Last day in Hong Kong

Hello everyone for the last time in Hong Kong!

We had a fairly good sleep but woke up about 7.30 feeling quite warm despite our air conditioner being on full blast. I'll probably regret saying this, but I'm really looking forward to the cold at home! I've never really minded the cold. It's more the wet and the dark parts of winter I don't like!! I'm sick of feeling sweaty and sunscreeny!!

Anyway, we packed up, checked out (I've included a photo so you can see how tiny our room was!) and set off for a bit more of a wander around. We walked again through Victoria Park. Once again lots of women sitting about not doing much, still don't know what that's about! We went into the spectator viewing area for the pool and checked that out. We also saw some people doing some form of Tai Chi. 

Then we walked into the Causeway Bay area. Due it being a Sunday it was full of people milling about on the weekend. We checked out some shops and mum bought a few tops from GAP, and inside the same shopping centre were huge sculptures made out of tinned food. My favourite was a rubber duck!! Shopping centres here are different to home. Each level doesn't have much area, but there are 20-30 levels all of the same shape/layout. Need to optimise the space I guess!

The last day of a holiday is always weird. You can't really do too much as you don't want to risk being late back and missing your flight, but you don't want to sit around and do nothing either. Luckily we had kept something up our sleeve in case we had time on the last day. We walked to the Happy Valley Racecourse. Hong Kong is famous for its racing and it actually held a number of the equestrian events for the Beijing Olympics here in 2008. Apparently horse racing is Hong Kong's favourite spectator sport, and between September and June every Wednesday there are races on at the course. Now it's July, there were no races on. But this meant that the track was open to the public, and lots of people were using the inner concrete path as a jogging track. We walked a lap of it and stared up at the huge grandstands surrounded by skyscrapers. There were lots of men running topless that really shouldn't have!!

We could also see many games of football/soccer going on in the middle of the track. It's funny - in Australia nothing goes on in the middle, here there are sports fields, and last year in England there are carnival rides and very drunk people in the middle!!

Afterwards, we walked towards Wan Chai. On the way we saw a golden dragon statue that was installed as a sign of positivity and health following the bad SARS outbreak here in 2003. 

We walked back to the Wooloomooloo Bar but they weren't serving drinks until 3pm so instead we bought some baked goods from a bakery and decided to head to a different neighbourhood; Tai Hang. We hopped on a public bus and sat up the top, but while we started driving it started absolutely bucketing down! I said yesterday that we've been so lucky with the weather, well today we weren't so much! It only lasted about 15 minutes but it was enough to get us pretty wet and make it very slippery walking around. We got out of the bus in Tai Hang but there wasn't too much to see or do that we could find, so we just walked around! Apparently it used to be a very slummy area until it was redeveloped in the 1990s. 

We walked back to the hotel and now I'm sitting in reception typing this! We are very early but decided to chill out in reception until it's time to leave. We've just spoken to Nan and Pa on the phone :)

So here's my wrap up... We have had such a fantastic week! When I started to tell people I was coming to Hong Kong I had mixed responses. Some people who had been here said it was fantastic, and other people said things like "why Hong Kong?" or "isn't that just a huge city?". I started off coming here simply because after four days of being home from England the thought of not having any holiday planned in the future after a year of gallivanting around was already doing my head in. I found super cheap flights to Hong Kong and thought "why not?" - and I'm so glad I did! Would highly recommend anyone thinking of coming here to go for it. It's fairly cheap, transport links are fantastic and it's really easy to get around, it's safe, the food is amazing and there is so much more to this place than simply a concrete jungle. Those of you reading my blog over the last week would have definitely seen that!! If you're still not convinced, then you need to go back and read it/look at my photos again!! I could easily have filled I'm a few more days too, we didn't get time to check out Ocean Park or the new territories. The only thing that's driven me nuts here is the people of Hong Kong's obsessions with their phones. I thought technology addictions were bad at home, but it's next level here. Every second person just about walking onto trains, down the street, crossing busy main roads all without looking up from their phone. I hope it never gets that bad at home!

