Christmas is one of my favorite holidays. I just love putting up our faux tree, buying a new decoration to symbolize another year as a family, baking holiday cookies, listening to the holiday music at the grocery store, and looking at all the wonderful Christmas decorations around the city.
Though I'm quite far from home, I still really do love spending Christmas here in Hong Kong.
As a way to ease into the Christmas shopping spirit, I started looking for stocking stuffers for my friends and family back home. I always try to find something fun and different. So, this year, besides some Kinder Egg Surprises and Cadbury chocolate bars, I decided to get a bunch of fun toys from one of the many toy gum ball machines around Yuen Long.
You can find these machines at most 7-Elevens and also at some of the Jusco Living Plaza shops around the city. There are also some specialty shops that are comprised solely of these toy gum ball machines.
I love how random some of these toys are.
There are two kinds of these toy gum ball machines:
1. The ones where you pop 5 HKD coins into
2. The ones where you can use your Octopus Card
Today, I was at one of the ones that I had to use my Octopus Card. The first thing that you have to do is select which toy that you want. Then you push the silver button that says "Push to Purchase" to figure out how much it costs.
Most of the stocking stuffers I got were in the 15 - 20 HKD range, which is superb for a little bit of Christmas Day fun.
The price will be shown right above the Octopus Card payment collector.
Then all you have to do is tap your Octopus Card against the collector, it'll make a doot sound, and the machine where you selected the toy will light up around the turn dial.
The last step in getting one of these stocking stuffers is to just turn the dial and the plastic "egg" will come out.
It's a pretty easy process. And it is actually quite fun to see all the randomness that comes with these types of toys. The "eggs" themselves are frosted over, so you don't really know what each person will get…which is the SURPRISE factor!
Stocking stuffers down…!
