A Mission in Kowloon

We journeyed to Kowloon on our first nite in Hong Kong. The mission was to check out, book and pay the deposit for the room in this little hotel that was featured on Terri's blog, on Temple Street. Jiun Loong Hotel was on Temple Street, not Terri's blog. Heeheehee.

It was our original intention to stay at Hong Kong Island for the first few nights and then move over to Kowloon for the last two. So we were quite confident of Jiun Loong cos we knew Terri knows a good thing when she sees one.

Kowloon is definitely different from the Hong Kong Islands. It was blink blink everywhere. With all the myriad of neon lights that surrounded us, it was difficult to pin-point the hotel. I can't imagine how it'd be like for someone who's colour-blind.


But pin-point the hotel we did. Our eyes joomed in, and there it was - at the junction of Temple and Jordan Street. Not much of a sight from the outside. It looks like one of those cheesy & sleazy by-the-hour inns. Our first instinct was to run & swim all the way back to the island.


But when we stepped inside, the hotel people were nice enough to let us see the rooms before we actually put down the money. We saw the superior room with the kinky see-through bathroom. It was very clean. But the price just wasn't right. It was HKD850 (RM389) without extra bed. It turned out to be not a relatively good deal cos staying at the 4-star-ish Novotel Century, we were paying about the same.

This is the thing. It was supposed to be the low season but hotel rates there were anything but low. Somehow the rates have all shot up. Maybe they saw us coming. "Look, it's the three Malaysian Stooges! Let's raise our prices!"

They had other cheaper rooms for HKD600 (RM270) & HKD100 (RM45) for an extra bed, but those gave Nee the creeps. So we gave it up & decided to continue staying at Novotel. Even that was risky cos we didn't know if Novotel would continue giving us the same rates. "Look, the three stooges want to stay on. Let's raise our rates!"

So to sum up our situation at that time, we were really going to take a chance on Novotel. For all we knew, we could have ended up sleeping on the streets.

So with that possibility weighing down on our mental & pshychological state of mind, we did the next logical thing - hunt for food.

A little further up Temple St from Jordan St, we turned left and found this little tong sui (dessert) place, Min Kee. It's not the typical recommended place in the books but why not since wnothing can be worst than three Malaysian tourists sleeping on the streets of Hong Kong.

The place was exactly what we like though ~ small, unknown, old, authentic & original.

We had these three variations.

Papaya cooked with white fungus. Just nice, not too sweet, clear & refreshing.

Egg with beancurd drink ~ Interesting combo! Excellently not too sweet as well.

The best of all ~ Black sesame concoction (Zi Ma Hu). Really really really smooth. Did I say really? The kind that'd make you clean your bowl. Yup! We licked them bowls clean folks!

You see, our holidays usually end up sounding like missions. But I guess that's part of the whole journey of having fun. No hunt, no fun! We did well here. Fingers crossed for the hotel.