Macao

We spent yesterday in Macao visiting Michelle's grandmother and an uncle and aunty that live there. Her uncle Paul had taken the day off and was kind enough to show us around the tourist sights, including sampling the famous Portuguese egg tarts!


Paul works at one of the local casinos and took us in to see the best ones. We caught a crazy floor exhibition thingy at the Wynn's casino. It apparently cost several million dollars to produce and is designed to get people into the casino and in the mood to gamble!

When we walked in we were marvelling at the animated ceiling, made up of hundred of LCD TV tiles. Just when I was getting the camera out, the screen parted and a huge chandelier descended from the ceiling. If that wasn't enough, the floor opened up and a golden tree rose from the floor and rotated under the chandelier while its leaves changed colour. After a few minutes of spinning trees, they all retreated back to their starting positions and an embossed covering showing all the chinese signs covered the ceiling. It was all pretty ostentatious, but kinda cool.

There are many mainland Chinese people moving there and they have caused the population to more than triple since the reunion with China. Even so, you can still spot the occasional person of Portuguese descent.


From the site of the old fort you can see all of Macao and mainland China spread out before you. The cannons at the fort used to be able to reach the harbour, but there has been so much land reclaimed that now they would be lucky to hit the casinos!


Macao has legalised gambling and there are some humongous casinos there. They dwarf all other buildings and are designed in crazy shapes or colours to attract the punters. They completely dominate the skyline near the coast. The rest of Macao is a mish-mash of old Portuguese and Chinese style buildings. The road signs are all in Portuguese and Cantonese. Even though it is only 45 minutes away by ferry (or 1.5 hours if you catch the slow one we got) it really is a completely different culture.


Paul was an awesome guide and her family were very hospitable. Like Hong Kong, the apartments are humble in Macao, but they had managed to buy two adjoining flats and knock through the separating wall to create a spacious and cozy apartment.


Yes, they were happy to see us, they just don't seem to smile for photos!

This will likely be my final blog entry for a while. We've been lucky enough to have a computer with internet access in our room so its made updating a breeze. I imagine the updates will be a little less frequent once we hit the UK.

Afternoon in Lantau

After the crazy bus ride from Tai O we visited the Po Lin Monastery on the top of one of the mountains on Lantau. Its famous for having the largest outdoor sitting buddha in the world, which is perhaps the most specific buddha-related record ever!


After a yummy vegetarian meal at the monastery we made our way up the 256 steps to check out the Buddha. The temple on top of the hill actually has a white (bone) Buddha relic on site. You can see it, but can't photograph it unfortunately. It was pretty cool and unexpected. It had been gifted to the monastery by monks in Sri Lanka.


Surrounding the Buddha are various statues making offerings. These are pretty impressive in their own right, but they are dwarfed by massive sitting Buddha. He is so big, in fact, that it's hard to get him all in to one photo!


It was such an effort to get up there that we were a bit reluctant to get down. Luckily it was the perfect spot for some quiet reflection... until the next massive gust of wind buffeted you!


After making the much easier descent we headed over to Ngong Ping (a fake tourist village) to catch the cable car back to the train station. Michelle was pretty terrified because it was crazy windy that day, but the car was stable enough and the views were amazing.


Soon enough we were back on the MTR and off home. Lantau is only a few train stops away from Hong Kong but it seems like another world! There is a crazy mix of old-world villages and brand new cities. The contrast between the authentic and dirty Tai O and the fake but pristine Ngong Ping was stark.

A Day Late and a Dollar Short

We didn't get home until very late last night, so I'm gonna break up the days events to make it easier on my brain!

We spent most of yesterday on Lantau Island, which is where the new airport is located. It is actually a pretty massive island, as we found out after we missed our bus and had to taxi across to the other side to join our tour. In the end we beat the bus there and the other tourists never showed up, so our tour guide David took us on a very private (and free!) tour around the fishing village of Tai O.


Tai O is a stilt village populated predominantly by fishing folk. The houses are built over the water on stilts, and they are pretty ramshackle. The people there were really friendly and tolerant of us stickin our noses in everywhere.


Our tour guide, David, was a local resident who had learned english many years ago and so was picked to lead the tours. He was informative and easygoing, but a bit pushy when it came to buying souvenirs and kinck-knacks to support the local economy. Tai O was nice enough that we didn't need the hard sell to make donations at the temples, but his insistence was a bit off-putting.


Nevertheless, Tai O was a fascinating look into a completely different way of life. Their fortunes are made or broken on the sea, so there are plenty of wishing trees and shrines to the relevant gods around the place. Like most of these places, they find it hard to keep the youngsters around and it looks like Tai O will eventually morph into a more tourist-focused enterprise. The government had recently built a high-rise nearby to give people an alternative to the squatting lifestyle, but it kind of misses the point (and ruins the view).


