Hong Kong and Macau

On Nov. 22, Jennifer and I ventured to Hong Kong and Macau for three days.  We left very early in the morning around 5 from our apartment to the airport which is a $900NT cab ride away (around an hour drive).  We flew Thai Airways, which is phenomenal!  Our flight was an hour long and we received a meal both ways!!  On the way back we were served wine with our dinner!!  We stayed in Kowloon which is where a lot of foreigners live, our hostel was very sketchy, occupied one floor in a 12 story building.  We didn't have any windows and there was still hair on the bed!  But they gave us clean sheets.  To be honest, I didn't go to Hong Kong for the hostel so it didn't bother me too much.  Hong Kong is a very accessible city, we were able to get from the airport to our hostel with ease, although we had some difficulty communicating because Jennifer doesn't speak Cantonese.  Everything went swell.  To get to the city we took the Airport Express which is a train that runs on the metro line to different areas in the city and only makes 4 stops.  Interesting note: taking the taxi from station to the hostel, we saw kids playing ice hockey!  It wasn't very expensive around $15 or so.  And it was very comfortable.  After arriving in Kowloon, a lot of Indians came up to me trying to sell me custom made suits.  It was odd at first, but then it got a little annoying especially when it happened everyday I was there, a couple times each day.  But the sketchiest thing I saw was two people walking towards each other and passing a note spy style.  As in they didn't look at one another.

Day 1

After arriving and checking in, we took the MTR (subway, in Taiwan its called the MRT) from Kowloon to the Central Station.  It was very easy for me to acquire Hong Kong dollars because there are ATMs all over the place.  

Hong Kong has a cool currency, in Hong Kong, the currency is issued by the government and three separate banks: HSBC, Bank of China (Hong Kong) Limited, and Standard Chartered Bank.  So each note looks a little different depending on who issued it.  But the coolest note, was definitely the $10HK, it is made of plastic!!

Anyways, we walked around Central for a bit, looked at the Ferry Terminal, walked through a mall.  It seemed as if we weren't in Asia anymore.  From there we took a bus to Stanely on the other side of Hong Kong island.  On the way we wanted to stop at Repulse Bay, but we weren't sure which stop it was, however, we were able to spend some time there on the way back.  In Hong Kong, the buses are all double deckers like the ones in London, they even drive on the other side of the road.  Thats good old British colonialism for ya!  The drive to Stanley was unbelievable!  The views were amazing!  Hong Kong is not a flat island, in fact it is mountainous.  So the driver was driving around tight turns on the side of cliffs.  The water is an amazing color!  It is a teal color, very cool.  Once in Stanley, we walked through the market, there were probably more whites than Asians there.  The market was interesting, but nothing stood out.  There were tourists from all over, I heard Russian and French while I was there.  Stanley is also on the sea, it was very beautiful!  There were junks in the water and restaurants on the boardwalk.  Interestingly enough, we couldn't find one that served Chinese food.  So we had Western food instead.  After walking around there, we headed back to the bus and took it to Repulse Bay.

Repulse Bay, is located on the side of a mountain.  Not much there, more for the cool views of the sea than anything else.  But we did run into an Asian wedding, the odd thing about it was that the bride and groom were not speaking in Chinese to the crowd, they were speaking in English.  We walked around the beach and no one was in the water, it was in the 70s and in the late afternoon.  But it was mostly Asian tourists who were there.  Asian tourists usually get off the bus, walk around for ten minutes, take pictures and get back on the bus.  The beach was a little rocky as well, but it was very cool looking.  I'll upload pictures soon.  After that, we got back on the bus and headed back towards Central.

