My Cheeky Kaiden

LOL. I can’t help but steal this group of photos from my sister’s blog when she uploaded a post on our kite flying excursion. She has promised my dear Kaitlyn to bring her out for kite flying and in the end, Jonathan and I have to tag along as Kaiden wanted to join in as well.

Kaiden is really a comical kid. Plus with all the captions done by Anne, it is really hilarious. These are the expressions he gave within that short 5-10 mins.

Photos credited to Anne – wxyanne.wordpress.com

Okay… after looking at the pics… yes that is my son. He is so so cheeky.

ES Creations – Jasmine and Belle Princess

Recently, I have gotten an order to customise a pair of earrings with Jasmine and Belle Princesses charms. Customer gave me her requirements of colour theme and prefered length. She wanted sunny yellow for Belle princess and purple for Jasmine princess. The whole process took me about a week to complete.

The final results are shown below.

  

Belle princess – Length is about 6.5cm

Materials included: Handmade Belle charm, seed beads, plastic beads, glass briolette, rhodium charms. All beads and parts are attached to the filigree by anti-tarnish wire.

Jasmine Princess –  Length about 6.5cm

Materials used: handmade Jasmine charm, clay and resins flowers, fresh water, glass and plastic pearls, czech crystal, seed beads. All beads and parts are attached to the filigree by anti-tarnish wire.

If you are interested in my creations, you can visit ES Creations at http://everydayshopper.livejournal.com to look at my updated launches. 🙂

Hong Kong Trip Day 2 Part 2

Been procrastinating about doing the pictures for my Hong Kong trip. On the other hand, I can’t wait to get all of them done… so that I can have time to blog other stuff. 🙂

The photos for HKG day 2 is finally done. Judging from the photos we have taken, Day 2 definitely is a very enriching day. So many things were done in a day. 🙂

After we left Ngong Ping Village and reached mainland. We shopped for a little while at the Citygate Outlet. As there were not much eateries, we actually settled for MacDonalds for lunch. Jonthan had Big and Tasty burger which Singapore does not serve. It was really good.

At about 2 plus, we took the train to Sham Shui Po. I have gotten some information from an accessories making magazine that there is a stretch of beads shops along Sham Shui Po. As a jewellery enthusiast, how could I give that place a miss?

For many trips that I have been to Hong Kong, it was my first time I set foot on Sham Shui Po. It was indeed a different experience for me. The place, the noise, the culture….. totally immensed and attracted.

Sham Shui Po has got really unique stuff for sale. Instead of a lot of female apparels, I saw electrical appliances, hi-fi, 2ndhand products and etc. I would say now there was really something Jonathan could look at.

Could not believe that Sham Shui Po is also a crowded place. Hmmm… or maybe Hong Kong itself is crowded. LOL

 This whole stretch of road (Yu Chau Street) has many many shops selling accessories making stuff. A must go place for me if I get to visit Hong Kong again. The accessories making shops has tonnes and tonnes of beads for sale. Besides that, there is a shop that sells really unique and nice charms. Best part of all, most of the beads are cheaper than Singapore. 🙂 Poor Jonathan, I took about 2 hours to just browse through the items in different shops while he waited outside.

Suddenly a market place appeared in front of us.

At about 6 plus, we decided to finish off Sham Shui Po and went to Mongkok again. Jonathan and I decided to search for the fishball noodles which we had 10 years ago when we visited Hong Kong during our poly days. To our surprise, the shop is still there. *Super Duper delighted*

The place was not very crowded and we managed to get a seat immediately.

Managed to capture a picture of Jonathan in front of the stall. 🙂

After dinner, we treated ourselves to Xu Liu San again. Super nice and cooling after the hot and stuffy dinner at the Fishball stall. So lucky that Xu Liu San was just beside the fishball stall.

This time round we tried another flavour. Could not remember the name though. 😦

Instead of shopping at Argyle Center again, we decided to just window shopping along the streets. We kept walking along Fa Yuen Street and was really glad to stumble upon one of the eateries recommended by some of the bloggers. It was also the queue that attracted us. For those who like big squid and pig intestines, this is something not to be missed.

