island; from this angle, we can't see the airport, Disneyland or even Ngong Ping 360 / Tian Tan Buddha. p.s. the top was taken by me whereas the bottom one was the photo on display in the observatory.
In-house binoculars at HKD $20 per use. If i am not wrong, this is an advanced version with the capability to show four different viewing modes; e.g. night.
Gift shop - just like Naise in Singapore; it's has a ton of souvenirs of Hong Kong food, history and culture! For example, dim sum coaster, roasted goose toy. Similar to Naise; the pricing doesn't come cheap.
Replica of a busy street in Hong Kong; when i was young, i told myself i would get these miniature toys when i am an adult and build a mini city. Well, i can only say that the adult life has a lot of other commitments.
Upload your photos to Instagram and hashtag #sky100 so that they would appear on the screens! Hmmm.... is it instantaneous? If it's the case, people can just anyhow post photos (of cute dogs, cats etc) and hashtag #sky100.
A favourite activity by many travellers; sending a postcard back to their home country. Now, i don't really get it as the postcard costs money, i need to pay for stamp, i need time to write on the postcard and lastly, my handwriting sucks! Furthermore, what if the postcard gets lost in the mailing process?!
What were these tripping hazards doing on the floor? Don't discount them as they are a necessity to this augmented reality app by sky100; click here for more information! It's so fun!
International Commerce Centre is "the tallest building in Hong Kong"; standing at 484-meter tall, there is a total of 118 floors. Sky100 is on the 100th floor; and right above us is another 18 floors that're under The Ritz-Carlton, Hong Kong; darn luxurious!
A filming location for this "cold war" Hong Kong movie. I remember watching the show, which starred Aaron Kwok and Tony Leung, but my memory is fuzzy; didn't remember the scene at all.
And i personally think the scenery here is better.
Should you have plenty of time, i think it would be relaxing to order a drink or two, and spend the whole day at the cafe as the day goes into the night.
I have no idea when this was updated but to date; the International Commerce Centre is ranked 13th in terms of heights and according to Wikipedia, three new buildings have made it to the top 10 list. They are Goldin Finance 117 (Tianjin, 596.6 meters), Tianjin CTF Finance Center (530 meters) and China Zun (Beijing, 528 meters).
What i enjoy most form sky100 is this 28-meter long story wall; it contained nuggets of interesting information about Hong Kong, including things like the use of bamboo scaffolding (which is highly regulated profession), the reason for the setback architecture for some of the older buildings etc.
For me, the information that caught me by surprise was the origin for the naming of Hong Kong. It was a matter of miscommunication as the British assumed the whole island was called Hong Kong when it was meant to refer to a nearby port that's important for the incense trade.
This was interesting; the Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance! Another notable festival was the Cheung Chau Bun Festival. I actually like to cover such festivals but the expected crowd is an off-putting factor.
Enhancement work in progress; as you can probably deduce, the use of technology is so prevalent now and i think it's important if you wish to draw visitors.
As expected; a lot of photographs given the 360-degree surroundings.While it's an eye-opener to see so many stacks of tall buildings in close proximity; it might not be conducive as a living space though. I can just imagine the neighborly issue, the transport woes, lack of parking lots etc etc etc.
I love free gift! Did the survey online; show it to the gift shop and i got this plastic thing that you can paste over your phone and it can act as phone ring holder.
It was mentioned earlier that it took us a while to get to the tsim sha tsui terminal for star ferry; reason being there was a protest and aside from closing roads, some of the MTR exits were also locked down. That could have also explained the low attendance for the observatory. Click here for more photos!
Preparing the phone; for time-lapsed videos! It's great to have a ledge where i could just leave my phone and let the recording do its job; no more shaking videos!
