Hong Kong: Stanley Beach & Repulse Bay

Stanley Beach and Repulse Bay are a great way to spend a day in Hong Kong.  While Stanley is aimed at tourists, with familiar restaurants and modern shopping centres, it's a gorgeous scenic spot for photos. 

 

We had an early lunch at Stanley Cave, an underground bakery, and it was deliciously cool with blasting air conditioning and everything was sooooo yummy!  It had chefs all in aprons behind the counter, and al of the were so lovely with lots of smiles (and great speaking English too which is always a bonus).  We picked out some salads, baguettes and cakes and all were at reasonable (to us Aussies) prices.  A huge salad, to a long ham and salad baguette, to a yummy cake pictured above, all were about $4 AUD each.  They also had the best frozen yoghurt I've had too.

The beach at Stanley is very picture-esque and encompasses old and new Hong Kong along the beach line.  We found this beach on our last trip 4 years ago and it was a must see for us again because it is where all the shipwrecked broken china washes up.  We combed the sand for a couple of hours picking up centuries old patterned china.

These little houses line Stanley beachfront.  I would *love* one as a holiday house!

Modern china still gets produced in little factories on the beach.

 
Stanley Market is absolute torture if you are pushing a pram.  The laneways so so narrow, it's almost impossible to push one thru so I recommend not taking one at all to Stanley!   The prices at Stanley are supposed to be a lot higher than the rest of the markets in Hong Kong.  Honestly, I couldn't see a real lot of difference and I really like Stanley Market as it stocks items you don't see at other markets like a great range of kids clothes including bridesmaids/flowergirls frilly things, church outfits and brand name clothing that were made as samples only.  All the handbag shops were all Buy 1 Get 1 Free.  They also had a silversmith studio where The Sexy Man got me a fab Bunny ring in silver.

 We ate the BEST strawberries EVER at a Stanley market fruit stall.  They were huge!

 

We then got the bus to Repulse Bay and chucked the kids into the water for a couple of hours.  All 4 were bombarded by Chinese tourists wanting their photo.  Then it was the adults turn.  Sometimes we all felt like rockstars with all the photo taking every day.

 

Ocean Park in the background.

Get this.....they even sweep the sand.  Seriously.  With a straw broom and everything!

 

 

 

 Designated dog parking! 

And catching the Star Ferry.  The Ferry is a must to catch at least once.  It costs something like 30c and the kids are over the moon.  A night trip is also fun as you bob around on the water for a couple of hours and watch the night light show, eating free cake and soft drink.  That costs $14 AUD each adult.

 You guys sick of HK yet?

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One Dress Two Ways

So, I have this $6 dress that is about 10 years old.  It gets revived every now and then, usually when packing for holidays, as it's iron free and super cool in Summer.

 

I added a 50's bird and bell brooch to my beret, dug out some fishnet stockings and Seychelle boots and this is pretty much what I've been living in for the last week!

This beaded denim jacket is also an old fave, also about 10 years old and came from my first trip to Italy, and I will wear it until it drops off.  See, some days I don't do vintage!

  I do love a good chunk of Bakelite.

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CROWS TOES, CROWS TOES, CROWS TOES SPAMALOOZA!!

Heart shaped Box of Horse Doodoo over some random Coffee brown shade whose name I cannot remember.

Merope, 3 coats.  So deliciously multichromey!

 

One coat of Toxic Buttercup over a coat of pastel Yellow.  It has a strong pink flash that my photos didn't quite capture.

 

Maia in artificial and natural light.  3 coats on it's own for super easy color shifts from Gold to Orange to Maroon to Purple.  LOVE this one.

 

 

Tangete, 3 coats.  This color shift is quite subtle, but in natural light you can see a duochrome between 2 shades of Lilac and Purple.

Lil Miss Cyanide, 2 coats over a pastel Purple (un named mini bottle by Nicole OPI).  Again, the blue/green flash on this one is quite intense but my camera couldn't capture it.

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Comic Con Nails!

This looked pretty awesome in real life and got a few comments at Comic Con last weekend. 

Pointer and little finger are 3 coats of Emily de Molly Oceanic Forces, with 2 coats of Femme Fatale Ghoulish Glee on the middle finger and a dark green holographic franken with gold stamping on the ring finger.  Finshed with a coat of Seche QD.