However, Jennifer and I got off at the wrong stop, and became a little lost.  It was entirely my fault, but we found out where we were and took the MTR to the next place we wanted to see.  The Tram.  In Hong Kong, there is a tram that goes up to the very top of the city, up to Victoria peak.  It goes above all of the skyscrapers and gives you an excellent view of the city.  I was hoping that we would be able to get to the top before sunset, however, we didn't arrive to base of the tram until well after.  Because there was a trail that I wanted to walk around that would have given us even more cool views of the island.  Oh well.  The line for the tram was extremely long.  But it moved fast.  One of the things we noticed is that old Chinese women think that they have priority over everyone else because they are old and so that gives them an excuse to cut in front of people.  Especially if they have a baby with them.  Some old Chinese woman and her family tried to push Jennifer and I out of the way while were trying to board the train, but I managed to box them out.  The ride up to the peak is very cool, it takes awhile, but the angle at which the tram goes up is ridiculous.  It had to have been above a 50 degree incline at some spots.  They could've made an incline, like the one in Pittsburgh, it was so steep.  After taking in the extraordinary views of the city, we ate a western meal at Burger King.  It was ok, I hadn't had Burger King for I don't know how long.  Up on the peak there was a lot of souvenir shops, but one thing that caught our attention was the EA Games area where you could play on an Xbox, PS2/3, Wii, Computer, or a PSP.  We played on that for a little while, it was dope.  After walking around all day, we were exhausted, so we took the bus back down to Central and took the metro back to Kowloon where we slept in our jail cell.

Day 2

We woke up at a reasonable hour, around 8 and were out by 9.  My plan was to go to the Macau Ferry Terminal and look at the timetables.  To get there we walked through a very cool park where we saw people doing Tai Chi, there were a couple people doing it with swords.  Sweet!  Before entering the terminal we walked around the outside which offered excellent views of the harbor.  We had breakfast inside, I had some Thai food and Jennifer had some Vietnamese.  It was pretty good: noodles, soup, spices, egg and chicken wings.  All in the soup.  We then purchased our tickets to Macau.

According to people that we talked before we embarked on this journey, it was a must to take the Star Ferry across the harbor, from Kowloon to Central.  We did that and it provided us with some more views of the city.  One thing we noticed about the architecture of Hong Kong apartment buildings is not only do they all look the same, but they are extremely thin and tall.  We were wondering how they would stand up to an earthquake?

The plan for the second day was to go to Lantau Island to see the giant Big Buddha, Po Lin Monastery and the Path to Wisdom.  It took awhile to get there, we also stopped along the way so Jennifer could buy some clothes at an outlet, because of that I was able to see a DeLorean DMC-12.  What is a DeLorean doing in Hong Kong?  We took the metro to around the airport and then we took a bus, crammed with people up to the top of a mountain, driving on single lane roads.  It was awesome.  The Giant Buddha is the world's tallest outdoor seated bronze Buddha.  In order to reach it, you have to climb up a couple hundred stairs!  While we were there, Jennifer ran into a couple old Chinese women who thought that they could cut the line to the bathroom, which infuriated some women.  Jennifer told me that some women started screaming at the old women.  I wish I could've seen that.  We did see some white people swing dancing at the base of the mountain which was odd for me to see, not as odd as seeing a bull, which we saw as well.  The Path to Wisdom was definitely the coolest site, it is an outdoor replica of the centuries-old Heart Sutra, one of the best known prayers that is revered by Confucians, Buddhists and Taoists alike.  The sutra is displayed on wooden pillars placed in the form of the infinity symbol, a sideways 8.  This is to symbolize the idea of immeasurable splendor and infinity.  On the walk back we saw some people playing rubbing their hands up and down the side of a bowl to make the water splash from the vibrations.  I gave it a try, it's harder than it looks.  That took up most of the day.  Once we returned back to Central, we took the ferry back to Kowloon, where we walked to the Avenue of the Stars which faces Hong Kong Island.  From there we watched "A Symphony of Lights," a spectacular light/laser show synchronized to music.  Where buildings are lit up and some buildings have lasers that shoot across the harbor.  It was neat, but would've been better if it was a clear night.

After a quick rest back at the hostel, we went back over to Hong Kong Island and headed towards Lan Kwai Fong where the best nightlife in Hong Kong is.  While we were there, we went to a British Pub and had some dinner and beer.  We walked around and that was about it, on account of the fact that we were tired from so much walking and we had to get up early the next day.

