Hong Kong Trip Day 3 : Ngong Ping 360 & Review of Disney's Hollywood Hotel

Hi guys!

Writing this while feeling super tired with a sore butt from sitting down in the car for most of the day. We went to my great grand parents' grave in Lawang (for Qing Ming, i wrote a little about this festival last year, i've already linked it up if you're interested in reading) which is normally 1.5 hours drive from Surabaya but became super long especially on the way back today because it's a national holiday and everybody (like, 80% of Surabaya populations it seems) are driving back after spending the long weekend at neighboring, touristy towns so even the highway was jammed (worsened because there seems to be a big accident involving a bus on the highway. I wish people would drive more safely, Indonesian drivers are really scary sometimes!). Even the graveyard was really crowded with people paying respects to their late relatives.

Not only we were stuck in the car for hours, we also had difficulties finding food! LOL. The first restaurant we went ran out of food (at only 2 PM!) and at the second (where we finally, barely, dined) was like SUPER crowded we waited for around an hour for our food to arrive (and hunny had to guard the server to make sure they did not skip our order!), even then only majority of the food actually arrived and half of the drinks *LOL*. Whatta chaotic day.

More bad news (for me, not for you), i told you in my previous post that i am planning another trip with my cousin L and how it's super hard for her to follow through with any plan? Yeah, i'm proven right within 24 hours. LOL. She just informed me that she might not make it for this trip. ZZZ. I am now totally torn, i just got some news from my mum that we're going to have to do a lot of travel locally to attend some cousins' wedding (all in places that we can only reach using airplane) and the time frame's very packed. I don't even know anymore if i can go through with the original plan (i planned to go with just hunny if she bails), it seems like our travel schedule's already very full without the extra trip. Sigh. What am i gonna dooo *bawl*, so much plans so little time! Damn, i feel like a year is very very short now, it's already April for goodness sake, a quarter of 2014 passed by in a flash!!! I'm totally starting to freak out here pffffftttt.

Okay okay, enough panicking. Let's begin with the original intention of this post *LOL*. We went to Ngong Ping 360 on day 3 of our Hong Kong trip!

Three of us at Ngong Ping 360, Valentine's Day 2014

But, of course as one of the most elaborate blogger out there, i need to start from the very beginning :p. Rewind to the morning still in Eaton Hotel! It was Valentine's Day, even though we didn't have a romantic dinner like we usually do, it was a very very special Valentine's Day because we get to spend it together, just the three of us! In wonderful Hong Kong! Should we make it a tradition? Trio travel every Valentine's Day?

My onigiri breakfast (yes, from 7-Eleven of course! LOL)

My obsession with foods from 7-Eleven is seemingly getting out of hand! I just talked to my hunny about the possibility of changing direction of the adult trip i desperately want to have and was like "I miss Hong Kong, how about we just go back to Hong Kong? Two of us?" and he answered "Sure, but i don't want to eat 7-Eleven food anymore!!!". LOL!

Anyway.. Another attempt of  #OOTD with half-bodied mirror :p

I LOVE this jacket, it's one of my favorite jacket at the moment. I simply love the flare of the skirt!!!

Not to mention it has wired bunny ears on the hoodie that you can shape according to your mood haha, cute max!

View from Eaton Hotel on a clear day!

One more thing that i'd like to point out about Eaton Hotel's staffs (well, all of the hotels that we stayed in Hong Kong, actually!) is that they're very helpful, they would explain in detail every direction we asked with patience (because we have a slight language barrier since they mostly do not speak English really well), thumbs up! 

We're transferring to Disney's Hollywood Hotel that day, the easiest way to get there is obviously with taxi (duh), but where's the fun in that? We want to go there using the Disney MTR! In the end we decided to ride a taxi to an MTR station that is the last platform exchange (because we rode the MTR the day before from Jordan station and it was SUPER CROWDED, not to mention the door's super scary they'd close it no matter what *unlike in Singapore where if someone's still in the door they would automatically opened again so nobody will be crushed by the door!* very fast! Someone's coat actually got stuck in the car and she was screaming and clawing frantically once! Thankfully the door opened again so the poor woman wasn't dragged or anything scary like that! We so do not want to deal with that bringing our luggage and Baby Boy!), Lai King station!

