The Bright Lights of Hong Kong and Macau

20^th – 25^th May

Fancy Hong Kong Bus

I was looking forward to arriving in Hong Kong. Its one of those massive world cities that are iconic. The airport is so massive that you have to get a train to the terminal from the gate. As I was getting off the train a woman pointed a gun at my head. After a small panic I realised she had said “I’m checking your temperature”. The bus from the airport to the city was also very fancy. It was more like a coach than a local bus and there was CCTV to watch your bags from upstairs.

Bit wet

I hadn’t seen much rain whilst in Asia but here it was torrential. I quickly swapped my flip flops for trainers before I got on the bus to the city. It was about an hour journey to the main city which slowly emerged out of the gloom.

Bright lights of Hong Kong

It was night by the time I arrived at the hostel and it took me a little while to find it in amongst all the other blinding neon signs on the walls of buildings that line each side of the road. The first thing I did when I got into the room was to have a conversation. It may not seem like a big deal but this kind of thing had been seriously lacking in the Philippines so I was very keen to have some sort of brief social life. The guy I was chatting to actually left the next morning so it was very brief indeed.

Massive coins

I went to the supermarket around the corner to scope out the food situation. When I got my change I marvelled at the size and weight of coins. I thought Australia had it bad but put a few of these things in your wallet and it’s ready to burst.

Morning in Hong Kong

Strange cartoon characters

Comic characters

The next day I went out exploring the city. I was living just next to Nathan Road which is the main artery running through the city. I walked down it heading for the harbour to get a view of the skyline. On the way I walked through a park that had a lot of animé characters in it. It was the Hong Kong Avenue of Comic Stars are the locals were loving them.

Park in the middle of the city

Tai Chi possibly?

A bit further into the park I noticed a group of people that completely still. As I got closer I noticed that they were actually moving, just extremely slowly. I think it’s some sort of Tai Chi. I saw a couple of other groups doing the same movements at various speeds.

Parrots

Some other bird species

I carried on to find a bird house. It was free to have a look around so obviously I did. It had a variety of different parrots.

Maze

I came across a maze which I thought would be fun. It was built to aid the mobility of the elderly according to a nearby sign. I completed in seconds. It was so basic I don’t think you could even call it a maze.

Lost in the sky

Hong Kong Island

I left the park and continued to the harbour where I saw the skyline along Hong Kong Island. It was very windy and sprinkling with rain but even with the low cloud it was impressive to look at.

Bruce Lee

Other famous stars

They have an Avenue of Stars similar to Hollywood Walk of Fame but as they were building some new skyscraper it’s moved to a nearby Garden of Stars. It has about 30 hand prints of local movie stars. The only names I recognised were Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee also had a statue.

Hong Kong Museum

As the rain began to get heavier I took shelter in the nearby History Museum. It really was a complete history with the first section being the geographical formation of the islands that make up Hong Kong.

Ancient Chinese pottery

Old boat

Lanterns

It was interesting to learn about the early history of the area with its Chinese heritage. I knew very little about Chinese history so it was a little insight into their story too. These paper lanterns are hung on the 12^th day of the first Chinese lunar month to announce to the Gods that a new son has been born in the village. The lanterns are then burnt on the 15^th day.

Wedding parade

I also learnt about traditional wedding ceremonies. Apparently, on the eve of the wedding the groom’s family would engage a ‘good-life woman’ (a woman who had enjoyed a long, prolific marriage) to perform a ‘bed-installing’ fertility rite in the nuptial chamber. I wanted to know more about what this old lady would do to the poor young man but the information didn’t continue.

Chinese opera

Paper gods

Bun mountains

These ten metre bun mountains that are erected for the Bun Festival are made up of 6000 steamed buns strapped into a bamboo frame. They were made as offerings to the Gods. At midnight on the last day of the festival there would be a scramble to grab the lucky buns from the top. This is now a sport held every year.

Building inside a building

Land reclamation

To be honest I was more interested in the more recent British history of Hong Kong. This map shows the land that’s been reclaimed from the sea and I found it quite shocking how much the city had expanded onto the water. Especially since the millennium.

Old tram

There was quite a lot on what Hong Kong was like under British rule. There was a cinema that showed a few different things on life in the 60s and 70s. One thing that made me laugh in this video was the description of the tea houses back in the day. It casually described how people would meet in a tea house after taking their pet bird for a walk and they would hang the cage on a rack as they entered. Excuse me? Apparently that was quite normal.

There was also a bit of the government side of things. How Britain came to own Hong Kong Island and lease the surrounding area for 99 years. Hong Kong Island is really quite small compared to the overall country of Hong Kong. When the lease was up, Britain choose to give back the whole city to the Chinese rather than split it in half.

