Friday, March 10: Lantau (Mark)

Miraculously, we didn't wake up until after 6 AM, so our jet lag may finally be over with. Our goal today was to experience the sights of Lantau, Hong Kong's largest island, to the west of Kowloon. Our primary goal was to see the big Buddha statue, but if we had time would also go to see Tai O.

We took the MTR from TST to Tung Chung, close to the airport. Normally, there is a gondola running that takes you straight to the Ngong Ping, where the Buddha is. Unfortunately, it was closed for maintenance, so we decided instead to take the bus. It was a somewhat foggy day and I was worried that we wouldn't get a good view of the Buddha, but it ended up not being a huge factor. The island is very pretty, with green hills rising dramatically over the landscape, and some very windy roads for our bus to ascend. We also passed by a jail on the way there - I wonder if that's the only one in Hong Kong.

Ngong Ping has a village area, which is pretty clearly not an authentic Chinese village, but it's still pleasant to visit. The Buddha statue, known as the Tian Tan Buddha, was just opening as we arrived. We were some of the first to see it today, and we were happy to beat the crowds there. The Buddha statue is quite large, and it was very windy at the top. Below us, we could see the Po Lin monastery and Ngong Ping village.

It was a windy day.

We visited the monastery next, and it was incredible. I actually ended up liking it more than the Buddha. The entry building had a Buddha statue and four other statues, two on either side. Dale suggested they may be the four heavenly generals. Each one had food offerings in front of them, which included a lot of fruit (bananas, oranges, kiwi, dragon fruit), rice, water, and a few other food items in small bowls.

Beyond that, there were two other major buildings: the main shrine and the grand hall of 10,000 Buddhas. We were unable to take photos of either, unfortunately, because they were prohibited. A religious ceremony was taking place in the hall of 10,000 Buddhas: Many people were gathered there, most in ceremonial robes. The monks in front were chanting, and everybody was being very quiet and reverent (a later internet search revealed that this ceremony was the first day of the water repentance service in the Qingming festival). The hall of 10,000 Buddhas was spectacular, and yes, I'm pretty sure it actually has that many Buddhas in it (most of which were on wall tiles).

Those are big incense burners...

We did a short walk to the Path of Wisdom, which included several long columns with the Heart Sutra written on them. They're fairly new, but we didn't mind them not being ancient. The misty day added to the atmosphere of the area.

Me, being wise.

We noticed a lot of stray dogs around the monastery, and figured that the monks must take care of them. We grabbed lunch at a nearby stall, which was a simple noodle soup. I got mine with dumplings, Liz and Dale got fish balls. We wandered around the village and got a few other food items: the famous Hong Kong egg waffles, some unusual ice cream blocks (stored in the same freezer as durian ice cream), and dried sweet potatoes. The waffles and ice cream were good, the sweet potatoes were a bit strange.

Our wedding photo, recreated.

We hopped on a bus down to Tai O, an old fishing village on the west end of Lantau. It was a really amazing place. Many of the houses are built on stilts. We started off by taking a walk down the causeway, and then made our way into the village itself. There were several school groups making a field trip here, and most of the tourists appeared to be Chinese people. We walked down a long market street, with some conventional and some strange wares for sale. Some of the things we saw included a cooked squid that was larger than a chicken, a man cooking waffles in a smoldering stump, dried, flattened fish with the teeth still in it, and a lot of strange smelling things that we couldn't quite recognize. We got further in to a footbridge among the stilt houses, which was quite cool. There was also a small temple we wandered into.

That's no chicken...

Many of the homes had metal exteriors

Makin' waffles

Cheap husbands - just over $3 USD!

We took the bus back to Tung Chung - there is no direct connection from Tai O to Tung Chung, so the bus had to go all the way to the southern banks of the island, and then back over the hills. We took the MTR back and rested for a while. We went out for food, and my left achilles was really starting to feel sore. I decided to go back to the apartment and rest while Liz and Dale checked out the night market.

Observations:

• Tai O was the first place we really saw lots of bicycles. As it turns out, the parts of Hong Kong we had seen up to this point aren't very bicycle friendly. There's been no bike lanes that we've seen, and in most cases riding a bike seems like it would be pretty terrifying on these streets.
• You actually pay more for cold drinks at restaurants than hot drinks. When you order a meal set (usually soup, entree, rice, and a drink) the drink will cost extra if it's a cold drink, but not if it's hot. I guess they're just more accustomed to having hot drinks than cold.
• People aren't very willing to give up their seats on buses, to the point that I gave up my seat twice today, both times to parents holding a small child. In one case, I was near the back of the bus before I gave up my seat.

Thursday March 9: Macau (Liz)

Today was our day trip to the former Portuguese colony of Macau. It is also the gambling capital of the world, with more money gambled there than even in Vegas. On our way to the ferry terminal we stopped at the most delectable bakery we had previously seen on our street. The pastries were still warm. Mark and Dale had pineapple buns (called melon pan in Japan) and I had a custard bun. Oh my foodness! It had real custard inside, nothing like the pudding-like substance that goes in most US custard doughnuts. We took the first ferry of the day from Kowloon to Macau, about an hour’s journey.