At a bus stop opposite Lai King Station. Weather was really nice that day, bright but cold of course haha at least it didn't rain at all that day!

Hahahaha Baby Boy wearing his daddy's super sized jacket

Going to Sunny Bay station

Seriously, the wandering eyes starting to get on my nerves!!!

The Disney resort MTR! Too bad it was SUPER crowded that time so we couldn't take pictures leisurely, but not to worry, we had the MTR to ourselves later that night and took more pics!

Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse

Cute Disney MTR!

Welcome to Disneyland Resort Station! Very very special station, looks a bit Hogward-ish!

Even the lift's shaped like wooden doors :)

Ahhhh! Disneyland!!! Baby Boy got very excited *LOL*

Had to calm him down because we're not going to Disneyland that day (we're going the next day!). Since my Baby Boy actually can take decent pictures already, we attempted to get one there, please excuse the angle since he's still very little *LOL* so low shot's all we can get.

Then we caught the shuttle bus that goes back and forth to the hotels (there are two hotels in Hong Kong Disneyland resort). The bus that we rode in was really cute, painted with Mystic Manor pictures, unfortunately i didn't have time to snap a full picture of the bus because the uncle might drive away and leave us there!

Only managed to snap this hahahaha

Selca in the shuttle bus *LOL*

Welcome to Disney's Hollywood Hotel!

We (well, i actually) chose this Hollywood Hotel instead of the other one was because not only the other hotel's a million rupiah more expensive, i was also more interested in modern styled hotel than the castle inspired one. Mostly because of the million lah WTF. Even this hotel's already IDR 3.500.000/night, i'm a budget traveler mostly (even though i cannot call myself a backpacker, obviously) so i usually stick to hotels under IDR 1.500.000 per night, but for the Valentine's Day i thought we might splurge a little and spend a lot of time enjoying the expensive hotel. Yeah, that didn't happen -___-. Read on to know why.

I love this photo, i feel so Princessy in it! LOL

The Lobby

Back there is the souvenir shop where we ended up buying most of our Disneyland stuffs because we didn't have time to actually shop at the park itself, too busy playing and queueing!

Selfie whenever we can hahaha

The hotel was so nice so even though the check in time was actually at 3 PM, when we arrived before 1 they let us get in right away since the room's ready! Great service! Just in time because Baby Boy immediately told us he needed to GO! LOL. He's having a constipation throughout the trip and only pooped twice in the whole 6 days -___-. TMI? Hahahaha sorry!

Our room

I snapped a lot more pictures than i usually do, this is probably the most expensive hotel we've ever paid for ourselves yet *LOL*, sorry for being embarrassing!

Because it's Valentine's Day...

And a little gift, it was a little face towel :p

Even the stationary's so cute!

Slippers for the whole family!

So cute!

Hunny modelling the toilettries hahaha

CUTEST TOILETRIES EVER!!!

Even the soap bar's got an emboss of Mickey Mouse T.T

Super special sugar packets :D

Feeling like we're on our errr, 30th honeymoon or something for a sec there

And 5 seconds later Baby Boy yelled from the bathroom that he's done. LOL *fantasy shattered*.

A little review of the Disney's Hollywood Hotel : The hotel itself's really cool and scream luxury (you can see it from the lobby and all), the room very clean and comfortable (even the shower curtain's very clean that i had no problem with it. I usually really hate bath tubs because i'd need to close the curtain and i'm always very disgusted by the poorly maintained ones!), quite spacious too. The beds were huge and comfortable, enough to accomodate 4 adults!

We had a very pleasant stay there, the only problem we had (AGAIN) was with the heater. We turned thee air conditoner up to 30 and waited for it to blast warm air, but it never happened... It was still very COLD! In the end we just swicthed off the air conditioner and it was okay, but it kept on turning on by itself (three times in total until we checked out) even though it clearly stated to be OFF. GAHHH!!! Dunno if the heater's broken or whatever *seems to be our fate thoughout the trip, totally bad lucks when it comes to heaters! Other than that i have nothing to complain about!

There's a full bodied mirror on the bathroom door so of course it's beckoning for an OOTD selfie!

