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| Stanley Market |
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| congee breakfast |
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| Mila's Spanish Restaurant (Stanley) |
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| T in Hau Temple (Stanley) |
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| view from Stanley pier |
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| dinner at Ladies Market |
Sunday 2nd October
This morning we woke up late again. Housekeeping woke us up and Ant answered the door in a very groggy state. She didn't need to be told to come back later after looking at his expression.
After taking our time in getting ready while discussing where we wanted to go, we decided on Stanley Market. According to our tourist guide, there are three different ways to get to Stanly and each involved a train and a bus. We went with the one where we had to train it to Tsim Sha Tsui and then catch the 973 bus from Canton Road. It involved less walking.
Before leaving the Hotel, we popped by Concierge to ask about the House of Dancing Water show on Macau Island. Tickets cost $1,800 for Zone A (premium) seating and the ticket price included return hotel transfers, return ferry ride, lunch and a tour of Macau. Concierge gave us the bad news that HK was again on Typhoon alert. It was only Category 1 but he recommended that we not go to Macau because we may be stranded there if it went to a higher category. Disappointing.
The public transport system in HK is very efficient; we didn't have to wait more than five minutes to catch both the train and then the bus. The bus ride took close to an hour. It wasn't too bad thought because for $14.60 we got to see quite a few areas. We also drove past Ocean Park! Stanley is located on the promenade next to the ocean so was a very scenic ride. We saw Repulse Bay beach and Deep Water beach. The area definitely has an up-market feel. However bargaining is still allowed at stalls. We arrived at about 2pm and strolled along the shops along with the rest of the tourists; it was a miserable day because it was raining since morning. I had forgotten the umbrella on the bus and remembered after we had disembarked. Luckily the door was still open so Ant jumped back on to retrieve it. Good thing too or we would have gotten soaked.
At 3:30pm we decided to have lunch at Milas which happened to have a Spanish Buffet between 3 to 5pm. It's an interesting buffet style because besides the food on display, they also provided a menu listing about six dishes that are made to order. These were appetizer sized meals which were presented beautifully albeit in small portions. Not knowing how small the portions were, we only ordered three dishes to share because we didn't want to look greedy. But we were generous with the food on display. Well at least I was. The buffet price only included tea and coffee. So we ordered a cup of tea at the start. And then we ordered another cup towards the end. When the bill came, we found they had charged us for the second cups because only the first cup was included!
After lunch we decided to leave because it was going to get dark soon. We hopped on to the bus with some very loud Philippinas and two Australian couples. Ant's ipod was a very welcome alternative to listening to their chatter.
We got off the bus at Admiralty and caught the train back to the hotel. After re-packing, we went to Ladies Market because Ant wanted his Adidas ipad case. We walked through the long line of stalls twice but could not find the stall.
Dinner was at a restaurant behind one of the stalls. I had a yummy hot pot wontons with rice and hotpot bbq chicken in noodles for Ant with spicy deep fried wings to share. And iced tea. It's the most popular drink here.
On the way back to the Hotel we saw that our nearest Foreign Exchange offered a decent rate of 7.3. So Ant changed the last of our Australian dollars. We learnt today that you can also bargain for better exchange rates! It was by accident; we had asked for the rate at a foreign exchange and as we were walking away, the lady offered us a better rate. Still too low for us unfortunately. But we learnt a lesson: you can even bargain for better rates at a HK foreign exchange!
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