Advertisement
Published: July 22nd 2008
Edit Blog Post
n197803387 41021578 2590
The biggest casino in Macau, the Lisboa. The End of Asia
So, as planned I'm continuing in my catch up quest to get this up to date with my travels. Since the last blog I've been traveling round the North Island of New Zealand which has been amazing so far. Wont go into too many deatails although I feel I should let you all know I managed a Sky Dive Yesterday over Lake Taupo which was amazing. Dropped out of a little plane from 15,000ft and over a minute of freefall before the parachute opens, awesome!
Anyway, for now I'm just gonna try and cover my few days in Macau and Hong Kong before I finally flew out of Asia.
It was cheaper for me to fly to Macau than Hong Kong so I ended up booking a ticket there instead as als thought it waould be cool to see somewhere else. Macau was really cool, its a small Island near to Hong Kong, and similar to HK in the sense that although its technically a part of China it is its own state with its own laws, currency and borders (so another stamp for my passport!) I was the only (and I mean only)
non-Chinese person on my plane over, which was a very very strange experience as although I've been in lots of place where there havent been many westerners, to be on a commercial plane and sticking out like a sore thumb felt pretty weird. They alsop made all of the annoucements in Chinese and English, but seeing as I was the only non-chinese speaker on there, the English annoucements were essentially just for my benifit which was quite cool on a plane full of a couple of hundred people!
Macau is known by some as the "Las Vegas of China" as it has different laws governing gambling there so there are tonnes of huge casinos there where half of China seem to go if they want to throw their money away. As my plane didnt arrive till 9pm and I'd been worried about finding a place to stay I'd booked into a hotel, which was certainly for the best as there would have been no-one able to help me there. Very few people spoke English and infact in my entire first day in the city I didnt see a single other white face which again felt very strange as I
n197803387 41021586 4706
Its a long way down. 233metres infact! really felt like I stuck out but no-one paid me any attention at all (which AGAIN was weird as after 5 months in south east asia you get very used to being spoken to and shouted at by every shop or restuarant owner you walk past, but here it was like I was invisible.) The hotel I stayed in was amazing as they upgraded me into a suite for free on the 18th floor of this really swish 4-star hotel, with a pool and spa, all for 30quid. It was the nicest place I think I have ever stayed in.
I spent my 2 days walking round teh city in the day time which was really nice, as well as going up the Macau tower which is one of the tallest in the world and home to the worlds biggest bungee jump (I think). It was really amazing up there, hopefully you can get an idea of it from the pictures. There was also a glass floor in parts of it which was really cool. On my second evening I went round serveral of the big casionos which was fun, although as I was on my own I didnt
spend too much money and just tried to take it all in. Your not allowed to take any pictures inside but it was all pretty impresive.
Anyway, after 2 days there I left Macau via a boat to Hong Kong Island which is about 90mins away. I had 3 nights there before my flight so was looking forward having a look around. After my nights in the hotel I headed to the Kowloon area of Hong Kong to find some cheaper backpacker accomodation and that I did. I ended up staying in a place called "First Class Guesthouse" in the smallest room Ive ever seen. Seriously, most cupboards are bigger. I've attached a picture to show you what I mean... There I met an English Couple called James and Edi who I ended up spending most of my time in Hong Kong with. they were really cool and togetehr we had a look round the city and went up to 'The Peak' which is hill which has a view over the whole place which is incredible, again, photos attached! James and I also spent all 3 nights staying up till about 5am to watch the Euro2008 quarterfinals in a
local pub which was good. Hong Kong was really good but I was happy to only be there for 3 days, as although its got a much more English feel than any of the other Asian cities Ive been too (Including english plug sockets which was really strange to see after so long) it was still very hot, smelly and dirty. It was a lot of fun tehre though but after the 3 days were up I headed to the airport where I would be taking and over night plane to Brisbane where I would then change and fly to Fiji after a 8 hour wait.
I think this has been a pretty poor blog but I just needed to cover my last few days in Asia and I think the photos are alright and as always I'm not going to re-read what I've just written. The next edition should be a bit more organised covering my 2 weeks stay in Fiji and then I'll have caught up to arriving in New Zealand.
Thanks for reading, and as always hope your enjoying the English summer, after 6 months you are all finally warmer than me! 😊
Andy!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.105s; Tpl: 0.022s; cc: 12; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0471s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb