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Published: February 28th 2008
Friday 4 January 2008 After a much less painful and less time-consuming dressing change for Barbara’s toe, we set off for a very familiar Bangkok airport .
We flew with Air Asia to Macau aboard their new Airbus A320. It was very pleasant, comfortable, efficient - and cheap! From our prior research we found that Hong Kong airport is only serviced by full-cost carriers and Macau only by low-cost. Even with the cost for a return ferry to Hong Kong, our travel cost worked out at only about 30%!o(MISSING)f the cost of travelling direct to Hong Kong. Since we had the time, it was well worthwhile.
Upon arrival at the surprisingly very small and basic Macau international airport, we telephoned Scotty (Michael’s brother Anthony’s friend) in Hong Kong but he wouldn’t arrive home until much later, so we took our time in Macau airport picking up maps and Hong Kong dollars. Macau does have its own currency, being Macau Patacas (abbreviated as MOP) but MOP and HKD are used interchangeably as MOP are fixed at 1.03 HKD and HKD is now fixed to USD since China regained Hong Kong from the British. Therefore we didn’t bother purchasing any
MOP and just went straight to HKD.
Outside the airport, we passed the redundant cyclos which appeared to be for historical display purposes only (photo) and found the AP1 bus from the airport to the ferry terminal. We avoided the touts downstairs at the terminal selling ‘cheap ferry tickets’. We purchased our tickets upstairs from the REAL ticket counters and tried to check in our luggage. We strangely were advised that we shouldn’t bother checking in our luggage so we proceeded through immigration and to the departure lounge - after picking up a little duty-free to exchange for our lodgings in Hong Kong.
We boarded our ferry (photo) and were surprised to find it similar to riding in an airplane. The seating, layout, seatbelts, overhead lockers, safety announcements and sounds of the jet engines were all reminiscent of the many plane journeys we had experienced during our trip.
The ferry was fast, smooth and comfortable. After only about one hour, we were in Hong Kong! (photo)
We arrived at the Hong Kong ferry terminal and acquired a detailed map of Hong Kong from a very helpful security guard. We then wandered our way up to Mid-Levels district
to meet Scotty at his apartment. On our way we spotted the Hans Christian Anderson display (photo) at a local plaza and had our first Hong Kong meal of a ‘French hot dog’ and a ‘crispy pork chop roll’ at a local chain eatery (photo). Hong Kong Island has very steep hills. We were pleasantly surprised when we were able to walk our luggage most of the way to Scotty’s using Hong Kong’s fantastic Pedestrian Walkway which consists of a series footbridges over the busy streets and (the best bit!) the Mid-Levels Escalator (photo). Yes - a huge outdoor covered escalator so you don’t have to walk all the way up the hill! From the top we caught a short cheap taxi for the rest of the way - with compulsory seat belts! We were certainly back in civilisation. Arriving at the Hong Kong Hilton (aka Scotty’s apartment), we greeted Scotty and met his family (Zena and Fonzie - photo), admired the lovely views over Central and Kowloon (photo) and then hit the sack.
Saturday 5 January 2008 We awoke after a very comfortable sleep and enjoyed a lovely breakfast (impeccable service at the Hong Kong Hilton!) before
heading out for a day of sightseeing.
Our very charming tour guide (Scotty - of course!) led us to the Peak Tram (photo) which is a funicular railway that travels from Mid-Levels to the Peak (the big hill on Hong Kong Island over 400m high). Up we went to admire the fantastic panoramic views of the Island and surrounds (photos). Near the lookout Scotty also introduced us to a little bit of the local culture and taught us about Hong Kong patriotism - always stand and salute to the Hong Kong national anthem (i.e. stick your fingers in your ears when you hear a jackhammer! photo) As we discovered, Hong Kong, to put it diplomatically, is in a constant state of evolution. To put it bluntly, it’s a big construction site!