The queue at Fei Jie Snack Shop was pretty long. We actually had two servings. The first time round, Jonathan bought the big squid and small intestines. The two sticks were covered with two types of sauces. I do not know what the sauces were. The dark one seemed like sweet sauce while the yellow one looked like mustard. However, when I ate it, the mustard sauce tasted like wasabi. It was so good that Jonathan went for second serving and came back with liver, big intestines and more squid. Definitely a must try if you happen to go to Fa Yuen Street. 🙂

Hong Kong Trip Day 2 Part 1

There are so many pictures taken on Day 2. Even the uploading of pics is taking way too long. 😦 I will be breaking the post for Day 2 into 2 parts.

On Day 2, Jonathan and I woke up really early cos we have planned to visit the Big Buddha. We went to Austrialian Dairy Company for a Hong Kong style breakfast.

The place was packed with people. Many tourists as well.

We ordered the Breakfast set which consisted of the marcaroni, 2 slices of bread, 2 eggs and a drink. On top of that, I ordered a steam milk pudding and one more drink. Definitely, I had the tea and Jonathan ordered ‘Yuan Yang’ (tea + coffee). The set came with 2 sunny side-ups. Eating was quite messy due to the liquid yolks. We should have ordered it in scrambled, at least we could stuff the eggs into the bread and eat them. 🙂 The hot steam milk pudding is super duper nice. It’s really soft and smooth. *Heavenly taste*

After breakfast, we proceeded to Jordan station and made our way to Ngong Ping Village where we will visit the Big Buddha. We got to take the train all the way to Tung Chung station and take a cable car to Ngong Ping Village.

The ride was quite comfortable and not very crowded as we have passed their working hours. The only set back was the very long walk from Central Station to Tung Chung line. The train to Tung Chung was a little crowded as it also led the passengers to Disneyland Resort station.

Amazingly the moment we reached Disneyland Resort Station, the train was empty. Apparently, the Disneyland was more attractive than the Ngong Ping Village.

Upon reaching Tung Chung Station, the Citygate Factory Outlets welcomed us the moment we stepped out. We walked pass that building to Tung Chung Cable Car Terminal.

The food court in Citygate Outlets is by Food Republic. Isn’t Food Republic one of Singapore’s food courts? Besides that, I think I saw Breadtalk in one of the buildings in Tsim Sha Shui.

We were awe by the long queue when we reached Tung Chung Cable Car Terminal eventhough the train we took was pretty empty when it reached.

Jonathan and I couldn’t wait to get up the cable car. There are a few choices for selection. The normal cabin queue was the longest. To get 360 degrees view, we paid a little more to hop on the crystal cabin. What do they mean by 360 degrees? Keep the suspense. 😉

Each cabin can take up to 10 people and before you board, there will be photographers to take pictures of you. At the the end, you can view the pictures and if you are satisfied with it, you can purchase it. Personally, I think the pics Jonathan took are far more better than the ones taken by the photographers. *grinning*

We love the view from the cable car. It’s so refreshing to see greenary and to be so near to the sky. However, there was a point whereby the cable car went higher and higher, it’s so frightening when I looked out to see the rest of the cable cars that were behind me, the whole experience just felt like riding on a roller coaster before it plunges.

It’s really a 360 degrees experience with our feet lying on a glass bottom.

We could see what’s below us. Basically, the  flooring that we stepped on was made of clear glass and we could see the sea and greenary as we travelled up the hill.

The cable car ride was about 30 mins. We had to walk through the Ngong Village before we reached the foot of the Big Buddha. The weather was really hot and was glad that I had my umbrella with me. 🙂

We past by the ‘San Sui’ Beancurd and was not really attracted to it. Finally, we got to the foot of the Big Buddha. Looking at the flight of stairs up to the Big Buddha, we decided to just take pictures of it at where we were.

Again, we walked past the Beancurd stall. Now we couldn’t resist it cos we were really hot and sweaty; therefore, decided to sit down for a bowl of cooling beancurd. To our surprise, the beancurd was really good…. Another heavenly taste.

