Universal Studio SG - 21st June 2012

We took leave to bring the boys out to Universal Studio this June as I managed to get the tickets which were sold at corporate rates. The last time we visited USS was last year March and there were still some sites not opened at that point in time.

At 10am, I asked ah lou to check out the Transformers ride as our first ride before the crowd gets bigger. To Ethan's disappointment, he missed the minimum height requirement and was rejected entry for that ride. I had to bring him out to take other rides which were more suited to his height while Caden and ah lou go ahead and experience the Transformer ride.

I found this Tresure Hunter car ride which is automated.

We next tried the Dino Soaring ride

We watched the Shrek's 4-D movie and saw Puss the boots after the show

Ethan was dehydrated and asked for a bottle of soda

His contented face for getting the drink

We spent the longest time queuing for this Madagascar boat ride - which was so-so only... Actually by 11am, it was a period when the crowd level was the highest (between 11-3pm) so every station's queue requires 40 minutes at the minimum.

Ah lou offered to bring the boys to watch the live show at Waterworld while I went to try out the Transformer's ride alone. It was so exciting!

I was assigned the first row of in the car cabin in the Transformer's ride which is the most strategic spot. The decepticons turned alive and our car cabin were sent into a 3-D journey ride battling them together with Bumble Bee and Optimus Prime.

The boys took the car ride at Treasure Hunters again..

 Then we watched a performance by the characters of Sesame Street

 At the Madagascar, Ethan took the Carousel while PaPa took Caden to take a roller coaster ride. We took this 3 times in consecutive.

We then watched a performance by the Madagascar team and got a picture taken with Gloria..

Caden and PaPa went on to take more roller coaster rides, transformer rides while I accompany Ethan with the least mild versions (cos I have a faint heart)

By 6plus, the rapid river queue was very short and I asked ah lou to try this out (I had my experience last year).. They got drenched!

 Wet bodies ..

 Last picture before the studio is closed for the day (at 7pm)

It was quite fulfilling because this time round, the queuing time wasn't as bad as last year, on the average, we spent about 15-20 minutes for each station and had taken many rounds for some of our favourites (3 times of transformer ride for Caden/Ah lou, 2 times of transformer ride for me; 4 times of roller coaster rides for Caden, 5 times of dino soaring rides for Ethan).

We will probably come again in another 2 years time. And this outing also marked the near end of their term holidays..

Day 11 - 7th June 2012 - Hong Kong - SG

Finally, today is our final day of holiday before we take a flight back to our home. While we were doing our final packing in the hotel, the boys kept themselves occupied with their beyblades. (Brian's family had extended their trip with an additional day)

As I wanted to go back to Miramar Shopping Centre (near Mira Hotel) to buy the shoes which I had eyed on the night before, we made our way towards Granville road for breakfast in the morning.. and ended up in Tsui Wah again!

Ethan gobbled up this macaroni

Unfortunately, the shop's opening hours are at 12noon and we had to leave our hotel to the airport by 1pm so we couldn't stay around the mall to wait for the store to open. Although it's quite a pity but on the flip side, this situation turned out to be a cost saving to my wallet..

Generally we enjoyed HK more than Taiwan primarily because of the shopping experience (plus point is tax-free) and dining choices. It's cleaner and more city-based, possibly because we only spent time in TST and Causeway Bay this time round.. In Taiwan, we went through a lot of train rides, seen a lot of old streets, mountains, suspension bridges, walked a whole lot of stairs, braved through numerous rainy days and got suffocated with stinky toufu.. Actually it's not too bad because of the cultural experience coupled with lots of natural landscape. So this trip is turned out to be quite a good break and bonding time for us.

Day 10 - 6th June 2012 - Hong Kong

We started off our 2nd day in Hong Kong to have Dim Sum breakfast. Winnie has this food guide with her and Luk Yu Tea House was highly recommended for Dim Sum. We tried to avoid the morning working crowd and reached the restuarant at abt 930am. This is located in Central Station (Stanley street) and it's actually 3-storey high. As we needed a eight seater table, we had to climb to the 3rd storey via stairs to get to our table. This place is has an authentic ambience for yum cha.. and very HK feel... the service is good too..

The boys asked to play phones while waiting for food

The Dim Sum house works on a push-cart concept so we had to wait for the right Dim Sum to come before we can start eating.

Some of the nicer ones..