Day 3

On the last day, we got up early and headed towards the Macau Ferry Terminal by way of the park we walked through the day before.  The ride to Macau was very smooth, fast and comfortable.  Wide leather seats in economy!

For those of you who don't know, Macau was administered by Portugal until 1999.  It has the highest population density among all the countries/regions in the world.  All of the signs are in Cantonese and Portuguese.  Some have English.  Macau is the Las Vegas of Asia.  There are casinos all over the place.  Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to visit any casinos.

Before I say anything else, let me say that the roads in Macau make no sense.  Its like an infant trying to connect the dots for the first time, it's not going to be a straight line, its going to go all over the place.  For example: for us to turn right one goes straight onto an onramp that goes left then turns around and goes another direction before finally going right.  Why can't you take a right turn?

One of the main reasons I wanted to go to Macau was to see the old Macau, which resembles a lot of old European towns but with an Asian accent.  The first thing we did was to check out the Grand Prix Museum.  Every year in Macau there is the Grand Prix which runs the around most of, if not all of Macau.  Right next to that museum is the Wine Museum, which tells about the history of wine and even lets you sample some that are made there.  I had a white port, it was amazing!  Jennifer had a red port, a little bit better than the white.  It was cool!  We then took a bus to the old town, where we had lunch and saw an old Catholic church.  There was an old woman inside who was very nice to us.  She told us we had to put our things at the back of the church, I was a little skeptical because I thought that someone might steal them, but then she told us to leave our food and water at the back of the church.  That was fine.  I said a prayer and Jennifer walked around the church.  After my prayer I got up to walk around and the lady asked me if I had brought my camera, I said I did.  She told me to take as many pictures as I like.  I thanked her and after taking our pictures on our way, she said, "God bless you and have a safe journey home."  I thanked and said, "God bless you too."  She was a very nice lady.  After leaving that church, Jennifer found a place that sold ramen and was immediately hungry.  SO we ate some ramen, it was quite good.  Then we were off to St. Paul's ruins.  Basically all it is the front of a church, the rest of it burned down during a fire.  But what is really interesting about the area is the architecture.  You have old European architecture, with some Asian flare.  Then surrounding it is modern architecture with a casino influence.  We then made our way for St. Dominic's and the surrounding square.  It was very cool.  The colors and the style of everything really made me want to visit Portugal, and I still do.  By then it was time for us to head back to Hong Kong because we had to catch our flight.  So we were able to get on the right bus after some searching and made our way to the terminal.  We got our passport stamps, but not where we wanted them, this guy was on a mission to put the stamps wherever he wanted.  Oh well, Jennifer and I thought it was a little funny, and we would probably do the same in his situation.  The ferry on the way back wasn't as comfortable as it was on the way there because of different seats and the ride was bumpy/choppy.  After arriving back in Hong Kong, we grabbed our stuff out of the lockers and made our way towards Kowloon station on the Airport Express.  The great thing about the Airport Express was we were able to check in to our flight at the station, which meant no lines!  It was great.  So all we had to do was hop on the train and make our way to the gate.  When we arrived into the international terminal, we were astounded by how weird the roof was.  It was ovalish with tons of bumps all over the place.  We ate dinner at a Heineken bar, which I didn't know existed, I thought Heineken only sold beer.  I was wrong.  Before I hopped onto the plane, I bought a book called, The Adventure Capitalist, by Jim Rogers.  I have since, finished the book and it is a fascinating read about how he travels around the world in a custom Mercedes hard top convertible with his girlfriend/wife for 3 years.  He also provides insight into each of the nations' economies.  On our flight back to Taipei, I was wondering what Thai Airlines would give us.  Not only did they give us dinner, but they also served us wine whenever we wanted on the flight.  It was awesome!!!  That concludes my trip to Hong Kong/Macau.  You can find pictures here