30 Nov 2013 - Starlight Romance at New Town Plaza

Before leaving ShaTin New Town Plaza, we visited the Christmas lighting display called Starlight Romance.

The lighting display is created by Italian artists using 100,000 colored LED light bulbs. The display is eco-friendly as it uses patented made-in-Italy energy-saving bulbs that reduces energy use by 90%.

Jerlene and Javier were amazed by the lighting and decided to display their dancing skills in front of everyone.

In the 20,000 square feet garden, the artists created a Renaissance-style cathedral wall that is 108 feet tall, a recreation of the Tiber River, a traditional Christmas destination for Italians, as well as a light carousel and light canopy.

On top of this dazzling display, a nightly 3D light show with a snowfall effect will be presented every 30 minutes, along with a program of singing and dance performances.

We were glad that we did not miss this display!

30 Oct 2013 - Snoopy's World

From Che Kung Temple, we took the MTR to ShaTin (沙田) station which is just two stops away.  Next to the station is New Town Plaza Shopping Mall.  We were not there to shop, we were there to visit Snoopy's World.

Not many people is aware of such a kid's attraction exist in Hong Kong other than Disneyland and Ocean Park.  Snoopy's World is situated on the third floor of the mall.  Though it is a very small scale theme park, Jerlene and Javier still enjoyed it.  Furthermore, it's free admission.

Throughout the park, there are life-size figures from Peanuts such as Charlie Brown, Sally, Linus and of course Snoopy and Woodstock etc.

There is a playground with several slides where the kids spent most of their time at.  Also, there is a canoe ride, the one and only ride in the park, through a boating canal.  As today is Saturday, the crowd is terrible and we queued for almost an hour for the ride.

Other than our lunch in the mall, we spent almost the entire afternoon in Snoopy's World. When we left the park, the sky was already dark.

30 Nov 2013 - 车公庙 (Che Kung Temple)

Our first destination of the day is Sha Tin Che Kung Temple (沙田车公庙).

This temple located in the Tai Wai area of Sha Tin honours Che Kung, a military commander of the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279) whose advantageous power for suppressing uprisings and plagues made him a household name. In popular folklore, it’s said that Che Kung escorted the Song dynasty’s last emperor on his escape to Sai Kung in what is now called the New Territories. His achievements led to him eventually becoming revered as a god.

The original temple was built here around 300 years ago in a desperate move to stop an epidemic that was spreading across the Sha Tin area. According to legend, the epidemic began to subside on the day construction was completed. The structure you see today was erected in 1993 to accommodate the increasing number of worshippers during Che Kung’s festival, which happens on the second day of the Chinese New Year.

A giant statue of Che Kung can be found at the altar in the main worship hall, while the main altar is also flanked by a huge drum and bell. Next to this is a fan-bladed wheel of fortune, which, the faithful believe, will bring good luck when spun three times. Fortune tellers often gather to ply their trade at the left of the entrance.

Before leaving the temple, we bought Jerlene and Javier each a windmill for good luck.

29 Nov 2013 - Look what they brought for the trip...

Before the trip, we had asked Jerlene and Javier to pack their own bags.  We did not check what they had brought till now.  Let's see what they bring.........

Jerlene brought a few phush toys, a story book and a princess crown with her self made princess wands, which she had planned to bring to Disneyland.  As for Javier, he brought a Yo-Yo, two notebooks and a red phone (just the handset).

Javier brought the phone along because he wanted to call our helper, 爷爷奶奶 and 表姨.  No comment.......  :-P

29 Nov 2013 - 2nd trip to Hong Kong this year

Ever since we came back from our Hong Kong trip in May this year, Jerlene and Javier had been asking me when we can go to HK Disneyland again.  At that time, I had promised them Oct but due to our busy schedule, our 2nd HK trip was delayed till now.  We took the second morning flight (on subload) whereby there were still quite a number of available seats.

The Christmas decoration is already put up at Terminal 3 and this year's theme is SpongeBob SquarePants.

We had quite a good impression of Novotel Citygate at Tung Chung during our previous trip.  As such, we decided to stay there again for this trip.  The hotel provides free shuttle to and from Novotel Citygate, which is just 5 mins away from the airport.

