Day 1 Hong Kong

For the trip to Hong Kong, I booked a flight with Scoot. The flight was scheduled at 0155 HOURS. However, about 6 hours before the departure time, I received an SMS and an e-mail that the flight was delayed. The flight was now due to depart at 0520 HOURS from Singapore and will arrive in Hong Kong at 0900 HOURS. We did not fret much about that as it worked to our advantage. Our original flight was to reach Hong Kong at 0535 HOURS. What were we supposed to do in Hong Kong that early?

Anyway, I prefer night flight or early morning flight when travelling with the kids they will fall asleep during the flight. Whenever we take the aeroplane, I normally have lollipops with me. I will give them to the kids during take-off. I will also bring extra just in case their ears get blocked during the flight. When that happens, I will offer them the lollipops again.

Fluffy white clouds

When we arrived at Hong Kong Airport, we took the maps and the brochures just past the immigration. Mira Hotel provides shuttle service from the airport to their hotel but it was rather expensive. There are many ways to get from the airport to your hotel.  You can take the Airport Express, the airport bus service or the taxi. You can find out more about all these on this TripAdvisor site (click here). 

We chose to take the taxi instead and proceeded to the taxi waiting area. There are staff there to guide you if you are unsure on which taxi to take. In Hong Kong, there are 3 types of taxi to choose from. Which one to take will depend on the area that you choose to go to. 

Red taxisRed taxis operate throughout most of Hong Kong, except for Tung Chung Road on Lantau Island and on the entire south side of Lantau Island.

Green taxisGreen taxis only service the New Territories.

Blue taxisBlue taxis only operate on Lantau Island.
Source: http://www.discoverhongkong.com/eng/plan-your-trip/practicalities/transport/getting-around/taxi.jsp#ixzz3MGY2kuwQ

View of Hong Kong taken in the cab

We took the Red Taxi (Urban Taxi) as Mira Hotel is situated Tsim Sha Tsui. The total cost of our cab fare is HKD 260. Do ask for a receipt (as informed by the airport staff). Our room was not ready yet when we arrive and check-in is only at 3 p.m. So we left our luggages with the bellhop as was told that our luggages will be placed in our room when it is ready. 

We then walked around our area a little. Mira Hotel is located along Nathan Road, next to Miramar Shopping Mall and Mira Mall. It is very near Tsim Sha Tsui MTR station. Mira Hotel is surrounded by shopping malls. You can also walk to Harbour City from Mira.

Opposite of The Mira

We walked around to search for halal restaurants. Heard that there is a lot around the area but we could not find any. Finally saw a sign for a halal Indian restaurant and we settled for that. However, the food was pretty disappointing. We explored the area a bit more. By then it was 2.30 p.m. We returned to Mira Hotel and our room was ready. Our luggages had already been placed in the room when we entered.

We love Mira Hotel so much. We opted for a room with two twin beds. The room comes with a Samsung Handy smartphone. You can make FREE international and local calls with it. It comes with unlimited 3G data connectivity. So we used the Handy around Hong Kong, accessed Google Map, checked out restaurants and promotions and made calls to Singapore with it.

Didn't take a picture of our room but it looked like this. We opted for 2 twin beds.
Source: http://www.themirahotel.com

The room also has a 40 inch LCD TV which you can also use to access the internet. The minibar was free for us. There is a separate bathtub and shower area. I also loved the fact that the sink is outside the washroom!

Since our hotel room was fun, we spent some time in it. Later in the evening, we went out again. Met a guy who gave us a brochure for a halal Western and Mediterranean food. So we checked out the place. It is at Chungking Mansion, the building next to the mosque. There will be someone standing nearby to key in the passcode for you to enter. The restaurant is at level 2. Can't remember the restaurant name thought. Was it Al-Maedah? The waitresses are Filipinos. Very nice ladies. The food was awesome. We had Chicken Pizza and lamb rice. We packed the food back since our girls were already asleep.

So that was the end of our Day 1. Pretty uneventful.