Back down the mountain we went (photo) - it’s quite a steep ride - and then we hopped on a bus to Stanley at the southern end of Hong Kong Island to visit the markets there (photos). We enjoyed wandering our way through the markets which sell clothing, souvenirs, food, luggage - everything a tourist could possible want! We bought some nice postcards to send home, a new
daypack for Michael (as he had worn his old one to bits!) and a compass for Barbara which she has since learned how to use and has come in very handy. We rehydrated at the Smugglers Inn at the esplanade overlooking the bay and dined on some authentic traditional Hong Kong burritos. It appeared to be a bit of a travellers stop - we were surprised to find the interior covered in messages from passing travellers written on business cards, serviettes, money, etc (photo). Michael added to the collection (photo).
After wandering around the bay for a little longer and basking in the warm afternoon sun, we went in search of a bus to Aberdeen.
Aberdeen is a large harbour district at the south west of Hong Kong Island. Scotty negotiated a tour for us on one of the sampans (photo) that bump around the harbour (similar to the ‘bumboats’ in Singapore only shorter and with more rubber tyres). Our tour gave us a very close-up look at the harbour, the fishing industry (photos) and the famous floating Jumbo Restaurant (photo).
We caught a bus back to Scotty’s and, before heading out to dinner, Scotty introduced us
Hans Christian Andersen
A mix of Christmas cultures here!to the beloved 4th member of his family (photo).
Dinner with Scotty’s neighbours Richard and Tup was very enjoyable. We were entertained by the noodle-maker at Peking Garden Restaurant (photo) before tasting their other specialty, the delicious Peking Duck (photo). It was quite a feast!
We worked off our dinner with a brisk walk through the nearby streets observing the busy nightlife (photo) and following Scotty’s ice cream radar (photo).
Sunday 6 January 2008 In need of some warm gear for our up-coming European winter adventures, we headed down to the shopping district around Johnston Road, Wan Chai on a local tram (photo). We also invested in an ‘Octopus Card’ (photo) each, a true asset to anyone relying on public transport in Hong Kong. It is a plastic card which you charge with credit to use on buses, trams, metro, etc and just swipe it each time you use it and recharge it when your credit runs low - NSW transport minister, please take note! In true Hong Kong fashion, most of the street markets there had been closed to make way for construction of new shopping centres. Having not much luck with our shopping, we
Michael and local fast food
A âFrench hot dogâ and a âcrispy pork chop rollâ stopped for a delicious lunch of roast duck and pork with vegetables and rice from a restaurant near the Johnston Street Markets that we cannot name because we can’t read Cantonese (photos). We continued our shopping expedition around the Times Square district to no avail before deciding to turn our attentions back towards seeing the ‘touristy’ sights Hong Kong has to offer.
According to Lonely Planet, the Giant Buddha on Lantau Island was open until 6pm. With a little over two hours before closing time, we figured we’d give it a shot. We hopped on the metro which took us to Lantau Island, from where we caught the cable car to the Giant Buddha (photos). Please take note - this cable car is not for the faint-hearted! Anyone with a serious fear of heights should catch the bus. The scenery is breath-takingly beautiful, even if the height is a little scary. The nerves really get a workout when the wind picks up and the cable car rocks from side to side. Apparently they only ever cancel the service during high-rated monsoons.
The cable car ride was longer than expected and we arrived bang-on 6pm. Unfortunately for us, Lonely
planet was incorrect and it closed at 5:30pm. However the guard was very kind and allowed us to take some quick tourist shots (photo).
By the time we returned to the cable car, it had closed to tourists for the day and we caught the bus instead. The long winding bus ride took us to the pier where we caught a ferry (photo) back to Hong Kong Island and ate some authentic Hong Kong take-away lasagne before hitting the sack.
Monday 7 January 2008 Deciding to experience a little local culture, we set out to visit the Hong Kong History Museum. From Mid-levels, we needed to catch a bus to the metro station then the metro to Kowloon then a taxi from the metro station (as Barbara still had a sore toe and it was quite a long walk). During our bus ride we noticed an interesting street sign (photo). A prize goes out for the most creative translation!
