Hongkong, First Day: The Hotel, The Night Tour, and Camera Dilemma

The Hotel

Hotel Panorama is located at Prat Avenue in the Tsim Sha Tsui area. I liked the hotel's location because it wasn't smack in the middle of the busy tourist area, but it was still within the tourist area that we were able to walk to Nathan Road, Granville Avenue and would you believe it, to the Avenue of the Stars? [more on that on succeeding posts :)] I wasn't able to take pictures of the hotel building because sometimes I fail like that. Hehehe.

I also liked the hotel room, especially the black-and-white theme of the bathroom. And now I have pictures, yey!

our room number
I think our room number was an omen of our Disney trip (more on that laterzzz).

hotel hallway
The hallway leading to our room. No, wait, leading away from our room, because I was by our room's door when I took this pic. Heh.

our beds
Nice comfy beds. Super soft pillows. Warm fuzzy blankets. Well, no, the blankets weren't fuzzy.

our bathroom
What is black and white and purple all over? My reflection in our bathroom mirror. Nyahahah.

The Night Tour: The Peak, Wax Museum and the Night Market

To get to The Peak, we went on the Peak Tram. If I remember the tour guide correctly, the Peak Tram's angle is at 27 degrees to the horizontal. It was like going up on a roller-coaster, but well, it never goes down. Heh.

going up to the peak
Lining up for our tickets for the Tram.

There goes the Tram. We'll ride the next one.

going inside the tram
Yey, it's our turn!

at the tram
Inside the Tram.

When we got to the Peak, we were greeted by this:

look at the wind!!! at victoria peak

Eh kukingina naman diba, ang lakas ng hangin?!? It was typhoon signal number 1 already that night. Ishcary noh?

So we spent most of our time, and camera space at the wax museum. Some of our makukulit na pics with the wax celebrities:

with daddy day caremarilyn, your skirt!
blocking yao ming's shotlook david, there!
duking it out with ali -- and he's NR hahamoving the pelvis with elvis
pa-kiss papa brad!fooling around with albert
bond. james bond.haay anthony, what will i do ba?
hanging out with the beatlesme and madonna against the music

After rubbing elbows with the (wax) celebrities, off we went to the night market.

By that time, I was seriously worrying already because of our camera dilemma. Our Olympus camera, brought by my folks from SG didn't have an XD card with it. I wasn't able to buy the day before, and I thought, hmmm, the 16mb internal memory will do, then we'll just buy the XD card when we get to HK. Then we'll also buy the dSLR. As in wala akong ibang dalang camera ha, yung Olympus lang with the 16mB memory! That's why the wax museum pics are all small because we were trying to save memory space hehehe.

Anyways, I was worried because the next day would be our Disney trip, and if we weren't able to buy the dSLR, or yung XD card that night, I'm seriously going to scour the whole of HK just to buy them! As in! Yung isa ko lang na dala na camera is my lomo. So good luck right?

Eh yun naman pala eh sa night market na sinasabi nung tour guide, there was the ladies' market, and the electronics' market. So one market for the wives, another for the husbands daw. Sorry, I'm going to the electronics' market :P

Okay, so we were able to buy an XD card for 300 HKD. Yey, we have an XD card! No more whiny 640 x 480 pics! Hehehe.

Then we were able to buy the Canon EOS 450D kit for 6550 HKD with freebies: 2GB SD card, camera bag, tripod and screen protector. Yahoo!

And then, since the guy manning the store was such a greaaaaaat sales person, napabili ako ng Pro Tama 0.6x Wide Lens converter [picture here, na-google ko lang], and UV filters (for the converter lens, and for the lens na kasama sa kit). Mejo pinagsisisihan ko yung converter lens, hindi ko pa kasi ata siya kelangan, pero let's see, I haven't really used it pa eh.


Okay first day in HK -- tired, and almost no more money. Ehehehehe.

Coming up next: Disneyland during typhoon signal number 3. San ka pa?!?


  1. cant wait for your disney adventure. was in hk the following week of the typhoon. guess we got lucky.