I am still heads over heels in love with Oceanic Forces.  I just want to wear it ALL the time.

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Hong Kong: Apartment & Airbnb Review

 

Have you guys heard of Airbnb and Wimdu?

 

The short of it is: anyone can advertise their apartment or house for rent anywhere in the world.  You have a large range of photos to look thru, an online map showing where the stay is, amenities are listed and the 'Host' describes how far away the stay is from public transport, airport, etc.  Depending on Country and time of year depends on your price per night.  The following is my experience with Airbnb.

 

My sister and I took our time researching our accommodation.  We knew we did not want a hotel.  We each have 2 kids so we needed at least 2 bedrooms, washing machine, a kitchen and lounge area.  We also needed to be in the middle of HK.  At the end of a very loooooong day we did not need to then have to take a one hour train trip back to our apartment.  We also needed to stay within walking distance of each other for easy meetup and communication.  After several months of constantly checking Airbnb and Wimdu and emailing countless Hosts, we finally found Cathy who had several apartments scattered thruout HK, but had 2 apartments with 2 bedrooms each, in the SAME building on the SAME floor!

 

This was the view from my apartment.  We were 3 floors above the Ladies Market in Mongkok.  You can't get any more Central than that!

OK, to be perfectly frank......the apartment took a bit of getting used to.  Yes, it was 2 bedrooms but the whole place was tiny!  In fact, our bedroom was probably not much smaller than the whole apartment.  The above was our shower.  Yep, it's over the toilet.  Apparently this is normal in Kowloon high rises.  Funnily enough, we got used to that pretty quickly.  If we forgot to put the toilet paper in a safe place then it was annoying, but overall having a removable shower head was very handy.  The water drained very quickly and a quick wipe down of the loo afterwards was needed!

Next to that Burgundy couch was the door.  A very skinny door.  We had to pack up the pram to get it in.  The burgundy couch held our suitcase and then there were the 2 small couches where The Sexy Man is lounging.  (Sorry Sexy Man)  If we wanted to eat on a table, we had to get it out from under the bed and set it up as there was no room in the apartment to have it setup permanently.  We ate on our laps every night!

I have shown this photo in my first HK post, but it shows the kitchen.  It came equipped with rice cooker, wok, steamer, dinner ware and cutlery.  A washing machine was also under the bench.

And both the bedrooms had bunk beds.  We knew this before booking as we saw the photos.  The other apartments featured 'Queen' sized beds, but when we got out the measuring tape we realised that the HK version of Queen is actually an Australian King single! Way too small to hold 2 adults anyway.

The lowdown:  Initially we were quite nervous to use Airbnb booking service.  But they safety guarantee all credit card details and the money gets held with them until after the accommodation stay, and if everything went well, the money is then transferred onto the 'Host'.  We also passed up several nicer looking units to stay with Cathy, who had dozens of positive and no negative feedback.  Positive feedback was crucial to us and to allay our fears!

Cathy was there to meet us on the corner as we got out of our Taxi which was a huge relief!  Has anybody seen the Ladies Market at 7pm??  It's absolutely CHAOTIC!  Thousands of people, hawkers, food stalls, tourists.....argh!  She took us up in groups as the lift was quite small.  She settled us in, gave us a few tips, showed us where the supermarket and MTR was then left.  We had no issues during our 10 day stay and didn't need to contact her.  She also let us stay late on checkout day for no extra money as our flight home was a night one.

Within a 2 minute walk from our apartment was dozens of restaurants, a supermarket, convenience store, churros shop (!), Hello Kitty shops, taxi rank and MTR station Yau Mai Tei.  And of course, the Ladies Market.

For the date of our stay we paid $120 AUD per night.  Compared to a Family room in a standard rated Hotel, we saved about $60 AUD per night, at least, and then had our own bedrooms, etc.  To stay a little further out in HK, near Lantau or on Hong Kong island, the prices were a lot cheaper and bigger in size.  You could get a 3 bedroom apartment for around $100 a night.
I just wish I knew about this website 4 years ago on our first family trip to HK!

I have since used Airbnb to book accommodation for my Mother in Law who went to Singapore.  She stayed in a boutique 2 bedroom apartment which was gorgeously furnished.  She was ecstatic.  I am also in the process of using Airbnb to book for our Thailand trip next year.

Anybody else used Airbnb or Wimdu?

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