Hotel Elizabeth Cebu on Father’s Day

June 2011 – Happy Father’s Day, pop! Love you!

The entire crew arrived on the Saturday of Father’s Day weekend and despite my offer on staying at my apartment, the mother wanted to check out Hotel Elizabeth.

We love Hotel Elizabeth! The interiors are tastefully done. Tessa Prieto-Valdes is quite handy in the paneling and designing department. You’d think that because of her quirkiness and personality, she’d be having fascinators or mink coats all over the place.

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Cafe Coral & The Avenue of the Stars Hongkong

Traveling to Hongkong actually is easy if you know your way around, if you are certainly good with directions and if you have a best friend who practically visits Hongkong every 2 months to shop. When we landed in Hongkong a few hours after our Manila idle-time, Warren did a ninja and was quick to guide us to the train terminal after getting our luggage. Yes, the airport has its own airport express railway that runs like clockwork! We paid HKD$55 or PHP330 for the one way fare to get to Kowloon for 20 minutes. The train is faster but if you want a little sight seeing you can always get on the bus yet takes more than 20mins and usually leaves every 30 minutes.

Because the bus rides and hotel shuttle services are free, we hopped on the next Peninsula bus we saw after the train dropped us off. The free shuttle service is only for those passengers who were on the Airport Express Train. There are staff from Hongkong stations and hotels that will guide which shuttle you should be on to get to your hotel. Why Peninsula when the hotel we booked was Kowloon? Because Peninsula Hotel Hongkong was just across Kowloon! How convenient, right,  especially when Kowloon doesn’t have their own shuttle services.

This is how the ticket looks like.

Iggy is buying an Octopus card. It is like a preloaded card worth HKD$150 for the first card and succeeding is HKD$50-100.

of course, you insert it here

Yey, walkalators in Hongkong!

My first photo of a Chinese baby. The woman can’t understand my English

I was so excited to go around the city enough to not check out the hotel anymore and have Warren and the rest of the men bring our bags upstairs. Kowloon Hotel is right smacked in the center of Tsim Sha Tsui.

I love this part of the city that makes the idea of you being in a foreign country so exciting! Everything is novel! People come from the subway and you’d think it is dirty down there but no – they have walkalators on their subways! There was a Cafe de Coral on the third floor of a SASA building in Nathan Road and I had peking duck there for dinner.

Swarthed in fat glaze arrgh. So delish! Continue reading »

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Tsim Sha Tsui at the Ayala Terraces Cebu

When the boyfriend and I had our usual “Us Sunday” two weekends ago, where Sundays are only spent alone and cellphones are ignored just in case family and friends text/call (sorry Mom!), we watched Sherlock Holmes at Ayala before heading out to dinner. Instead of our favorite ribs at Casa Verde, we headed to this new place at the Ayala  Terraces Cebu, Tsim Sha Tsui and spelled just like the streets in Yau Tsim Mong district in Kowloon, Hongkong.

 I remember getting lost at Tsim Sha Tsui in Hongkong before because I had a hard time pronouncing the place but the Tsim Sha Tsui waitress at the Terraces Cebu was quick enough to help us say, “Jim Sa Joy”. Make it sound like your a local and hope for the best.

Boasting of its fuchsia and green bursts of color which Cebu fashion designer Phillip Rodriguez designed, the dimsum and tea bar has its own all-you-can-eat dimsum buffet at their conveyor belt.

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