Chinese New Year in Hong Kong

This comes a bit late but I figure better late than never, I suppose. Life has been busy as usual and it does take a while before I get the motivation to write on this blog. Without further ado, here are a few things that I did for Chinese New Year in Hong Kong.

CNY came as a huge surprise because of how quiet it was. Suddenly, almost everything was closed and the streets were devoid of people - a first. One place that's usually quiet but full of people, however, were the temples.


The statues at Wong Tai Sin temple were decked out in bright red ribbons.


In Macau, the Amah Temple was setting off firecrackers.


A visiting friend and I also braved the HUGE crowds in the Chinese New Year fair/flower market in Victoria Park.



Such colourful plants and flowers!


The Che Kung Temple is a popular destination for CNY. A few Chief Executive candidates went the date before I did.



What to do when you're at the Che Kung Temple during CNY: spin the wheel of fortune and bang the drums to herald the New Year!


For some reason, buying whirligigs is very common around this time. I got a little one though there were big ones as well!


There was also tons of CNY paraphernalia! So cute!


The Mandarin Oriental also heralded the new year with this centrepiece in the cake shop!

Cake cake cake cake cake cake cake

So I have to make a confession. I have an obsession. With desserts. Yum. So when I found out that the cakes at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Central were absolutely fabulous, I would not rest until my foodie friend came with me to the fancypants hotel (which was intimidating to my proletarian soul) to try it.

All I can say is yum. I got a lychee raspberry mousse. The flavours were amazing and fresh and the texture was creamy but light.



My friend got a chocolate cake which I took a bite of. Also very delectable.


Here were some cakes on display. Yum.

Can you believe this teddy bear was made of cake?



I love this rose pattern. This could appear in the Sunday Sweets section of Cakewrecks.


So adorable!



A cake modeled after their famous rose-petal jam.


I plan on trying every single cake they make before I go home.

HAPPY NEW YEAR~!

It's been 2012 for 2 hours already in Hong Kong and the festivities are dying down.

So what do people do for the solar new year here? Well, there are parties in Lan Kwai Fong (aka the expat district) and a countdown at Times Square and then as always, an occasion for people to take pictures of stuff aka a fireworks display at Victoria Harbour.

Let me tell you now - watching these fireworks may seem like a tame activity but it is not something for the faint of heart. First of all, there are massive crowds. The main thoroughfare in Kowloon, Nathan Road, was pretty much pedestrianized and shut off from normal traffic. Then there was the harbour. The Avenue of Stars was PACKED. Did I also mention that we were there starting at 9PM? (The first little display - a star on the ifc and a little firework shooting from the roof - was at 11PM...) Here is a picture of all the people standing directly behind me.


And when I mean packed like sardines, I mean, there were awkward moments when the lady beside us was shimmying up and down in front of her man friend. I dunno what they were doing but the awkward turtle was definitely swimming about. My friend also got an elbow in her ribs for prolonged periods of time.

My friend and I couldn't get a viewing spot by the Avenue of Stars and had to settle for a spot near the Ocean Terminal shopping mall. Or near the ostentatious ad for Toy Storyland to be precise. We couldn't see the fireworks that were blowing up from the buildings left of the ifc but at least we got a clear view of the ifc. It was a grueling wait. We literally stood in our spots packed like little sardines for 3 HOURS. (Yes, we're crazy, I know.) Starting at 11PM, the ifc would have a little star on it and a little firework would go off. This happened every 15 minutes and each of the stars were different colours to symbolize different things. I only bothered to take a picture of the red star, which is supposed to symbolize love.


And finally, in the last minute (literally), there was a countdown (the crowd around me was counting down in Cantonese) and fireworks! Cool! Though it should've been way cooler with all that waiting we did. (I didn't take a picture of the fireworks because I figured I should fully enjoy the spectacle after waiting for so long.)


My friend and I lingered for a bit before heading back but in the end, we still had to face... THE CROWDS. You seriously don't understand unless you've been there. Crowds and crowds of people filling the sidewalk and the road on Nathan Road. Police blocking certain streets for crowd control. Crowd control was pretty well done though I'll have to wait for tomorrow's news to see if anything horrible happened. (Can you spot the foreigner in my picture of a crowd?)

Foreigners tend to stick out literally because of their height. LOLs.

Anyways, whatever you did, I hope everyone has a great 2012~!

I thought I was in Florida for a moment...

I was at the Gold Coast beach the other day and ate dinner to this glorious sunset. The bus ride there was long but absolutely gorgeous. The Gold Coast doesn't have that many high-rise apartment buildings but there are a lot of palm trees. If I ignored the few apartment buildings in the area... and the mountains, I would've thought that I was in Florida.

Christmas in Hong Kong

So Christmas has passed but Hong Kong is still in Christmas mode. For a region that's not particularly Christian but very consumerist, let's just say that Christmas is just another excuse to shop and take pictures with cool stuff. There's no snow in Hong Kong but there's a ton of "Christmas" decorations. Well... ostentatious sparkly stuff that's somewhat related to Christmas.

Exhibit A:


The Christmas Tree at the New Town Plaza in Shatin.

Then there are Christmas trees that are blatant displays of the commercial side of the holidays.

A tree made of fake Ferrero Rochers in Tsim Sha Tsui.


A Toy Story-related Christmas tree in Ocean Terminal in Tsim Sha Tsui. A huge ad for HK Disneyland's new Toy Storyland was outside.

Some Christmas decorations were kind of simple, classy and pretty, like these twinkle lights, at Lane Crawford in TST.


Other times, it was kind of random...


Times Square in Causeway Bay.

And then sometimes, you had no clue what the hell is going on...


Megabox in Kowloon Bay.

Sometimes you had some decorations that were really gorgeous...


This is right under the super long escalator at Langham Place.

... Only to have it marred by some random Hello Kitty stuff that's somehow related to Christmas.


(I didn't take either of the Hello Kitty pictures, they were taken from the internet.)

Sigh. I'm literally dreaming of my white Christmases, though there wasn't one this year in Toronto.

Well, on a brighter note, at least the only Hannukah display I could find was not a moment of sensory overload!


At the statue garden in Central.

Happy holidays, everyone and happy new year!!!

TOY STORY LAND

Disney recently opened Toy Story Land and as a result, the people of Hong Kong are bombarded with images of Buzz, Woody and the rest of the crew on T-shirts, mugs and all sorts of paraphernalia in all sorts of shops. But of course, that's not enough. Disneyland also had to put a gigantic ostentatious Toy Story installation in TST. Admittedly, I enjoyed it quite a bit even though there were a ton of people.





I think I'll post some pictures of Christmas around HK soon.

An army of Barbies...

I was at Causeway Bay a few weeks ago and these were on display at Times Square. I don't know if I'm fascinated by the fashion aspect or slightly terrified at the sheer number of blonde plastic dolls staring at me.