The museum itself was very interesting and informative. It traced the history of the region all the way from creation to present, describing the natural and cultural historical developments along the way. Also, despite our failed shopping
trip the prior day, Barbara located a nice winter raincoat to take with her to Europe (photo). The museum also had interesting exhibits of traditional fishing boats and village shops (photos) for an insight into daily Hong Kong life in the past. There were huge recreations of figures from Chinese opera (photo) and Dragon costumes used for festivals (photo). One of the most interesting exhibits showed the change that has happened to Hong Kong’s coastline over the last two centuries. Thanks to land reclamation, Hong Kong Island is almost 50% larger than it originally was! (photo)
After the museum, we headed back to Scotty’s. By this time Barbara was exhausted and called it a night while Michael was just getting started. He and Scotty met with some of Scotty’s friends for a fun night on the town.
We headed out to a SoHo restaurant with great food, some nice wines, and conversation ranging from karting to fashion design. Then Scotty, Nicole and I kicked on for a cocktail or two at a very funky place called “Feather Boa”. Although it’s listed in Lonely Planet, it hasn’t lost any of its charm and was standing room only when we
arrived. One website describes it as “Part camp lounge bar, part bordello, this is a former antiques store with the furniture left delectably en situ.” A couple of cocktails later, including a wicked chocolate martini (photo), and it was time to hit the sack.
Tuesday 8 January 2008 Having flown into Macau, we though it fitting that we should actually see a bit of it so we caught a morning ferry back across to Macau to spend the day there.
For those who are unfamiliar with Macau, it is a recently re-acquired territory of China which was previously administered by the Portuguese. About 60km south west of Hong Kong, it comprises three land masses (Peninsular Macau, Taipa Island and Coloane Island) which are joined by very long bridges and stretches of reclaimed land.
When we arrived in Macau, we found a bus from the ferry terminal to the old city on Macau Peninsular. The bus dropped us at the plaza on Avenue de Almeida Ribeiro which is a beautiful historic plaza constructed in Portuguese style (photo). Exploring the plaza, we found many little lanes leading in all directions containing historic buildings, churches, murals, small plazas paved
in mosaic patterns, gorgeous fountains (photos) and bakeries where you can sample the famous Portuguese custard tarts. We also passed the 17th Century St Dominic’s Church (photo) which is famous for its turbulent past, for a short time even being used as military barracks when its use as a church was not allowed.
We climbed up the steep streets to the Grand Fort (photo) which houses the Museum of Macau. The museum gave a very interesting insight into the history of Macau, however some of the narrations were very dodgy (photos) especially regarding western influence for a very Chinese perspective, religion (i.e. the Great Schism occurred around 1100AD not 400AD - big GONG to the historians) and the presence of ostriches in Australia! The rest of the museum, however, was fantastic. There were recreations of Portuguese ships and their various cargos, life-size recreations of Chinese-Portuguese streets to show the fusion of architecture (photo), displays of Portuguese pastries, Chinese puppets (photo) and the traditional pawnbrokers houses which were the origin or the modern day banking system (photo). Outside in the grounds of the Fort, Michael had a little bit of mischief with a canon and the Grand Lisboa Casino which
dominates the city skyline (photo).
At the base of the Fort lie the ruins of St Paul’s Cathedral (photo) which was destroyed by fire in 1835. Only the facade continues to stand and some of the crypt is still intact and contains sacred art and relics.
Continuing to explore our way through the small lanes of the city we stumbled up a great lunch spot down a very Chinese lane (photo): Dragon Ma Ma Cuisine where we enjoyed delicious fried noodles and special ‘dragon’ crab noodle soup ,their claim to fame - but for those without shellfish allergies only, sorry Michael! (photo) This lane and surrounding streets are also lined with small bakeries cooking delicious biscuits made from crushed almonds - yummy (photo).
After discovering from the Macau Museum the distinguishing characteristics of a historic pawnbroker’s house - tall thin solid building with tall narrow windows - it was easy to spot the Pawnbroker’s Museum (photos). The front of a Pawnbroker’s building traditionally will be a shopfront with residence on top with a ‘vault’ building behind it full of levels and levels of storage for valuables kept on loan or ‘deposited’. The history of such pawnbrokers in
Macau dates back to the 17th Century AD and they were the foundations for the modern banking system in the region.
