Rong's Blog..: Hong Kong Trip 4 Day 2 (14/3/15)

The folks woke up quite early despite resting late, they were already up and moving about at 7am+ when mum told me to set the alarm clock at 8.30am. By the time the alarm clock went off, we were about to set off.

Having arrived at the hotel late the previous night, we did not get to take a good look at the surroundings, the neighbourhood seem much quieter compared to the places I've stayed previously (Nathan and Tsim Sha Tsui area). We asked the bellboys for direction to the MTR station and started ventured out. The weather was cool and nice enough to go out, even with just a T-shirt and long pants on. Nevertheless, most of the people have a jacket/sweater on.

First meal of the day at Kee Hing

Kee Hing breakfast

There are some eateries just across the street, we spotted one Hong Kong cafe (Kee Hing) buzzing with the early crowd and we decided to give it a try. It was full inside, but a table had three available seats, so the wait staff pointed us that way. It's a Hong Kong culture to share table, but the folks were a bit taken back by the squeezy area. They looked at the menu and ordered a beef noodles dish and a sausage macaroni soupy dish, obviously they were very happy with the food there as we decided to add on another bowl of beef noodles. The beef was fresh and really tender, it was not extraordinary but the food was considered good standard compared to what we usually have. I also tried the 菠萝油 but it was actually too oily and the butter was an overkill. We left the place after footing the $99 HKD bill, feeling happy with our stomach full.

We found our way to Sha Tin Station

Its essential to get an Octopus card in HK

We found our way to Sha Tin MTR station easily, it is located inside a big shopping mall and the place was already crowded with people although it was only 9am+. We got the Octopus card to travel around (150 HKD each) and Mum started to get quite worried as we did not have much HKD left with us since we were going to Shenzhen and she left most of the remaining HKD in the hotel room (I have no idea why she did that). Anyway, we started our adventure traveling to Shenzhen by taking the MTR towards 落马洲 (Lok Ma Chau). From there, we will cross to 福田口岸 to meet up with Aunt and Uncle.

Somehow the trains along this line give me a very 'China feel'

We alighted at 上水 as it was not a direct trip to Lok Ma Chau, we had to stop and change to another train. As we were crossing to the immigration, I noticed that it was probably a good choice as I remembered the huge crowd the previous time I crossed over to Shenzhen from Lo Wu. The transition to

Food here was really good, too bad we were too busy to enjoy :(

Shenzhen was smooth and we arrived at 福田口岸, however, we realised that our relatives were waiting for us at another stop and we had to take the Shenzhen metro to meet them at 购物公园 station. It was another trip that needed us to alight and changed to another train. By this time, I noticed that the folks were already feeling tired from the amount of traveling and transferring we had to do. The metro system in Shenzhen was modern and easy to access, but we still felt the strain of boarding and alighting from trains, looking for the right place to go, and some walking. To cut the story short, we finally met up with Aunt and Uncle at Coco Park shopping mall.

Our main mission was to get to the bank and get our bank accounts opened, but we couldnt reject it when Aunt/Uncle brought us to this very nice restaurant to have our lunch first. Obviously, they really liked the food there and had planned things this way to give us a really warm reception. Unfortunately, sis called us after some of the dishes came and she rushed us to our mission, so we had to ditch lunch to look for the nearest ICBC.

Took a quick shot and some bites before we rush to bank

My aunt is working in a bank and had assured us that it will be a pretty smooth process. However, things turned out quite differently. At ICBC, they asked for a local phone num and a local address to open the bank account, so we had to trouble Aunt to give the bank her numbers. It is also a hassle for her as the num was provided to phone banking/ notifications and she had to come up with a few different num for us to use. According to her, different banks have quite different requirements for opening new accounts and even the technology used is different for the OTP. We were really grateful that she offered her help or we would need to abort our mission right at that moment. After signing on many different pieces of paper, mum finally had her account done and she went to one of the terminals to get her account activated. Overall, the process of just opening the accounts and getting the accounts activated online was torturous, both due to the fact that it's China being China and we were really not used to the system.

We also intended to open accounts at another bank (Huaxia Bank), according to Aunt/Uncle, they have the best rates when we need to withdraw cash in SG. However, after taking cab down to one of their branches in Shenzhen, we were informed that foreigners were not allowed to open bank account there unless we can produce proof that we are staying in China for at least three months. This is a new regulation starting from 2015. Grrr.. another red tape.

The most ridiculous thing happened next. We walked to another ICBC branch to open another bank account, and we were denied as well! Different branch under the same bank actually had different ways of handling things.. Arrgh. Aunt helped us talk to the manager and finally they allowed us to do it. Mum's account got locked just after her internet banking was activated previously, the phone banking platform is difficult to use as there's a few different layers of passwords, so we also helped her to resolve the issue at the branch. I really wondered if the complex system really helped with the security or just added to the hassle. They gave us this USB shield thing that we need to do internet banking with, however, when I whipped out my Apple Macbook air to test the device, we were informed that it only work with Windows. We ended up paying more to get another password security device, which is similar with what we're using in SG.

Lovely family photo before we parted ways

After all the hassle, we were feeling really tired and it was already 4pm+. We walked to a nearby mall that's linked to the nearest metro system. Uncle treated all of us to Starbucks coffee (I also got my new China/Shenzhen Starbucks mugs there) before we bidded farewell to them. We were really thankful that they were around when we went through the all the hassle and headaches earlier.

My parents outside Shenzhen Starbucks :)

It was around 7pm when we got back to the hotel, it had been a long day so we rested for an hour or so before heading out for dinner. Sha Tin station is great for traveling to Shenzhen (direct line) but it is quite far away from the main city area. We decided to just look for an eatery around this area as we're dead beat and we had enough of the trains for today. It was Saturday night, so most of the eateries at the nearby New Town Plaza Mall were quite crowded. We spotted Din Tai Fung just a few minutes walk from our hotel but there were 50 numbers in queue before we can be seated.

Mugs to add to the collection

The trick is to get these Starbuck cards and use the credits to buy mugs

We preferred to try some rice dishes after having noodles for the whole day, but most of the eateries are serving Jap/Italian/Western specialty or just noodles. We walked around for awhile before we came to this restaurant call Hainan Shaoye, it caught my attention as earlier, Dad was wondering if they have hainanese chicken rice here in Hong Kong. We decided to try out the place since we can get seats immediately, we were quite amused after looking at the menu as the place specialised in SG/Msia food. I had a bad feeling about it as there were bad reviews about the food when I searched, however we did not feel like venturing around anymore, so we just want to have the mediocre meal and go back to rest. Luckily, we decided to order one whole Hainanese chicken and it actually tasted quite good, tender and juicy. It was not a cheap meal but at least the folks was satisfied with something familiar and they found it worth the price.