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Hong Kong, 16th - 19th August 2008
My third trip to Hong Kong and Macau was no less exciting than my first or second. Infact, there's something to be said for visiting a place, be it a city or indeed a whole country more than once because not only do you get a better feel for the place and experience it in different seasons, you get the chance to absorb all the details you missed the other times and see how things change over time as well as see and do the things you didn't get a chance to do in previous visits or perhaps relive the favourite and memorable moments of past trips.
Hong kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China that is made up of over 260 islands, including Hong Kong Island and Lantau Island, as well as the Kowloon Peninsular and the New Territories. Being one of the most densely populated areas of the world, Hong Kong is a bustling city that embraces both eastern and western cultures and I couldn't wait to go back there again.
After a disgustingly early start, we left Tokyo
on a morning flight and arrived 4 hours later in Hong Kong! Its amazing how quick and easy it is to travel around the world these days. We spent our first 3 nights on HK Island, at the Yes Inn just opposite the Fortress Hill MTR Station. The hostel, based in a number of apartments on various floors throughout the Rialto Mansion on Fortress Hill Road was fantastic, small but very clean and in a great location for us to explore HK Island by foot, bus, tram and MTR.
Our days were jam packed with sightseeing, going to a lot of places I'd been to before but was more than happy to go to again, such as the Big Buddha on Lantau Island, which we got to via the NongPing 360 Cable car - a long cableway taking us from HK Island to Lantau Island giving us brilliant views over the hilly green Islands and HK International Airport. We also visited Victoria Peak by the very steep Peak Tram and saw gorgeous views over the whole of Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsular.
Eating became a rather large pastime for the two of us, after
being in Japan for 3 weeks living mainly off of convenience store bought sandwiches and crisps due to the prices out there, we relished in the fact that Hong Kong has an abundance of affordable and delicious foods on offer and we continued our food crusade by spending one afternoon wandering the Food Expo at the Hong Kong Convention Centre, where we tried many samples of different foods, mainly asian orientated and a lot that we'd never seen the likes of before! One of my favourites would have to be the frozen yoghurt with fresh frozen fruit added into it, delicious! And I was pleasantly surprised by the crispy fish skin, the name itself didn't do much for my tastebuds or stomach but it was actually quite nice. Very crispy.
Hong Kong had transformed numerous areas around the Island as viewing points for the Olympics and we wandered along to a few of these areas to have a look around and catch up on some Olympic action. The largest Olympic venue was at Victoria Park, where a huge sheltered screen had been errected with seats to watch the events live. We watched a fair few one evening, badminton,
View of HK
from the cable car to Lantau Islandtable tennis, diving - mainly the events that the Chinese teams were participating in and we were given big inflatable clappy things to clap with when China won gold in all 3 of the aforementioned events. Unfortunately no gymnastics were shown on the big screen, much to my and Stacy's disappointment, guess I'll just have to wait until the 2012 Olympics in London for more Olympic gymnastic action!
Macau, 19th - 20th August 2008
We decided to break up our time in Hong Kong by spending our 4th night over in Macau, the other special administrative region of PRC that is known for being the Las Vegas of Asia. The ferry from HK to Macau took about an hour and due to the fact that Macau doesn't have any hostels, none that we could find online, we decided to splash out and book ourselves a hotel room for the night, very luxuarious!
Due to the short time we had in Macau we began our sightseeing in earnest, visitng all the main sights there were to see. Even though Macau is just an hour away from Hong Kong by ferry, the feel of the place is
totally different. Their Portugese influence is very apparant as soon as you arrive, with road signs and place names being in Portugese and the architecture of the buildings making you think you're somewehere in Europe, that is until you realise that the vast majority of people are Chinese and various dilects of Chinese are being spoken all around you. Quite a baffling experience!
The Sao Paulo ruins was first on our list, where only the remains of the front wall of a church still stands, standing at the top of a slight hill, which is quite an impressive sight and the fort next to the church offers fantastic views over the city. They had an Olympic site with a screen up by the ruins and we finally got to watch some gymnastics, woo! China won! We walked to the ruins through the Largo do Senado, my favourite part of Macau, a huge square where the floor is paved with black and white stones in a wiggly pattern that has become quite a landmark for the country.
Our time in Macau wouldn't have been complete without two things, sampling their local cuisine and of course checking out
a casino or two! The Portugese egg tart was high on our list of things to eat while in Macau and my memory of it from previous trips was not disappointed! We also sampled some small almond biscuits which crumbled delicately in your mouth and treated ourselves to a Macanese feast of fish cakes, sardines, Portugese fried rice, prawns, vegetables and the most amazing mango pudding at a restaurant called Pinocchios.
During the day we visited the Venetian Casino, one of the newest and probably the most impressive casino at the moment in Macau, you could actually believe you're in Venice. That evening we decided to see if we could win our millions but it was hard just to choose one casino to visit so we ended up visiting a few and allowed ourselves about £30 to play around. We started at the MGM Grande, then headed across the road when our luck on the slot machines began to falter to the Wynn and then finally to the Casino Lisboa, one of the most famous casinos in Macau that was built in the 1960s. We didn't make our millions unfortunately, but I was up by HK$400 at one
point!
Our time in Macau was very brief, there was still a lot to see but we thought it better to leave something for next time. After a morning of utilising the hotel's gym and pool facilities we headed back to Hong Kong.
Back to Hong Kong, 20th - 23rd August 2008
We spent our last 4 nights in Hong Kong in one of the hostels in the Mirador Mansion on the Kowloon Peninsular in Tsim Sha Tsui. It was a lot cheaper than staying on Hong Kong Island and it was good to get to know a different area of Hong Kong. We spent most of the first day back in HK walking around the Kowloon area, visiting Mongkok - an area known for its electronics and markets and the Avenue of Stars along the embankment, where we got to see handprints from a good number of Chinese stars! That night we met up for dinner with, Clarabella, a good friend of mine who I went to school with nearly 10 years ago (wow, that makes me feel old!) and who is currently living and working in Hong Kong. She took us for a
hot pot dinner, where you cook your own food on a bubbling pot of broth on the table and we got to try crispy fish skin again, I think its slowly growing on me! Afterwards we went for some traditional chinese desserts before we had to part ways.
On our second day back decided to take a day trip to one of the outerlying islands that is also part of Hong Kong. We took a ferry over to Cheung Chau and it was then that we learned of the Typhoon that was to come the next day...uhoh!
Cheung Chau is a small island just 10km from HK and was predominately a fishing village, although now it's main source of income are the tourists attracted to its beaches and seafood cafes. We spent a few hours there, starting with a dim sum lunch at one of the local restaurants, followed by a bike ride around the island, probably the best way for tourists and locals alike to get around as some of the roads are so narrow that normal motor vehicles wouldn't fit through!
Back on Hong Kong Island I convinced Stacy it'd be fun
to go up the mid level escalators, the longest outdoor covered escalator in the world, consisting of escalators and travelators that takes you from Central up to the Mid Levels in around 20 mins. Quite a long ride! I was quite excited by the prospect of going on the longest escalator in the world, but after 10 mins, it did get a little boring. However, we perservered and got to the top... only to walk back down again!
Our last day in Hong Kong was slightly marred by the fact that it was Typhoon day and we soon found out that a typhoon warning 8 meant that pretty much everything shut down! No shops, no restaurants, everything at a standstill. So we spent the day sitting around the hostel, reading books, watching films, eating McDonalds (the only place open that we could find!) and getting ready to leave Hong Kong the following day for our next destination - Vietnam.
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