Fish dumpling - really big ones

Ha Kao and Siew Mai

Crab filling ones

The breakfast was nice, but came with a hefty price-tag. Despite sharing the Dim Sum (but we ordered a wide variety), each family had to pay about SGD80 (so the whole bill comes about SGD160+).

After breakfast, we checked out the H&M store in Central (one of the neatest stacked ones) and ah lou got himself something while I stocked up my boys' t-shirts and pants.

We moved on to Causeway Bay from Central and regrouped for lunch after about 1 hour of free shopping. We ended up in Tsui Wah resturant again and the food didn't disappoint our stomachs. Brian's family ordered the curry chicken and turned out to be very nice.. actually their ice lemon tea is also very addictive..

Our mushroom and chicken fried noodles

The mummies went ahead to do our shopping when the men and boys headed back to the hotel to play and swim..

The Swim Hunks

After their swim, we went to Chi Ji 池記雲吞麵家 for our dinner. Chi Ji is located in Tsim Sha Tsui (near Haiphong road). We ordered 1 congee set and 1 wanton noodles set to share.. Their other speciality is crab porridge which we didn't order

The set meal allows you to customise the side dishes

The porridge is very smooth and  yummy

One of the nicest Wanton Mee we had so far

these fried chicken wings are good too

 After dinner, we moved on a dessert store nearby and ordered mango custard balls and mixed fruits mango pudding

mango pudding

The food in HK is so satisfying.. needless to say, the shopping never disappoint me. What a way to end this holiday (thankfully, we had a stopover in HK!)

Our loot from the 10 day trip (including the boys and ah lou's)

We spent the night packing up again for the afternoon flight departure (back to SG!)

Day 9 - 5th June 2012 - Taipei - HongKong

We were finally moving out from Taipei to HongKong after 8 nights of stinky toufu smell :) Our transit flight from Taipei to HK is at 1030 am so we had to reach the airport 2 hours before the flight departs.

Our intention was to take the airport transfer bus from Taipei main station back to Taoyuan Airport. However, we were stopped at the Taipei Main station by a taxi driver and he quoted us (2 families) NTD800 to take us to the airport. Since the shuttle bus cost us NTD315 per family, the car ride to the airport sounded quite a good deal given that it will take a shorter time and it costs about SGD5 more than the bus ride.

So we ended up early at the airport...

And the boys started enjoying self-invented car rides.

We went to have cheesecake and latte to spend our excess NTD...

Passing our time slowly in the airport (there isn't alot of shops) taking pictures

We found this small play section in one of the disney themed shop and managed to occupied the boys for a short while

Ah lou ventured to the other end of the airport and found a hello kitty shop which is located at the domestic flight departure hall... so nice..

On th Cathay Pac flight, Ethan got a baby headset this time round..

And I am stuck babysitting 2 boys as its a 3-seater flight..

The flight from Taoyuan to HK takes about only 1.5hrs. We took the airport shuttle at HK to our HK hotel at Marco Polo Tsim Sha Tsui and were surprised that the porter was waiting for us at the bus stop to help us with our luggages.

At Marco Polo HongKong hotel. We fell in love with this hotel and their services. Highly recommended given its superb location at Harbour City too.

Our room.. we were given the highest floor (16th) which overlook the Avenue of stars area.

They have a pillow menu

The only fault in the room is lack of lights

The view from the room

We rested a while in our room after our check-in and started our shopping and eating venture at 3pm. The first place we headed out for our late lunch is Tsui Wah Resturant which serves very nice toasted bread with condensed milk and milk tea. We also tried their nissin noodles with chicken wings.

Love their cup

The chicken wings are nicely done

We parted ways with Brian's family to do our own shopping and I decided to cover The One shopping mall which is located next to Mira Hotel along Nathan road. This building has got some of the labels I like - Tout a coup, 2%, and some other japanese labels (journal standard and beams). Armed with SGD 600 worth of HKD to last us for 3 days 2 nights (inclusive of meals), I realised that this money doesn't last us for long.. I ended up with a few pieces of clothes for myself just after 1 hour of shopping before ah lou leave me alone for retail therapy as he brought the boys to Toyrus at Harbour City (Ocean Terminal).

This time round, I was literally hanging out at all the i.t. related stores - tout-a-coup, b+ab, i,t outlet for the clothes and shoes..

We all regrouped again for dinner together at Harbour City and I decided to retire back to the hotel room after dinner for an early night rest, while my travel mate continued her quest at H&M which is located nearby our hotel.