My mundane yet crazy days.

Early morning activity: waiting for the school bus with Adam.

Compared to his previous school, he is happy and enthusiastic to go to school every morning as there are different programs for the kids, and of course the shorter hours.

I'm carrying Ashton while waiting for the bus with Adam. Life of a mum - hands are always full.

Once back home, need to settle Ashton's breakfast and bath. After that, LAUNDRY.
After this pile gets folded and packed nicely into the cabinets, another pail is waiting in the utility kitchen. Gasp!

Play-room before: It looks like a toy shop exploded in here.
Toys strewn everywhere - living room, on the coffee table, in the balcony.........
Have to sort and keep the toys for easy finding.
Broken limbs need fixing and dead batteries need replacing.
The other night, I stepped on a Lego brick and almost slipped. ZzzzzZzz

Play-room after.

Other things on the list:

Ashton has a hacking cough, needs a trip to the paediatrician.

School bus drops Adam off at 12:30pm.

Lunch beckons.

Nap time for the kids.

Bottles to wash and sterilise before Ashton wakes up and takes another feed.

Mop floors otherwise baby crawls and eats hair or dirt from the ground.

Puts bucket of laundry into washer (clothes in my home are washed separately according to Hubby's / mine/ kids/ bedsheets).

Takes a much-warranted shower while waiting for laundry to be done.

Children wake up.

... the list goes on ....

 

So you see, 24 hours is hardly enough for SAHMs.

Doing this for short term or once in a while, I can handle... But if scrubbing and washing is all I do day in, day out, then I'd rather work.

 

I don't buy the "I work to spend time / I work for passion" bull-balls. 

If you really want to spend time, there are loads of stuff to do as a mum on any given time of the day.

If you are working for passion, I find it even harder to believe it.

I have passion for many things, be it bags, shopping, playing with the kids, photography, blogging, going to the library.... anything but work; anything but waking up to an alarm every morning; anything but having to deal with stupid people and workplace politics. I definitely do not have passion for such things related to w o r k.

 

Everyone works for $$$. Mums especially. Children are expensive to have.

If you would like to be able to afford holidays every year with your family, to buy nicer stuff for yourself and your kids, to afford enrichment classes, to eat at nicer places once in a while, then you have to work for it.

Just always remind yourself - nothing good in life comes easy.

 

 

 

 

Our family Hong Kong trip: Michelin-star eateries.

Ming Court: 2 Michelin-star Chinese restaurant.

Level 6, Langham Place Hotel Hong Kong, 555 Shanghai Street, Mong Kok.

 

If you are looking for a nice sit-down restaurant to try contemporary Chinese food, you may consider going to Ming Court.

The items on the menu are special, and not arm-breaking expensive.

For our table of 5 adults, we ordered 5 dishes with some complimentary dim sum, which amounted to about SGD$200.

For a Michelin-star experience, I think it is still Ok.

Tim Ho Wan

Shop G72A & B, Ground floor, Olympian City 2, 18 Hoi Ting Road, Mong Kok.
+852 23322896

It is actually outside of the Olympian City building, so if you're at this main entrance, go into the mall, turn left (you will see G2000 and Mango), exit the door all the way straight, and turn right.

Only a short queue with fellow Singaporeans. We waited for only 20 minutes on a Sunday noon, compared to the 3-hour wait back in Singapore.
We never bothered queuing for Tim Ho Wan in Singapore, so I can't compare the food.



Tim Ho Wan is just a 10 minutes' walk away from our hotel.
If you're in HK, you have to stay at Langham Place! It is so convenient!

 

Leaf-wrapped glutinous rice with chicken.

Char siew bo lo pau. Soooooo nice that we ordered another serving.

Osmanthus jelly: a slightly sweet, light taste about it.

Other Tim Ho Wan branches:
Ground floor, 9-77 Fuk Wing Street, Sham Shui Po.
+852 27881226

Shop 12A, Level 1, Hong Kong Station, HK.
+852 23323078

Shop B, C, D, Ground floor, Sea View Building, No 2-8 Wharf Road, North Point, HK.
+852 29795608
.
.
.
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 Ok this is the final instalment of our HK trip.