The parting memory I have of Tai O was using the local toilet before we left. It was a squat toilet, whch is no suprise, but it was just a hole in the floor that went into the harbour. The amount of trash floating in water was apalling and pissing into the harbour was a fitting finale.


After we left Tai O we had a 30 minute wait for the bus to leave. The bus had arrived early and the driver got out to have a smoke before we left, but a cleaning lady kept harassing him and getting him to move. They ended up having a massive argument that escalated into a shouting match and the driver was so pissed that he stormed onto the bus and told us to get on and we left 20 minutes early! Sweet!

Window of the World

Give us a day and we'll show you the world! That was the hook that grabbed me and so off we went to Shenzhen in search of the ultimate in knock-offs - fake landmarks!

After a long train ride and another lax customs check (complete with DIY baggage scanning) we had arrived in communist China. We had been warned so much about the pick-pockets in China that we were a bit on edge. It was perhaps a bit unwarranted, as although they weren't exactly friendly, we never felt threatened at all during our (brief) stay.

Shenzhen is like a sprawling Hong Kong. They don't have the space limitations, so the buildings are bigger and sprawl much further. There was an insane amount of construction going on. Also insane was the taxi ride! They don't seem to indicate when changing lanes here, so they just kept weaving in and around buses and trucks and abruptly turning onto off-ramps. There are even special places on the motorways where you can u-turn!

The Window of the World is actually a pretty cool theme park, considering that this will be as close as many people get to these famous sights. It was also fun to see how they packed them all in. Where else can you see Mount Rushmore, The Capitol and the White House in one place!

We made a point of visiting many of the landmarks we will be seeing for real when we visit Europe. Somehow I don't think I'll be able to climb the walls at the real St Mark's square...


The detail on the models ranged from amazing to average. They even had a maori village, complete with fake maori performers. It was tucked in behind Uluru and the Sydney Opera House.


We went on a few of the rides, including a log flume ride that took us through the Grand Canyon and along the top of the Niagara Falls. It ended with a drop into water that got us completely soaked. The rides were fun, but the safety devices were mostly lacking. The underground roller coaster had nothing keeping us in beyond a token belt that was about 5 times too big and the advice "hold onto han drail".


The replica Eiffel Tower was 1/3 scale, so was still 103 metres tall. The view from the top was pretty amazing, giving you a 360 degree view of the park and the surrounding city.


To give you an example of how tightly packed it was, the picture above has the Arc de Triomphe, Tower Bridge, Houses of Parliament, Notre Dame, British Mazes, Saint Michel Abbey, Spanish Steps, Collosseum and a bunch of windmills.... amongst many more I can't be bothered typing!

The Land Between Tour

Today we headed out into the New Territories on a guided tour. The weather had really closed in and it was raining quite steadily when we finally found the bus. Our first stop on the tour was the Yuen Yuen Institute, a temple complex dedicated to the three major religions in HK; Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism.


The complex was pretty cool. It can be hard at times to determine what is legitimate and what was put on for the tourists, but it seemed pretty honest and genuine. We then headed for the Tai Mo Shan lookout point, but the fog was so dense you could hardly see the nearby trees, let alone see down to HK itself.


The fog would ruin many of the cool scenic views along the tour, but at least the rain stopped early in the tour. In fact, by the time we got back to North Point we had blue skies again! After leaving the lookout we visited Fanling Village, a centuries-old walled village.


The houses were packed in so close and the fog added to the claustrophobic feel. The village was a maze of narrow alleyways and then suddenly you are out the other side! Families used to live inside these villages to protect themselves from intruders (and other families). When the sons or daughters were married they would build another house within the village walls. This continued of many generations until the houses were packed together so tightly that there was nowhere else for them to go! Nowadays the younger generation have left the crumbling old village for the new city.

After the walled village we headed out to a traditional Hakka village that has also seen it's population decrease rapidly over the last few decades. With the old men passing away and the youngsters all back in HK it seems that only old ladies and broken down houses remain.


You can thank Michelle for the cool photo! Last stop for us was the Sam Mun Tsai fishing village.


The fisherman here don't throw back the small fish they net during their fishing trips, instead keeping them in nets under the floating huts until they are big enough to sell to the markets. Once again, progress is threatening their way of life, with a nearby property development forcing them to move their village so that the view from the new apartments isn't ruined.

Forget Mongkok

Sham Shui Po has a much nicer street market with much friendlier merchants, more honest pricing and more room to move. The selection isn't as great, but it just feels a little more honest than the pushy knock-off vendors in Mongkok.


Michelle and I applied for our visas to visit mainland China today. In stark contrast to the fast, efficient MTR system, the visa application process was a long laborious affair, taking over 2 hours spent mostly sitting around watching a single counter attempt to service around 150 people. Sometimes it seems that the MTR just gets you to the queue faster. Michelle also updated her HK ID card today, another laboured process that saw me fall asleep in the waiting room.