The day still not done, we caught a bus south to Taipa. The bus stops at the plaza on Rua Carreia de Silva near the ruins of the ‘old market’. The plaza is characterized by a large dragon statue that greets you as you arrive (photo). Along this street is also the historic village area which is very ‘cute’ (photos). Barbara has never taken so many photos of lamp posts before!
We briefly ducked into the Museum of Taipa and Coloane which was nothing to get excited about. However across the street and outside the Pak Tai Temple was another of Macau’s beautiful Portuguese style murals depicting travel and exploration (photo). We also spotted a strange looking weather station in a not so likely spot, the middle of the street - this one is for you, Angus! (photo)
We wandered down to the Taipa Houses Museum (photo) which consists of a line of historic houses restored and filled with various exhibits. The houses are lovely but unfortunately the exhibits aren’t very interesting at all. The real
fun was had with a cut-out mural in the lane outside the museum (photo).
On our way back to the bus stop we passed yet another example of poorly translated signage - a restaurant offering ‘bady ribs’ instead of bbq ribs and ‘grabs in curry’ instead of crabs in curry (photo).
Our bus took us back to the peninsular where we found a great ‘Macanese’ (Macau-Portuguese) restaurant for dinner (photo). The ox stew was tender and delicious, served with rice and vegetables.
No visit to Macau could be complete without checking out the casinos (photos) - after all, Macau IS Asia’s Las Vegas. Due to the Portuguese history there is of course Casino Lisboa and the previously mentioned eyesore the Grand Lisboa. In addition there was the Colosseum, Little Amsterdam, Aladdin’s Fort, Volcania and Qing Dynasty (photos).
After an exhausting day we snoozed on the very comfortable return ferry to Hong Kong.
Wednesday 9 January 2008 Continuing our pursuit of winter clothes for Europe we set back out to the Times Square shopping district where we were delighted to find that all of the shops were now having sales. Our successful morning saw us
acquiring warm waterproof jackets for wearing in snow and the oh-so-common European rain, new boots for Michael to be able to wear with his orthotics and a pair of comfy travel pants for Barbara to replace her favourite Jeans that she finally said goodbye to in Chiang Mai (they’d been repaired about 7 times). Still at Times Square, we met the new Olympic mascots which were being displayed for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. So of course we took some traditional tourist photos (photos).
We also had a cheap and cheerful lunch of delicious seafood chowder (for Barbara only due to Michael’s allergies) and noodles for Michael with ‘cotton chocolate’ (hot chocolate with marshmallows) to wash it down all from Tsui Wah Restaurant on Jaffe Road (photo), a small chain restaurant which we discovered was the same as the one we had tasted crispy pork bun and French hot dog from on our first night in Hong Kong.
Thursday 10 January 2008 We decided to explore some more of Hong Kong so we joined a group tour to the ‘New Territories’ north of Kowloon organised through the Hong Kong Tourism Department. It seemed very interesting as we chose
The "Hong Kong Salute"
to the sound of jackhammers. the Nature Tour rather than the Culture Tour as we had already been to the museum and the national parks up north were meant to be very nice.
Waiting for our late bus at the designated pickup point near the City Hall, we found amusement in the silhouettes accompanying us (photo). We also spotted some unaccompanied baggage that we not in the slightest bit concerned about (photo). When our bus collected us we were surprised that it was almost empty but then it travelled across to Kowloon and collected another group of tourists from outside the YMCA. The traffic was very heavy and it was already an hour after our scheduled departure time when things really ground to a halt because another tour bus hit our bus - in the side right next to where Michael was sitting! The driver proceeded to park the bus in the middle of the road (photo), as did the driver of the offending bus and wait for the police to arrive. Our fantastic tour guide was on the ball and immediately phoned for a replacement bus. While we waited, he safely guided us out of the bus through, the traffic that was quickly
building up around the accident, to the kerb and into a nearby hotel lobby to sit down. Our bigger comfier bus soon arrived and off we went...