Protests

There was actually surprisingly little about the reunification with China. There was just a short video showing the ceremony. I was very interested to know how the people here felt about being Chinese again. I know there have been protests. I think I got my answer as I entered a nearby shopping centre and saw a couple of protesters outside of it.

Very posh

Hong Kong skyline

The sun had come out whilst I had been in the museum (4 hours I was in there for!). I went back to the harbour to get a better view of the Hong Kong skyline.

I went back to the hostel and got chatting to some of the new arrivals. I was talking to Christina and Nicolai for a good few hours and I invited them to join me the next day when I went to meet Alec. I had met him on the Sapa Valley trek. He lives in Hong Kong and knew the best places around.

Fantastic Four

Hiking the Dragon's Back

Nice beach

The four of us jumped off the bus at the bottom of Hong Kong Island for the Dragon's Back hike. It goes over the top of a ridge and then down to a beach. There was a good view from the top and the weather was much better than the day before. There was a glider flying around and he got a bit cocky with how close he was getting to the hill side.

Glider

The eagles are coming

The Dragons Back

The beach

It was a good hike. It took a few hours and we bumped into a couple of girls that were also in our room. When we got down to the beach the others went for a swim whilst I looked after the bags. I wasn’t too bothered about getting wet and salty. I was a nice beach to sit on and relax for a little while. I certainly didn’t expect there would be any beaches in Hong Kong.

At Mr Wong's

That night the four of us went to Mr Wong’s, a legendary place amongst backpackers. It had been recommended to me a few times and Alec knew it well although he did get a little lost looking for the place. It’s an all-you-can-eat and all-you-can-drink place for cheap but Mr Wong himself is the real attraction. I’ve no idea what he was saying most of the time but he laughs a lot so you just laugh along with him.

We took our fill of beer and Chinese food and then searched for cheap Karaoke place with the rest of the restaurant (about 15 people by the time we left). We found somewhere but it wasn’t cheap and no one was keen. The bigger group went into the city for a night out but we decided to keep looking for a cheaper karaoke place. We went into a few places that said karaoke on the signs but were clearly not karaoke places at all. After trying our look at a few dodgy places we gave up and went back to the hostel.

Enormous crab in a shop window

Catching the ferry

On Hong Kong Island

Big modern buildings and old ones too

The next day Nicolai, Christina and I went over to Hong Kong Island to explore the city and take a trip up Victoria Peak.

Impressive chandelier

War monument

Old Bank of China

We walked in the vague direction of the tram getting ourselves lost a couple of times. We ended up in a super fancy hotel after walking through a shopping centre. I’m sure this place would have plenty of celebrities in it but we didn’t stick around. We continued past the super modern skyscrapers and the older stone buildings. There certainly was an interesting contrast here.

The Peak Tram

Steep!

The ugly view point

The Victoria Peak tram trundles up at a ridiculous incline. It felt almost 45 degrees at some points but I don’t think it is. The tram line is 90 years old but they’ve ungraded it a few times over the years. The tram arrives at a shopping centre with 5 floors to go up before you get to the actual viewing platform.

Hong Kong from the top

The Pacific

Quick tourist photo

Posing

The view of the city from up here was pretty awesome. We were giving these headsets that give us an overview of what we were looking at and a brief history of the city. It was interesting as you can see in the not-staged-at-all photo.

Old Hong Kong

Famous place

More neon signs

We got the tram back down to city and headed towards the harbour. We walked through the older part of the city where the streets are narrower and the buildings taller. There’s a lively bar area that would be cool to visit at night but it was a bit early in the day to experience it at that moment. Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant was just around the corner from there.

Sunset over the harbour

Another tall building

Big orange floaty thing in the sky

We got the ferry back over to the main city just as the sun was setting. It was quite hazy so it reminded me of sunsets in Laos and Myanmar.

Hong Kong skyline at night

Traditional vs Modern

Joseph's Technicolour Dream House

Lasers and that

We stuck around on the harbour front to watch the lightshow that happens at the weekends. This was a massive let down. There were a few flashing neon signs and some lasers but that was pretty much it. Nothing like the show in Singapore. The buildings all lit up at night is, however, an impressive sight. I spent some time trying to get the perfect picture.

Fancy building

That was it for the day. We were tired so we went back to the hostel where we hung out for a little bit before going to bed. It was so nice to have some company again after being quite lonely in the Philippines. Nicolai was leaving the next day, though, and I spent the next day without Christina in Macau.

Catching the ferry

America, that way

There was a bit of a disastrous start to the day. It was one of those mornings where it just seems to take a long time to get going. When eventually I did get going I walked for 30 minutes to the pier only to realise I had left my passport at the hostel! I had missed the 10.30 ferry about 5 minutes and had waited around for the 11.30 ferry and only then did I realise I didn’t have it. I had to walk back to the hostel and rush back to try and catch the 12.30.

