SWEET CATASTROPHE: familiar sights

the rain miraculously stopped when we stepped out of the airport so we stuck w/ our itinerary. mom simply had to follow my plans. i was her official tour guide to practically everything even though landing in HK's my first as well.

we reached our hotel at lunch time. we went out immediately & looked for a nearby mcdonalds restaurant to make use of the HKD10 mcdo coupons the travel agency gave for free. surprisingly, mcdo meals in HK costs more or less HKD20 so it sure wasn't enough. excitement exceeded our hunger so we just shared a burger meal and sped off.

the spicy grilled chicken burger only in HK mcdo combo'd with an american sized large fries

there's a watsons store just around the corner (practically found everywhere in the city)

next agenda was to get a few more american dollars exchanged. we rode the subway, called MTR in HK, just across watsons to tsim tsam tsui (TST for short). jealous that their subway's way too neat & safe! too safe that no single urban police is around & no guards to check on your bags. there are stores strewn side by side w/c one will pass by as soon as alighting the train. all stations have 7-11 & varied bakeshops which one of 'em is mrs. fields, okashi land & more. the train's 3x faster than our MRT. the doors have this route map which signals to everyone the train's destinations & stops. subway tickets are bought electronically (if you're not an octopus card holder). for octopus card holders, the card just needs to be waived at the terminals' card reader prior to descending to the train. we reloaded our cards once only, HKD50 minimum reload amount.

next stop, disneyland. we already have the HK money to pay at the entrance. HKD285 per person on weekdays, HKD350 on weekends. going to disneyland was actually routing back to where we'd been, at the airport. both are located at the lantau island, islands apart from the city. it took us 3 MTR transfers to get to the disney train from the sunny bay MTR station. ride was 1 1/2 hrs approx.