Bunny Long Jacket : Online
Cross Skirt : Gowigasa
Grey thick knitted tights : LL's old boutique (defunct)

After cleaning Baby Boy up and spending sometime with our smart phones (free wifi! LOL), we got ready to go out again. We planned to check out Ngong Ping 360 like CL's recommendation (but apparently she never went there herself *LOL*). If you plan to go to Hong Kong and want to go to Ngong Ping, please do not repeat our mistake, you need to go there early in the morning to be able to spend enough time there! You'd have to pay quite a lot for the cable car (even more for the crystal clear one, with the transparent floor) so make sure you get your money's worth by spending a lot of time there! The cable car station would close around 6 PM, we only managed to spend like 2 hours there. Nowhere near enough! But i'm getting ahead of myself again...

Found the coin pressing machine again at the hotel hahaha

Lighting McQueen :)

At Disneyland's bus station :D

We rode the MTR again to Thung Chung station (where you can find the cable car to go up to Ngong Ping).  Hunny Mouse  :p

We did a tiny shopping at the souvenir shop at the hotel, just a little toy for Baby Boy and got this super cute Minnie Mouse bow shaped pouch filled with chocolates. Of course i got it for the pouch but the chocolate was nice too so it was a bonus hahaha

It was almost 2 in the afternoon and travelling with a little kid means you need to feed him on time (we don't want him to get sick!!!) so when we get off at Thung Chun station and found a mall opposite, we just got in to get some food, we didn't even pay attention to the mall's name at first but turned out it was an outlet mall called Citygate Outlet with LOTS and LOTS of branded outlets! We couldn't resist shopping for a bit in the Giordano outlet (read about my haul here) and lost track of time -___- therefore we ended up going to Ngong Ping even later. Honestly we've never heard of Ngong Ping before and CL only said we could ride a cable car to see the view and visit the Giant Buddha, we totally thought it'd take us a very short time to do but obviously we were wrong *LOL*.

Had lunch at Food Republic. You know, when i doubt... go to a familiar food court *LOL*

And Baby Boy's fail proof food : Hainanese Chicken Rice!

Our little perk me up!

Hunny's Japanese style hamburger steak with omelette rice. YUM!

If looks could kill *LOLOLOL*. I'm easily overwhelmed and a very boring eater, i got confused seeing so many options and ended up choosing something super familiar : Pepper Lunch!

We're finally able to tear ourselves from the outlet mall (i kinda had to drag hunny away because he insisted to check out a gadget section zzzz, if i can stop myself from getting into fashion stores, he should be able to do the same thing!!!) and head to the cable car station. 

Honestly we were quite taken aback by the cable car's ticket price, a LOT more expensive than we anticipated *LOL*, but we were there already and it'd be a total shame to back out (even though we ended up regretting only spending such a short time there!) so we just did it anyway *LOL*. The ride was really really long though (and i must add, really really really COLD!!! It's up the mountain so it was even colder than in the city OMG) so it totally justifies the price (and it's two way ride as well).

LOLOLOL don't you think he looks like Monkichi with his ears sticking out like that?

After a long while, we finally approching the destination... That's the Tian Tan Buddha statue over there

A very friendly tourist offered to take pictures of us (and he took a LOT so we can choose!) so of course we accepted happily, thank you so much, kind stranger! 

We gasped when we saw the crazy long queue for the ride back with the cable cars! 

LOOK!!! We were hoping the line would be shorter when WE get back, it was shorter but we stilll had to queue for a very long time *LOL*

Too bad we didn't have time to go to the Tian Tan statue! We'd have to climb 268 steps to get there though, i'm not so sure it'd be a great idea after the full day in Ocean Park and another full day in Disneyland awaiting us on the next day anyway!

That's the wishing tree and the wishing board i was talking about in my haul post! We didn't realize we had the wishing board until we get back to Indonesia *LOL*

They were also having a world's cable car festival at that time!

There were quite a lot of old cable cars from all over the world on display

There was also a little bazaar for the ocassion further up the street but it was getting late and they were closing up already 

At the Maneki Neko store

Hunny told me to pose like this because according to him "the paper bag's nice, looks expensive!" LOL. Yep, we ended up spending most of our time in Ngong Ping shopping (and shivering in my case, it was FREEZINGGGG) for souvenirs and good luck charms!

I look crazy in this pic but decided to put it up anyway because a blog reader (hey Mey!) actually went and asked me why i looked so stern in my photos *LOL*. Mostly because i find the crazy ones too embarassing to post here. Have you read my long answer to your question, Mey? I hope it answered your curiousity!

