I’ve been to Hong Kong a grand total of four times, but this was the first time I went there with my high school barkada. What I loved about this particular trip was the pace—easy, breezy, cruisin’.

Because A, C and I have been to Hong Kong before, we didn’t have to squeeze in all the usual touristy stuff into our itinerary. We were three girls on a mission: we were there to 1) eat, 2) drink, 3) shop, 4) conquer The Abyss (A and me), and 5) see pandas.

Unfortunately, the pandas were too busy sleeping to welcome us properly. But they were still so impossibly cute that it was worth the visit to Ocean Park, where I discovered that A and I were both adrenaline junkies. We both took on the very thrilling Hair Raiser, a roller coaster that suspended us high above the South China Sea, hurtled and looped us around with our legs in the air. It was a different way of “seeing” Hong Kong :D

The highlight of the day, however, was The Abyss, Ocean Park’s 20-storey turbo drop that had me screaming like a hyena EVEN before the big drop:

We went on this ride TWICE. I almost chickened out the first time as I’ve never even dared to try the one in EK—a baby compared to this one. But since I listed down bungee jumping on my 30-before-30 list, I told myself this was a test run. I’m so glad I did it because the adrenaline high after the drop was just so F*CKING INCREDIBLE!!! It was like we were drugged…we were laughing like crazy—C probably thought we were hysterical—and even when the second time wasn’t quite as nerve-wracking, we proceeded to scream as loud as the first round. Haha. I am so going back to Ocean Park for this.

It was a good thing we got the drinking part of our itinerary over and done with on our first night there when we met up with B and M at Lan Kwai Fong. We terrorized two places: a cool club called Eivissa (where it was raining men) and one of those sky deck places I forgot the name of because Eivissa’s bartender kept dishing one round after another of complimentary shots, all on top of our Vodka Cranberries.

Somehow, one thing led to another, I reportedly had “abandonment” issues, and when I woke up, I found myself wondering how I ended up wearing this mask, which I don’t remember who/where I got (or stole?) it from.

Ah, alcoholic bliss. Always the best when you’re with your girlfriends. :D

The rest of the trip was a blur of sightseeing, hopping from one MTR train to another, shopping, more shopping, and—what I enjoyed the most—food crawling. I not once did not like any of the food we tried on our four-day stay in sin city—had my fill of steaming hot xiao long bao, noodle soup, egg tarts, fork-tender blackened prime rib (aaaahhh), Nha Trang’s deliriously good Vietnamese treats…sigh. It was sheer food heaven.

Our last day was the highlight—we went to Mario Batali’s restaurant, Lupa, where we had the best lunch ever.

Our Hong Kong trip ended with us walking around Central a wee bit tipsy as we decided to share one last bottle of really good white wine. Not bad for our first barkada trip out of the country! :)