After we finally finished all the paperwork we treated ourselves to High Tea at the Peninsula Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui. It was another stark contrast with the street vendor food we had grabbed in between applications.


After sunset we checked out the view back onto the main island:



We sat and watched the Symphony of Lights, a nightly light show that incorporates the buildings along the coast (I have a video that shows it best). It was pretty cool, if a little tacky. It was fun watching all the ferries jostling for position in the channel. Some of them even seemed to be part of the show, with their lights synchronised to the music too.

We are off on a tour of the New Territories tomorrow, no doubt followed by more shopping. Michelle has only bought 3 bags so far and I am sure there is room for more!

Hong Kong Peak

Today was our first clear day (well, as clear as the smog lets it be) so we visited the Hong Kong peak. It seemed that every other tourist had the same idea since there was a 15 minute queue just to get on the tram! The tram ride itself was crazily vertical and the view from the top is outstanding:


We came across another tourist with the exact same camera and she seemed trustworthy enough to snap a photo of us:


Yes, it was pretty windy near the edge! We are staying in North Point which is to the top right of the photo. We also took the 3km walk around the peak and saw some of the crazy expensive houses along the way. As with most older buildings in HK, they look pretty grubby from the outside but the interior is undoubtedly opulent.


After minding our step we headed off to Tsim Sha Tsui in Kowloon and checked out the view back towards the island:


We enjoyed some HK-style popcorn and watched the ferries go back and forth before heading back to North Point for dinner.


The weather was pretty awesome today and I even managed to get sunburnt! The weather reminds me a lot of New Zealand, especially the humidity and changeability. It has that familiar in-between feeling where you are constantly taking layers off and on. In fact, Hong Kong is a lot like Auckland, only with fewer Chinese people. Zing!

Tomorrow we are off to get visas and papers to visit the mainland. I just better be sure to tick the box that says tourist, not terrorist...

One day in Mongkok

We started today in search of some good walking shoes and socks. Even though they seemed expensive by HK standards, they were a third the price of the same brand back in Australia. Nevertheless, $700 sounds like a lot in any language! To get over the pain in our wallet we headed out to Mongkok in hunt of some bargains.

We spent most of our time in the "Ladies Market", which is a massive open air street market:


We didn't go to the markets yesterday since it was pouring with rain, but there was no holding back today. I managed to buy a 'Hugo Boss' (deliberate inverted commas) belt from the first vendor we saw and subsequently felt a little ripped off (even though it was only AUD$9). After that it was strictly bargain hunting. We emerged a few hours later with new bags, glasses, a hat for Michelle and that darn belt... and the knowledge that we will go back again before we go.


Not many people drive in Hong Kong, which isn't suprising given the fantastic public transport. When you do see private cars on the street they are usually very expensive or very modern. It's quite amusing to see Mercedes and Audis sandwiched between the giant double-decker buses inching around the cramped streets.

Oh, and speaking of public transport, how about some MTR photos! Here is Michelle waiting patiently for the next train:


Here it comes now!


There are glass walls separating you from the track and they have automatic doors that are synchronised with the train. This prevents anyone from falling/jumping on the tracks. Apparently it was a popular way to commit suicide. You know, back in the good old days...

Safely in Hong Kong

Well, we made it safely to Hong Kong. The flight was long and arduous... actually I don't know how I'm gonna survive the trip to London! Michelle's mum saw us off at the airport:


We had a short stopover in Sydney before we headed off. It took us about 4 hours flying before we finally left the north coast of Australia. Michelle made me take one last photo of Australia to commemorate the occasion:


Then it was only 5 more hours to HK! I amused myself watching 3 different movies while Michelle slept, and then when we went to swap roles the cabin crew turned on all the lights! And to top it all off, a young kid next to us managed to throw up all over her seat and the floor in the middle row next to us. Luckily for Michelle, she slept through the worst of it.

Soon enough though we were landed and through the most lax customs I have ever seen and off into Hong Kong. I was pretty knackered so I went to bed pretty soon after arrival. Here is a quick snapshot of the view from our room:


For the observant among you, yes that is bamboo scaffolding on the big green building. Next stop, shopping!

Here we go

We're all packed and ready to go, just a few last minute things to do and then off to the airport! Michelle got some henna done for her birthday yesterday. In fact, here is a photo:

She spent so long talking to the artist yesterday that we were about an hour late for dinner and it pushed our packing into the wee hours, but we got there in the end and still managed to get a few hours of sleep.

Next stop? Sydney airport.... but the stop after that? Hong Kong!

So close now...

Michelle and I leave for our big overseas trip on Friday. First stop is Hong Kong, which will make an interesting contrast to Adelaide! We'll be going from this:



To this!


I can't wait! We have a few tours and things booked already and are hoping to make it into Shenzen to check out the Windows of the World amongst other things. The hardest part is going to be not filling up our bags with too many goodies!