First stop was the Yuen Yuen Institute (photo) which is a large temple complex housing three religions Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. It is also a significant burial site and we were shown the offerings that are burnt during the cremation ceremony. The family of the deceased will burn paper replicas of all of the things they wish for their relative to have with them when they are gone: money, food, clothing, even alcohol and mobile phones! (photos) The temple has a large shrine containing statues for the 60 ‘birth deities’ according to the Chinese calendar. We located ours but could figure out what Michael’s was going to do with his paddle?! (photo) Outside the shrine large pots containing burning joss sticks (photo) filled the air with the smell of incense.
The bus then drove us to the top of Hong Kong’s highest peak, Tai Mo Shan, from which the view was quite stunning (photo). At the base of the mountain was the walled village of Fanling which we explored (photo). Unfortunately
Michael and Scotty
on an open top bus to Stanley not much of the original village was still standing. The towers at the four corners of the village were intact as was the main gate. However the rest of the wall had been replaced by houses. Inside there were a couple of original houses that we were able to see. Outside we were greeted by an elderly lady who still lived in the village. She was 86 years old and had lived in the village since she was young. She said we could call her ‘aunty’ (photo).
We stopped briefly at the Bride’s Pool Lookout to admire a beautiful waterfall (photo). However it wasn’t the only sight there that caught our eye: we found a rubbish bin with rather an interesting name (photo). Next we visited a floating fishing village which has amazingly adapted to the times by running underwater electricity, telephone, internet and clean water supplies from the land (photo).
Due to the traffic incident earlier in the day, the tour was running early two hours late. Scotty was due to leave to work for a couple of days so we rushed back to his apartment to quickly see him off before he left (photo) - Barbara
was very chuffed that he even let her wear his Captain’s hat! Even Zena was sad to see him leave.
That evening we headed out for dinner to the Szechuan restaurant in nearby Elgin Street that had been recommended to us by Scotty. Wow, the crispy mutton was so tender it melted in our mouths and was served with fresh green vegetables (photo).
We returned to Scotty’s apartment to be greeted with a view that wasn’t so comforting given our plans for the next day (photo). The ‘Grey Wall of China’ has blown in and the fog/smog was so dense that we were unable to see Kowloon which is normally lit up like a Christmas tree at night. Later on the smog thickened and then we were only able to see the first couple of rows of buildings in from of Scotty’s flat. The worrying thought was that we were due to catch the ferry back across to Macau early the next morning for a flight to Singapore - coincidentally where Scotty was headed also! Barbara felt comforted however when Michael assured her that the boats could ‘see’ using radar. Similar to the cable car, ferry services are
only cancelled in the case of monsoon.
We distracted ourselves with some packing before going to sleep and were amused to find Fonzie doing a Champers impersonation with Michael’s backpack (photo).
Friday 11 January 2008 It was a freezing cold morning in Hong Kong and even colder in Macau. Although the view from the ferry was not comforting (photo), the crossing went off without a hitch except for having to wait an hour for our ferry when the gates were closed early for the one we planned on being on. However we found out later just how lucky we were. This ended up being another one of our famous ‘marine close-shaves’ as we later found out that the fog got worse throughout the day and two of the jet ferries ‘t-boned’ near Macau due to the lack of visibility. Many of the passengers were taken to hospital with fractured limbs. We feel sympathy for those who were injured but relief at having caught an early ferry!
Despite the delay with the ferry, we still managed to get to Macau airport in time for check-in. Check-in was very slow because some not-so-bright travellers decided to pool their
Smugglers' Inn, Stanley
leaving a business card luggage limits to be able to take a crate of cargo. Unfortunately not all people understand the distinction between luggage and freight! The Tiger Airways staff dealt with them appropriately, enforcing the strict limits and requiring the idiots to unwrap it for security inspection and re-wrap it after scanning, then scan it again after re-wrapping it to ensure it was safe. It took quite some time and the idiots were working up quite a sweat in their fancy suits. At least the Tiger staff made them work for it. We didn’t mind the delay too much and were actually finding the scene quite entertaining. The Tiger staff efficiently managed to still get everyone checked-in in plenty of time for the flight to Singapore.
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