Hope you enjoyed reading it and found our guide useful if you plan on visiting HK :)

 

 

Our family Hong Kong trip: the culture, and eat-shop-eat-shop..

Day 1:  Dinner after a tiring day at Disney and Lantau. We went back to hotel to get our much needed baths, changed into fresh clothes and headed out to dinner.

 

In HK, we did all the touristy things with my in-laws and tried to make full use of our time by walking / shopping/ eating the whole day. By night fall, we were famished with all the activity.

 

Time to eat again! We wanna eat roast goose!!

 

At a cosy little Cha chan teng in Mongkok which served superb roast goose.
The service is above average, being a rather small cha chan teng. The waiting time to get a table for 6 was not very long, and food arrived at the table fast.

Chan Kee Roast Goose.
427-427A Reclamation Street, Mong Kok, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
+852 2381 6161

The roast goose was excellent. Oily and juicy and sinful with every bite. Roast goose is not available in Singapore, so if you're in HK, definitely must try this famous eatery recommended by fellow Singaporeans!




Day 2: Argyle Centre and more shopping at Tsim Sha Tsui.

We booked a day tour for my in-laws to visit Victoria Peak and all the other touristy activities with Ashton, while we brought Adam shopping with us. Poor kid walked for long distances and so many rounds of shopping with Mummy!

Argyle Centre, Mongkok! It's like a mega version of Bugis Village so expect many cheap fashion buys but don't expect a lot for the quality.
I bought a midi dress there for $8 and various T-shirts for a song. Most of the shops open after 12:30PM so don't waste your time by going too early (like we did).

Getting ready my re-useable shopping bag for bargain-battle.

After shopping, we headed for dessert.



Prince Dessert.
11-13, Prince Ritz, 448 Prince Edward Road West, Kowloon City.
Tel: +852 3486 3194

Try their egg custard with bird's nest. Comes in a tray of 6.

Hubby had their hot dessert: Coconut with bean curd and tapioca balls. Also very nice!

Everything also nice to eat..... Fat die us.

Shop not enough at Mongkok, headed to TST for more shopping. By this time, Adam already KO into Andy's arms.

The shopping in TST is mostly for designer goods, but the outlets at Harbour City is always full of PRCs Q-ing outside. If you want to avoid these queues, and get better service without all those crowd squeezing with you as you browse, then go to Peninsula Arcade, opposite SOGO.

But frankly, it used to be that buying designer goods in HK was about 10-20% cheaper than buying in Singapore due to HK being tax-free, but the last I checked, their prices have gone up considerably and are now parallel with, or slightly more expensive than Singapore prices :(


Day 3: walking around the streets hunting for street hawker food.

 Since we did all the shopping in Day 2, we spent the rest of our trip simply exploring the streets and stopping for food whenever and wherever.

Like these grilled squid. So juicy!

and smelly toufu. I like! Tapao for my in-laws too :)

Hubby had this coconut milk drink which so many people were queuing for.

Yuen lai this is the reason lah. Don't know what's her name this HK actress helped to sell drinks here before.

Oh yah, this dim sum restaurant was recommended to us by my HK aunt.
She says the food here is cheap and good.
She didn't lie!! We ate so much and the bill came up to about SGD$100 only, for 6 pax. Ok what!

Shamrock Seafood Restaurant
223 Nathan Road, ground floor of Shamrock Hotel, Jordon.
+852 2735 6722 / 2730 3519
MTR station: Jordon.

Is yummy! Especially their braised pork with steam rice.
Makes me hungry just typing this post -__-



Day 4: Taking ferry at Victoria Harbour.

But first, gotta go to SOGO to buy lao po bing.

Bought the Lao po bing for our relatives, my colleagues and our own consumption.
What to do... Old people like us love to eat such tidbits.

At Victoria Harbour

Love my family photo at Victoria Harbour before boarding ferry. Ashton also wanna follow Adam & I make hand signal but don't know how to. Hehe..

My lovely boys in same outfits. Finally able to dress them alike because so hard to find the size difference.

The ferry trip ended with us at Harbour City. Decided to go walk around.

All the cosmetics so pretty! I can't bear to buy them because I know I won't bear to open and use...

 

 Thanks for dropping by.

 

We also went to two Michelin-star restaurants during this trip, they are posted here!