6D5N Hong Kong 2014: Half Day Trip to Cheng Chau

There are many islands in Hong Kong and some islands, like Lantau Island, are more popular than the rest. Most people visit Lantau Island, where the airport is located to take the cable car to see the Big Buddha and to visit the factory outlets at Citygate Mall.

Last year, I went on a full-day island hopping itinerary which brought me to Peng Chau, Lantau (the harbour side) and Cheung Chau (where I barely had 2 hours).

This year, the plan was to visit the newly open Chimelong Ocean Kingdom at Zhuhai. However, after some considerations, recommendations and advise, I’ve decided to drop the idea. I guess it was a slightly blessing in disguise as my HK friend warned me against taking the rides as there was a lot of bad reputation from their theme park in Guangzhou. Furthermore, it was just a soft opening of the place and many rides and attractions were still in construction. Maybe next time, or maybe not..

Well, the consolation was to go back to Cheung Chau island, the place which I couldn’t finish last year.

As my friend was not free in the morning, we could only start the day at like 1pm+

For those who don’t know, there are four prices for ferries in the permutation of  normal and express; weekdays or Sundays/PH. On a Friday afternoon, we paid HKD$24.60 (twice the price of normal) for the express ferry to Cheung Chau. The time you save for the ferry journey is 20 minutes but it also depends on the time you arrive at the terminal. E.g. time now is 1pm and express ferry leaves at 1:10pm but normal ferry leaves at 2:00pm. Is it worth it to wait that extra 50 minutes + 20 minutes (extra cruising time) to save HKD$12? If the dollars and cents matter to you, this timetable would be very useful.

After alighting the ferry, turn left and walk along the main street till you see a whole row of seafood restaurants. We ate a late seafood lunch at the last shop. You can take a look at the photos at the link which don’t exactly look appetizing at all. My recommendation is that you don’t bother trying the seafood. The quality was not worth my money and stomach space. There were many more delicious street snacks on the island!

After lunch, it was time to digest the food by walking on whatever path we could navigate too. It was an unplanned and anyhow whack using google maps route (the reason why I had to get data plan).

By the way, Cheung Chau is famous for the famous bun festival which happens somewhere in early May. We were lucky to witness the building of the bun tower! It was located right next to the seafood restaurant.

There are several hiking/walking routes you can discover in Cheung Chau depending on where you walk. I didn’t exactly had a plan so we just made use of google maps and the physical maps that they had and random turn left and right and left it to chance. So these are the random things that we saw along the way 🙂

Img Cr: http://frd.asia/tag/cheung-chau/

Anyway, this was my rough walking map out on google maps:

Cheung Chau is an island with a living community and it has its own full fledged facilities from markets to old folks home to schools and temples etc. It is just like any other small community back in Kowloon.. Just that the buildings are shorter and the streets are spacious and not crowded at all.

This was the beach at the other side of the ferry terminal. It was crescent-shaped beach. (reminds me of the one I saw in Korea but a lot more dirtier..)

This was supposedly a restaurant by the beach but it doesn’t seem to be operational anymore. It is probably just some warehouse space. Anyway, the place pretty much look like a ghost town with all the run down buildings.

There were some random people on the beach on a Friday afternoon. I thought it would have been a lot more crowded..

This was the only Hotel in Cheung Chau – Warwick Hotel. I guess it is one of the higher-end options if people miss the last ferry and had to stay over on the island. The cheaper options were the guesthouses along the beach. Some look pretty decent and it reminded me of those random family hotels/guesthouse I stayed back in east Korea.

There’s this supposed cafe opened by an Olympic Windsurfing Champion ( I think). It was not open when we were there. Not sure if it was even open at all..

Along the way, there will be signs like this. Trust the signs at your own risk. Sometimes the arrow doesn’t really point properly and you need to do a guesstimate.

Followed the path to the Little Great Wall to see the random stone sculptures which we were pretty much disinterested in. Heh. but it was a good walk.

I can’t really imagine what these stone sculptures represent.. but they actually have names to them.

There was some building/residential belong to a Church. It just appeared randomly out of no where.

      

Recreation Village = Place for Camps/Retreats for students?

We had to make a detour and went back the same path we came from because we didn’t want to risk going the wrong way. There was the other side of Cheung Chau but we didn’t have much time since it was only a half-day or rather we only had 2-3 hours to spare since we started the day so late.

There was a helicopter landing by the beach.

Maybe I can hold my wedding or birthday party here in future and people will have to fly in for it =p

Using iPhone 5 Panorama function. You can see that the paths are almost empty.

I can’t understand the rationale behind this..

Random zi char stores along the way as we walked back to the main area.

Uh-HA! I found the stationery shop which made me and my cousin missed sunset a year ago! Once again, we spent a long long time there but I didn’t buy much this time round. They didn’t have the super cute cartoon angpows anymore. I guess they only sell those during CNY.

And when I was walking.. I saw this card machine which used to be my favourite machine when I was in primary school! Basically, you insert coins (back then was 20cents) and you turn the machine and you will get a random sticker/card. Guess what, this machine had the popular Korean alien drama cards! WHAT A PITY it was not functioning.. otherwise I would have emptied all my coins here!!! I guess this drama must be pretty popular in this island as well…

and.. we managed to find the awesome dessert shop that I visited a year ago. There was a slight re-arrangement of furniture and I couldn’t really be sure that this was the shop. However, once I tasted the food, I was 100% sure that it was the place. reviews: here

Must try: Mango Mochi & Mango Pomelo Sago. Egg Pudding was okay but my friend said it’s nicer that Yeeshun.

There were a couple of places that I have not yet visited in Cheung Chau:

North lookout Pavilion – the highest point in the island

Cheung Po Tsai Cave & the reclining rocks – located at the southern west of the island.

In fact, I haven’t explored the entire south part! Well, seems like the third visit back to Cheung Chau would really be possible!

Next Island that I would be visiting would definitely be Lamma Island.

http://www.discoverhongkong.com/eng/see-do/great-outdoors/outlying-islands/lamma-island/index.jsp

If you’re keen, you* can express your interest to travel with me =p

*Selection Criteria to be determined.