Jonathan’s expression tells it all. 😛

By the time we decided to leave was about 12 plus. The sun was right above us and we couldn’t wait to board the cable car back to mainland. As it was still early, not many people were leaving the place, we had the whole cabin to ourselves on our way back. *Yipee*

Some silly shots of us . Too much space and time for us to camwhore. LOL

Finally, a photo as remembrance that we have visited the Ngong Ping Village. 🙂

To be continued…..

Hong Kong Trip Day 1

A last minute decision to go for this trip. It happened that Jonathan was surfing the net at SQ website and found seats available that he could claim from his Krisflyer points and tada…. 2 tickets to Hong Kong from 26 August to 29 August. Eventhough it was just 4 days, a getaway without the kids definitely is needed for us to spend some quality time together. 🙂

We reached the airport at about 7am. Sun still in the mist of rising up from the horizon.

That is both of us…. abandoning our children for our own fun. *Once in awhile should be okay, right? :)*

Checking out the row number to check-in. Oh did I mention that we will be on a Jumbo plane? My first time. Should have taken the seats on the upper deck instead of the main.

Jonathan’s sunshine smile, just like my MacDonald’s MacMuffin, so comforting. 🙂

My faithful stroller bag, to put our newly bought loots while shopping and Jonathan’s extra lens and stand, which followed us everywhere we went throughout the trip.

After about 3.5 hours  plane ride, we arrived in Hong Kong. First thing we bought was the Octopus card. Since we would be there 4 days 3 nights, we purchased the airport express travel pass (single trip) for HK$ 220. It allows unlimted travels in Hong Kong with different modes of transportation (from MTR to buses) and includes a single trip airport express to city area. The good thing about this card is it has unlimited usage and the time it starts counting down is when I first tap my card. As I first tap my card at about 3 plus in the afternoon, I was able to fully utilise the card till the last day of stay in Hong Kong which IMO is quite worth it. On top of that, I got a HK$ 50 refund when I returned the card.  We took the Airport Express to Kowloon station, followed by a cab to Prudential Hotel. Cab fare was about HK $50. My advice would be if there are about 5 people, this way of travel is more worth it cos the fare could be divided by 5 passengers provided that there is not much baggages.

After checking into the hotel, we proceeded to Hankow Road at Tsim Sha Tsui as Jonathan needed to collect his lens.

 

Jonathan had called the photo accessories shop the day before to reserve his lens. Check out how excited he was after he attached his new lens to his cam.

LOL… Still prefers using my cam to take pics of us. At least I look slimmer.

Granville Road is one of the recommended place for shopping. The street has really small boutiques which sell female apparels. Bought a maxi dress for HK$80. Price is right IMO.

Poor Jonathan, shopping is definitely not a boy thing in Hong Kong.

While walking we spotted the highly raved mango desserts from Xu Liu San. Had it everyday in different flavours. 😉

I realised that any business that deals with food, their billboard designs tend to have red and yellow. Think about MacDonald’s, Old Chang Kee and many more. Went to do a research and realised that colours in red and yellow do have some effect on our taste buds… Seeing these colours would trigger our subconsciousness to eat the food.

Look at how excited we are. Ordered the Sago in Mango and Coconut Juice. The mangoes are really fresh and sweet. Love it. 🙂

We took a walk to Sogo hoping to pick up the remains of the sale but nothing much. Hungried, we decided to walk back to Canton Road for a good dinner and dessert at The Sweet Dynasty.

 

Jonathan finally had his favourite Hong Kong style Wantan Noodles while I had my long awaited dessert, Pomelo and Mango in Sago. Thumbs up for the big chunks of fresh mangoes.

Activities for the rest of the night was at Mongkok enjoying another round of shopping at H&M Langham Place and Argyle Centre. Argyle Centre is a really nice place to get cheap inspired clothings from VIVI magazines. Got myself a inspired Chanel sandals for only HK$8. That’s considered cheap for a pair of sandals.

Bought some drinks from 7-11 and saw these pretty breads lying in the shelves. They looked so fake to me. 🙂

Finally ended the day with supper consisting curry fishballs, squid and some BBQ stuff from the street.