After much thought and planning (mostly my part), we have decided for a holiday to Hong Kong with the girls, when Zaria still enjoyed infant rate for her flight, and no admission charges to any of the theme parks.

The week before we left for Hong Kong, I had dinner with my dad. Seeing the girls running here and there and could not sit still during dinner, my dad shook his head and said, “I don’t know how you are going to handle them in Hong Kong.” And seriously, I didn’t know how we were going to survive. Unlike most people who would only go with the older child, or bring along the maid or a relative to help, we braved Hong Kong as a family, just us 4, planning for the worst.

We left a day after Jelly has gone home for her holidays. We were blessed with dry, sunny weather, with temparature around 20 degrees.

♥14th Dec♥
We got on a late flight and arrived in Hong Kong at 10:30pm. 1st night hotel was Novotel Citygate at Tung Chung which is near the airport; since Daddy didn’t want to tax the girls by travelling all the way downtown to spend the night.

By the time we got into our room, it was already 12am. Zaria had knocked off, and Zara had a quick wash up, and went straight to bed.

I didn’t know we were actually near the Citygate Outlets, until I read the brouchers I picked up from the hotel lobby.

♥15th Dec♥
I realised the Citygate Outlets were actually attached to our hotel. I told Daddy maybe he should stay in the room with the girls, while I went shopping. His reaction, “You want to start shopping on the FIRST DAY itself?” (Why not?) “And I thought we’re here to see the Giant Buddha?” Grrr.. So there goes my shopping plan.

For breakfast, I walked over to the supermarket near our hotel to grab some croissant, bread, fruit juices, soya bean and had them in the room, so we can eat in peace. (All breakfasts for the next few days were eaten in the room except on our last day)

After breakfast, we checked out, and left our luggage with the hotel, and started our journey to see Tung Chung. A whistle was looped around Zara’s neck, so she could whistle for our attention if she were lost, and a leash was attached to Zaria every time we went out. Thus began our visit.

Girls marveling at the water fountains just outside the Citygate Outlet mall (while mummy marveled at the shop display). Spot Zara’s daily companion the whistle, and Zaria’s leash.

If only I could shop I would be as happy.

Tung Chung is famous for the outlet shopping Ngong Peng 360 cable car ride and the Giant Buddha, the cable car will bring you all the way to the Ngong Peng Village where the latter is.

It was a ~30mins ride on the cable car, with very scenic view of the mountains in Lantau Island and the sea.

One of the few rare shots of the Zaria smiling especially with Zara’s arms around.

Extremely stable (even when the wind is howling) and scenic ~30min ride on the Ngong Peng 360 cable car.

Besides the Giant Buddha, surrounding Ngong Peng, there are some really nice walking paths. I especially like the walk to the Wisdom Path, where you find 8~10m high wood columns with Chinese calligraphy arranged in the ‘infinity’ symbol on a slope of a hill.

For most part of our trip, we were amazed at the girls’ ability to walk for long period of time, and when they got tired, they took turns to be seated on the stroller or to be carried.

Girls were very happy to spot some Nutcrackers as Christmas display in hotels, and this one, in Ngong Peng.

Love this shot of Zaria on Daddy’s shoulder, with the Giant Buddha at the back, taken just before sunset.

Just before sunset (~5pm), we took the cable car back to Tung Chong. I requested for some time to shop at the outlet mall. With Daddy constantly asking, “Is it really cheaper here?” “Do you want to lug that all the way back?” “Are you done yet?” and the girls going wild in the shops, I only managed to spend like 30mins in Esprit (in the whole Outlet mall) and bought myself some really cheap tops and a pair of pants. Grrrr..

We left Tung Chong with some food stuff from the supermarket (and our luggage of course) and took the MTR to our next stop.

When we got to the Disney’s Hollywood Hotel, Goofy was doing his round at the lobby. Without warning, Zaria just dashed towards him, ignoring the queue of people who wanted a photo with him, and gave him a hug, and since then, every time Disneyland was brought up, she will say, “Goofy loves me!” and “I love Goofy very much.”

I don’t know why there were lots of bad comemnts about Disney’s Hollywood Hotel. To me, it’s perfectly fine. There’s a robe and slippers for kids, they folded the small towels into animals, and knowing we got 2 young kids, they even installed 2 bed guards on our 2 queen beds. The only complain is, the beds were a bit too high, I had to put a chair in between the beds to act as a stepping stool for the girls.