okay WQ here. just let me add my short comments here in response to b_lo_zero's post.

on a whole, the cost of living there is about the same as singapore i would say. mainly is because of our superior exchange rate that we find the shopping cheaper. but of course, they do have their cheap stuff. like a HKD2 tram ride or HKD2.30 ferry ride was definitely cheap and worth it, especially the ferry for the view.

my main aim for the trip was actually to eat, which of course i did. char siew and duck rice and the wanton noodles etc which was so damm gd. and of course the expensive dinners like xiao fei yang hotpot, goose restaurant and peking duck restaurant. and all kinds of desserts, milk pudding etc and small snacks like egg tarts which beat any found in SG. there's just too much to eat that we did't have space in our stomach plus time to eat dim sum in HK and the street snacks which was a REAL SHAME! 8 days and no dim sum or whtever is boo boo.

Shen Zhen isn't as bad as what b_lo_zero described. i'm sure they have their nicer shops. like ppl in hk recommend us to other places in SZ but i guess all the talk of it being dangerous and such just scared us and we didn't there go further than the mall at the immigration. kind of like going JB immediately to a lucky plaza with those kind of sales ppl and the counterfeit goods there. sure suck. maybe should travel a bit further for better malls.

yup city gate was definitely worth it and i will surely go there again, with more energy next time. couldn't cover every single shop because there was too many things to see. didn't even step into my nautica outlet! and the cable car ride up the mountain thing? forget it, it's permanently closed for maintainence every day.

Macau was awesome. when we first got there, it looked like a ghost town with few shops and places to eat. but my friend's pictures and the night scene showed otherwise. at night it's so damm gorgeous, yup especially venetian which was jaw dropping. you could actually spend 3 days there. guess we didn't find the place for food hunting and sight seeing because of the 12 hours there, some of us spent 9h in the casino? and my friend said zhuhai should go. it's a huge ass mall that will take you one whole day to cover. back to venetian, you can spend quite a bit of time taking pictures there. everywhere looks damm beautiful, especially the night view of it. and we didn't even cover all the major casinos actually. we missed out city of dreams. sad. if u go for a day trip in future, i suggest covering all the tourist spots and spend the whole night at the casino. adrenaline will keep you awake and just take the late night ferry or even the next morning's one.

ocean park was quite gd, but my friend's thought otherwise. lol. maybe because i had the abyss to conquer, which i did of course. no more fear of that stupid drop. it's nothing if you compare it to bungee jumping. and now back in singapore, i can say IT'S SO DAMM SLOW. should have made it 10 times faster.

yup the main thing about holidays is always about the ppl. but this was definitely the most fulfilling holiday ever. we covered so many places and were still short of time even with 8 days. practically left hotel every morning before noon and never once came back early. walked until my feet hurt but it was gd. and staying with your friends is a totally different experience because u find out so much more about them which i'm sure every one of us from the trip know more about each other so there's no need to comment here.

so that's about it, i love the trip, just that not enough nice pictures taken!