I finally arrived in Macau a few hours later than I had planned after the 60 minute ferry journey. The first thing and most exciting thing I wanted to see in Macau was the Formula 1 museum. I was really looking forward to seeing this only to find out when I arrived on the doorstep that it’s closed on Tuesdays! Well that was bloody annoying.

The old Lisboa

The new Lisboa

I tried not to get too downhearted by the day’s events so far and went to see the nearby casinos. The Lisboa casino is huge! I went inside and watched the people gamble for a while. It was huge inside too but you obviously can’t take pictures. I took a few in the lobby though of a massive chunk of gold and equally large piece of jade that must be worth a fortune.

Expensive

Even more expensive

For the super rich

Old vs  new

As I walked down towards the older part of the city I noticed the buildings change from modern skyscrapers to the colonial buildings from the Portuguese era. Sometimes a building was both at the same time with a skyscraper simply built on top of the older building.

Senado Square

Busy!

I’ve never been to Portugal but could certainly get a sense of the Iberian Peninsula here. It’s nice to see they’ve kept these colonial buildings and still use them today. It’s an important part of the culture of Macau and should not be lost now that they are a part of China again.

The Ruins of St Paul's

I walked up the very busy hill to the Ruins of St Paul’s. It was built in the 17^th century but now only one wall remains after it was destroyed in a typhoon in 1835. The church has been known as the Ruins of St Paul’s ever since. There were calls to knock it down as it became unstable but, again, I’m glad they’ve kept it. The new supporting metal structure is hidden on the other side.

A view of the old city

The old fort

A few cannons

A bit more up the hill was the Fortaleza do Monte and the historical centre of Macau. There was museum inside which told me a little bit about the history of Macau. There wasn’t quite as much detail as in the Hong Kong History Museum.

Macau Tower

Galaxy Casino

I walked back down the hill to a drop off point for one of the big casinos on the other island. There are many free buses that are run by the casinos here so it makes it easy to get around. I jumped on one of these free buses and it took me across the bridge, past Macau Tower, to the immense resort of Galaxy Casino.

The whole complex

Cheeky monkeys

This complex is massive, as a model of the grounds showed me. It took me a full ten minutes to get from the bus stop to the main entrance where I wanted to watch the fountain that does something special every hour.

Colourful

Big fountain

Huge diamond

This over the top fountain moves a lot of water as it rises up out of the bottom and is then lowered to reveal a massive diamond. The whole time it was flashing different colours. It was quite the show.

Sparkling Crystals

I walked around to the other side of the casino where I caught another free bus that took me over to The Venetian, the largest and most impressive casino of them all.

Big casino

I take pride in the fact that I have a good sense of direction but this place was impossible to navigate. I was trying to find the front entrance to get a picture of it but I got lost many times. After I while I found myself in Venice!

St Mark's Square

Venetian canals

Not the real one, obviously, but it’s a convincing replica. Having been to the real St Mark’s Square I can tell you that this one is smaller and the canals here were much cleaner.

I found the front, its huge!

Teleported to Paris

I finally found my way outside to view the replicas of the iconic buildings in the famous Italian city. It was right next to Paris!

I wanted to see it at night so I had a couple of hours to kill. I went back into the Venetian and onto the largest casino floor in the world. I tried my luck on the roulette table. I decided I would limit myself to fifty Hong Kong Dollars. I did really well and managed to increase it to $450. I should have cashed out at this point but I was winning. I slowly lost it all.

Mind you I was nearly robbed of it way before I gambled it away. Literally. Some woman came over and sat next to me. She put a card in the card reader a couple of times. I thought she was trying to show me something but then it seemed odd and I asked her ‘what are you doing?’ before putting my hand over the reader. She muttered something in Chinese before wandering off. Only when she left did I realise she was trying to take my credit. I blame her for me losing my money. It completely put me off.

The Venetian

Galaxy

Old Lisboa

New Lisboa

The sun had set so I basically went to every casino again to see them lit up. I walked back through the Venetian and over to Galaxy before catching a bus back to Lisboa. Each casino was just a dazzling as the last.

Dancing fountains

On the way back to the boat I walked through yet another casino and I was treated to some dancing fountains. I got some pretty cool pictures with the other casinos in the background.

Goodbye Macau

I had a great day in Macau despite the bad start but that was time up for Macau and in fact Hong Kong. The next day I said good bye to Christina before going to the airport to catch my flight. I really enjoyed Hong Kong. Hanging out with Nicolai, Christina and Alec was just what I needed after a disappointing and lonely time in the Philippines. I felt revitalised and reenergised just in time for my trip to Beijing.