So I'm signing off until next time, which will be December this year when I had to New York City and a few other places in the USA and Canada for Christmas and New Years. After all, I need to stick by my motto of "never stop travelling"!!

Thanks for following our Hong Kong adventure!

Love to all

Claire

Xoxox

Macau - Churches, casinos and Portuguese influence!

Hi all!

We've had another great day today :)

We got up at 7am and got ready pretty quickly. Then we set off to the metro station 'Sheung Wan' and walked the short distance to the Hong Kong-Macau ferry terminal. Here we easily purchased our TurboJet tickets and hopped on the ferry. It was a high speed one hour journey and we passed Lantau and Cheung Chau. Very smooth and went quickly!!

Then we had arrived in Macau. Like Hong Kong, Macau (or Macao) is a Special Administrative Region (SAR) that technically "belongs" to China. However, unlike Hong Kong, Macau has a heavy Portuguese vibe about it. In 1513, Jorge Alvares was the first Portuguese explorer to set foot here. Many more came, but it wasn't until 1553 that they were allowed permanently off their boats in order to settle. They sought special permission due to their ships being damaged, and many never left! I was loving it. The minute we walked through immigration their were familiar Portuguese words on the signs. It's been a year and a half since I was in Brazil and it was exciting to see Portuguese again!

It was at this point we realised that our hotel phone's data didn't work because we were in another country. Luckily for us I had printed off a DIY walking tour guide and a kind man in tourist info gave us a map and bus directions. We caught the number 3 bus to the main square and accidentally fare evaded due to not understanding the ticketing system - whoops!!

We alighted at our first stop - Largo do Senado (Senate Square). The wavy black and white cobblestones looked just like Lisbon in Portugal *memories* :) The buildings were pastel coloured like in Portugal and South America and a beautiful fountain was surrounded by lovely flowers. We were loving it already!! 

We set off on our walking route. Next up was St Dominic's Church. A beautiful apricot colour, it was founded in 1587 but the parent facade is from the 1600s. Inside, a group of cellists were playing! Then we walked to another cathedral square and went into the man cathedral. Inside here there was a graduation ceremony going on - it was all happening in Macau today!!

Then we went to Lou Kau Mansion. It's one of very few Chinese style mansions that still remain in Macau. Until 2002 when it was maintained, it had fallen into great disrepair and was a popular spot for squatters. Apparently 20 families were living there at one point. It was very open but unfortunately you could only access the second level by a tour that ran later in the day. However at this point I had begun to realise that each attraction in Macau had a stamp to collect, so I started stamping my papers! 

After this, we stopped at a small bakery and each bought some snacky rolls to eat. When serving us, the lady behind the counter dropped a bag and I somehow managed to catch it with ninja reflexes as it fell. She quite enjoyed this and laughed and gave me a clap haha. 

We began walking through narrower streets. On the bus into town we had commented that Macau seemed cleaner than Hong Kong, but we started to change our minds at this point. Macau is a city full of contrast - some parts are beautifully clean and immaculate pastel buildings, and some parts are really slummy looking buildings covered in grime with balconies covered with bars that make them look like prisons. Around every corner you never knew what to expect!!

It was then that we first clapped eyes on Macau's most famous tourist attraction - the Ruins of St Paul's.....scaffolding included - d'oh! But at least it was only around the edges and not on the beautiful facade. St Paul's was constructed in 1602 and used to be an entire church, but a massive fire in 1835 left only its facade which is covered with both Asian and western symbols. It was very interesting seeing them all on the face together. We played a game whilst walking up the stairs to see how many selfies we could sneak our way into...heeheehee. Behind the facade we were able to enter the crypt and see the bones of some Vietnamese and Japanese martyrs. We had a quick look at the Temple of Nga Cha and a section of the old city walls. 