Crazy bunny daped on a road sign...

The Tian Tan Buddha statue, so close yet so far away :p

Can you tell how COLD i was? I had to use my hunny's jacket as a blanket -___-

Hunny found the little stall selling big sausages and fried siaw may there, Baby Boy loved the sausage so much he finished one up by himself! 

The sausage was really yummy hahaha. The outer skin's very crispy and thick and i had to peel them off (and ate them) because Baby Boy couldn't chew them, all the while he was staring at me worried i'd eat his precious sausage -____-. Baby Boy doesn't share food, like Joey from Friends. LOL.

The plaza was very pretty and tranquil (mostly because all of the visitors had gone back by that point LOL), i could spend hours strolling around (it feels very China there!) but unfortunately we only had a few minutes before a cable car guy spotted us and told us we only have 20 minutes to go back to the cable car station (actually we needed only 10 to walk briskly back, but hunny being hunny totally freaked out and started running zzzz) T.T. Seriously not enough time in Ngong Ping! I want to go back! And finally climb the stairs to the Buddha statue while at it (and not forgetting to write and leave the wishing board at the wishing tree!!!)

Whenever i see giant food... reminiscence of Switzerland 2013... Europe i miss you...

Queueing up for the cable car

After queueing up for the longest time (i can't remember how long, was it an hour? Maybe not that long...) we finally got back to Tung Chun, made a dash to buy some snacks and instant food (because it'd be impossible to get any once we got back to Disneyland Resort, no 7-Eleven in sight!) and i started to moan about how we ended up not using the hotel room all that much anyway *LOL*. I think it was almost 9 by the time we went back to the room zzzz. What a waste!

Like i said, the MTR was totally deserted by the time we get back so we happily snapped away!

I just realized that i am never that into Disney Princesses but i'm always into fairies!!! Tinkerbell's probably my favorite Disney character ever!

Spot the guy behind me? There were lots of couples holding big, FAKE flower bouquet celebrating Valentine's Day in Disney hotels' restaurants. I wonder why fake flowers? We prefer fresh flowers in Indonesia. But hunny said he checked the price of fresh flowers back in the supermarket in CityGate and the price's absolutely absurd! Maybe that's why? LOL

 

Eh, don't you think this picture looks like a prof pictures used in articles??? Hunny's getting  good, eh?

Hunny also insisted on having dinner at the hotel, since i absolutely refused to spend millions (which i prefer to spend shopping) for dinner on top of the hotel room, we decided to have dinner at the "Fast food" restaurant (and spent almost half a million for two food sets anyway).

Hollywood & Dine

Candid shot of me taking pics of our food hahaha

The meal set consisted of baked rice and pumpkin soup. I was still very full and Baby Boy would never finish one plate (it's quite big!) so we just ordered two sets. This one is curry baked rice

Look at the cute Mickey Shaped carrot!

Pumpkin soup served in mugs

Very thick, creamy and sweet! *shudder*. Hunny finished one and tried to feed the other one to me and and Baby Boy, and both of us refused vehemently! LOL. Pumpkins, yuck... not for us!

I can't remember the name of this baked rice and what it consisted of, i just remembered it was being kind of sweet and sour. Baby Boy ate quite a lot of it

The food was very so so and severely overpriced in my opinion *LOL*, i would love to try out their other restaurants but maybe i won't return to this one. They also sell snacks and sandwiches (also very expensive, obviously) since this restaurant's more of a diner style.

We went back to the room straight away, i guess we were all very tired because Baby Boy ended the Valentine's Day in tears (with no good reason. He asked for an instant noodle just a few minutes after dinner and while munching on chocolate biscuits, we were questioning whether he really want to eat it and would finish it, we don't want him to be too full and puke obviously!!! He always puked on our previous trips and it's our #1 concern ever since! And then he just started to cry when we kept on pestering him for an answer zzzz), which made us really annoyed and really scolded him (for crying for no reason). Sigh. What is it with 6 year olds and their mood swings? Anyway, he stopped pretty quick and behaved really well for the rest of the night (and the rest of the trip) so all's fine!

That was our Day 3/Valentine's Day in Hong Kong, we finally went to Disneyland on the 4th day! Please look forward for the very photo heavy entry :D!

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