The room that we were allocated this time round seems slightly smaller than the one we stayed previously.  And it did not have a bathtub in the toilet but that's ok because the weather was quite cold even without aircon at this time of the year.  Below is the mountain view from our room.

We had our lunch at 大家乐 in Fu Dong Mall, our favourite eating place during the last trip.

I did not plan any specific itinerary for today.  It was already 3pm by the time we finished lunch.  We were supposed to meet a friend in Causeway Bay but she could not make it last minute.  So we decided to take the tram to the Peak.  From Tung Chung MTR station, we took the train to Hong Kong MTR station where we walked to the connected Central station.  We followed a map and finally reached the Peak Tram station.  Sad to say, the queue at the station was terrible and we decided to give it a miss.  Looking at the queue, I guessed we would probably have to wait for more than an hour.  Jerlene and Javier will not have the patience to wait so long.  Guess it's because today is Friday.

As we walked back to Central Station, we passed by St John Cathedral.  We went in to take a look before going to 湾仔.  There we found our favourite 鸡蛋仔 and we bought two packets.

By then, Javier was so tired and sleepy.  He kept asking to go back to our hotel.  It's understandable because all of us woke up before 6am this morning.  Anyway the sky turned dark as early as 5:30pm.  Before heading back to our hotel room, we bought some snacks and tit bits for the next few days.

23 Nov 2013 - 汉语拼音 (Han Yu Pin Yin)

Jerlene has been learning 汉语拼音 in her child care centre.  In order to show me that she had mastered it, Jerlene demonstrated to me in this video.  I remembered I had learned it in school as well but hers seems to be a longer version.  Bo Po Mo Fo De Te Ne Le ..............

17 Nov 2013 - A visit to the "revamped" Suntec City

Suntec City has been under renovation for quite sometime and I recently heard that part of it has opened for business with many new shops.  As such, I decided to go there and have a look with my family.  Can you spot Javier among the minions?  Haha.....so happened he wore yellow with black stripes today.

As we walked pass a mini playground, Jerlene and Javier started pulling us towards it.  They had their fun there for about half an hour before we went for our lunch at 鼎泰丰.

The place where carrefour used to be is still under renovation.  However, Giant Hypermart has took over the area which used to be occupied by the food court.  We did a some groceries shopping at Giant before we left the place for home.  It's weird that Giant doesn't allow shoppers to push the trolleys to the car park.  It causes much inconvenience to shoppers, especially for those who bought a lot or with large bulky items.  I hope Giant management will seriously look into it.

It's a great day out!

11 Nov 2013 - A self created toy!

Jerlene surprised me tonight with another of her creativity.  She made a toy using cardboard, paper, straws, stcky tape, scissors and glue all by herself.  Can you guess what it is with the following photo?

What about this?  Use your imagination........ :-)

Here's the answer.  It's a toy horse head with a wooden stick attached to it.  Remember we played with it when we were children.......I mean for those in my generation or earlier........ :-P

I must really give Jerlene my thumbs up for her creativity!

5 Nov 2013 - Sunflower Pancake

My little chef had prepared a sunflower pancake for me tonight.  She's really proud of it and insisted that I took a photo of it.  *Cheese*

3 Nov 2013 - Singkids® PlaySystem at United Square

We purchased a play package for Singkids® PlaySystem at Terminal 3 few months back.  It allows admission to other branches as well.  Today we were at United Square and decided to let Jerlene and Javier to have some fun time there.  The other branch is at VivoCity.

2 Nov 2013 - Happy Deepavali in Legoland

Today is Deepavali and I wish all Hindus a very Happy Diwali!  We had renewed our Legoland annual pass online few weeks back and decided to collect our new passes today at Legoland.  The traffic was not as bad as what we had expected.  However, moments after we entered the park, it started raining.  When the rain got lighter, I went back to my car to get umbrella as the sky was still pretty dark.

As usual, Jerlene and Javier led the way to where they wanted to play.  We just follow........

It was fun watching them take on the Junior Driving Class.  Both of them started from the 4th and 5th position.  Once the class started, they treated it as a race and immediately overtaken two cars in front of them.  And during the last lap, they even cooperated by sandwiching the front most car......haha very funny.  Think they have been well trained by Mario Kart Wii.  They emerged as champion and runners up eventually.  Not sure if I should praise them for a job well done or I should warn them to drive safely next time.......  :-P