Then we walked up the fortress hill and enjoyed some lovely (unexpectedly) sunny views of Macau. We have been so lucky with the weather, the forecast said rain and thunder all week and I think in total it's rained for 15 minutes whilst we've been outside!  We could see the tower that they had to jump off in the last season. Of 'The Amazing Race', and a huge golden building that was the 'Grand Lisboa' casino and hotel. The fortress wall was dotted with canons, all of which faced towards the water. The Portuguese built it to protect their new settlement. We entered the Museum of Macau from here. 

The next hour or so was spent inside the lovely air conditioned museum (still hot in Macau but not as humid as Hong Kong) learning about the history and culture of Macau. There were lots of artefacts and many buildings illustrating what Macau used to look like, a little bit like the Hong Kong museum the other day. There were also lots of extremely loud Chinese children who kept running around shouting at the tops of their voices whose parents seemingly didn't care (or had tuned them out!!). We still enjoyed ourselves though. I particularly liked the temporary section about Cantonese opera that featured really ornate costumes. 

Next up we walked back towards the ruins to the bottom of the stairs for another look. I asked mum if we could have a "quick peek" inside 'Forever 21', a shop I fell in love with in Europe. And for good reason! We got in there and they were having a massive sale. After a quick try on, I walked out with two beautiful skirts and a dress, all for about $35 in total!! Win!

We kept going, but before we set off properly we each bought a fruit juice and we shared a Portuguese custard tart. I hadn't had one since February 2013 when I was in Belém, just outside of Lisbon. How I had missed them - yum!! We walked down a cute little Portuguese lane (which had the slummy apartments at the end - a perfect example of the contrast I mentioned - and continued to St Anthony's Church. Then we crossed the road to the small Protestant cemetery where we spent some time reading the gravestones. Macau is so international, these graves were mostly from the 1850 ps and belonged to people of all different nationalities - German, Danish, American, English etc... 

Then we walked into the next door Camoes Garden, named after a Macanese poet. It was very lush, green and chilled out. There was a fountain, a look out and lots of men sitting around playing cards. We had a sit down as we were getting quite tired by this point!

We decided to look for a bus and start to make our way back after the park. We hopped on the number 3 bus and got off at the Grand Lisboa. Macau is one of the biggest gambling cities in the world (much like Monte Carlo, Las Vegas etc) so we had to check out a casino before we left. The building looks like a golden temple, and we were welcomed in by a beaming security guard who asked us where we were from. There were many levels and we just walked around watching people lose their money and taking in all the decorations. I got bored pretty quickly, I've never really understood gambling personally. Yes you can win money, but most of the time you lose money, and it's money you could spend in much better ways!

We got back on the bus and headed back to the ferry terminal. Unfortunately we discovered that the first economy class tickets we could purchase weren't until 7.15pm. Considering it was 4.45pm, we lashed out and bought the 'Super Class' which was just under double the price of economy at about $53 Aussie. This meant we got on the 5pm boat, we just couldn't justify sitting around waiting that long. Our boat was a bit delayed but this meant we could keep up with the Sydney vs Bulldogs scores. Due to Super Class we were in priority immigration queues, priority boarding and exit queues and we even got some food on board as well as lots of leg room. The journey went pretty quickly, and as soon as we had reception on the hotel phone I kept up with the Collingwood scores until it died. Happy we won't but didn't seem like a very good game!!

We had dinner at a place called 'Tasty Congee & Noodle Wanton Restaurant' inside the IFC One Shopping Mall. I had stir fried noodles and mum had fried rice with prawns and beef. Both were delicious! We headed back to the hotel afterwards and are having a fairly early night. It's our last night here tonight and tomorrow we will be trying to sleep on the plane. 

Tomorrow we have a fairly chilled out day planned, and I will post a blog before we head off at 4.30pm (6.30pm Melbourne time) for the airport.

I would highly recommend if anyone is coming to Hong Kong that they do a day trip to Macau - we had a fab day!

Love to all

Claire

Xoxox

PS: I snapped some photos of some hilarious ads we have seen around stations. One of them is for "push up drink". I'll let you scroll down to find out what that entails. Hahaha.