The casinos offer free shuttles from the ferry terminal to their casinos so we took advantage of that and then walked to the historic center of the island, which is the only UNESCO World Heritage site that we will encounter on this trip. Upon arriving at Senado Square, it seriously felt like we had been transported back to Europe. I especially liked the patterned black and white cobblestone pathways. Dale had looked up a walking tour for us to follow, so that we did. We saw several churches including St. Dominic’s and the most popular tourist attraction of Macau, the Ruins of Saint Paul. This church was originally built in the early 1600s but then destroyed by fire in 1835. Only the façade remains. It was very crowded and difficult to walk around the outside without photobombing others’ selfies, but it was quite fascinating to see. Right next to the ruins was a small shrine dedicated to gambling which I found amusing.

Senado Square #1

Senado Square #2

Saint Dominic's

Ruins of St. Paul

Gambling shrine

Close to the Ruins of Saint Paul was the old fortress of Macau, which now houses its Museum of history. It was a pretty cheap admission so we decided to go inside. The museum showed the convergence of Chinese and Portuguese culture in Macau, including a description of the history and production of firecrackers. What stood out to us the most was a traditional Chinese bridal sedan, very ornately decorated. Once we exited the museum we were able to walk around the top of the fortress which afforded great (but hazy) views of Macau.

Chinese bridal sedan. Seriously crazy.

I love these trees. And they're everywhere!

For lunch we wanted to make sure we had Portuguese food. We walked back to the tourist office to see if they could give us some suggestions. It was the most bizarre tourist office I have ever been in. We were the only tourists inside and it was dead silent, with 4-5 workers behind the desk either staring at their computer screens or mobile devices. No one looked up to even acknowledge us when we walked in, and we stood around for a good 2-3 minutes before anyone looked at us or spoke to us. In the end we did end up with some restaurant suggestions and went on our way. We found a Portuguese restaurant with a special lunch menu and it was oh so delicious! We all started with a pureed vegetable soup, and then Dale and I had the mussels served with cheesy potatoes and Mark had some pork smothered with onions and other delicousness with French fries. We were quite pleased with our lunch choice.

After lunch we hit up a couple more touristy spots, including an old Chinese mansion that has recently been partially restored. Then we found a street that sold one of Macau’s specialties, jerky. Interestingly enough the jerky was being sold in pastelerias, or pastry shops, along with other sweets. There were samples galore! The jerky was being sold in many varieties and it’s presented in big sheets rather than more bite-sized pieces that we are accustomed too. The jerky is also kept warm which was a bit unusual. We didn’t appreciate the flavor of many of the jerkies – many just tasted like dried pork chops – but we did find a garlic pork jerky tasty enough to buy. We also bought some Portuguese egg tarts to try. They were oh so flaky and buttery and oh so delicious!

Part of the Chinese mansion

Stock photo of jerky. Apparently I only thought I hit the button to take a photo on my phone.

When we had exhausted the historic centre of Macau we decided to check out some of the casinos we had seen on our way there. The grandest of them all and also the one with the most interesting building shape, the Grand Lisboa, did not disappoint on the inside. There were fancy sculptures and lots of decorative crystal beading. Two of the featured sculptures were carved from mammoth tusks, and others featured plated gold or jade. We watched the fountain display outside of the Wynn hotel and then checked out the fish tank inside the MGM Grand. Lucky for us, they started fish feeding time shortly after we arrived. The fish tank was pretty impressive featuring thousands of fish and over 100 different species including a sting ray. There was a cute girl about Claire’s age that came up to us and waved and said “hello!” while her mom filmed the whole thing.

Another stock photo

Love the dangly crystals!

Mammoth tusk carving

By this point we were very exhausted and decided to head back to the ferry terminal a little early and just hang out until it was time for our early evening ferry. Once we arrived back on Kowloon, we immediately stopped to get some dinner at a mediocre Chinese place. It’s not really worth mentioning any more about the food there so I won’t. We went back to our Airbnb for some recovery afterwards, then went on a little stroll so we could force ourselves to stay awake until a decent bedtime. This was the second day in a row that we had a total step count of over 30,000!

I found this McDonalds kiosk on our walk home through Kowloon Park. They only sell drinks and desserts. I'd never seen anything like it before!

OBSERVATIONS:

• I expected the Hong Kongese to be similar to the Japanese in terms of chivalry. Boy was I wrong! Trying to get on a bus or up an escalator or even across a street at a crosswalk, you must be aggressive. And "priority seating" for the elderly and mothers with small children is almost never observed on the trains. On two separate buses in Lantau no one offered to give up their seats to mothers carrying babies who got on board. I made Mark do it to set a good example and show some American manners.
• Toothpick obsession. At several restaurants we've been to, toothpicks are automatically provided to us at the end of our meals. And in our Airbnb kitchen, there's no salt or pepper or napkins but there are definitely toothpicks!
• I've noticed many restaurants and even a food truck featuring toast, whether it be just plain buttered toast or something more extravagant. I'm guessing that stems from the English influence of the city?

Wednesday, March 8: Hong Kong Island (Mark)

We all woke up really early, which wasn't ideal, but our bodies clearly weren't ready for this time zone yet. We ate a simple breakfast (mostly oatmeal) and prepared ourselves for the day. The objective: Go to Hong Kong island, eat some dim sum, and see what we can.

Before we started, we needed to get some cash. We had a recommendation for a certain place near TST with lots of money exchangers, but they were all closed. We would have to wait until later.

The next step was to get to the island. The quickest way would be to take the MTR, but we wanted to start off by taking the Star Ferry. We walked south until we reached the harbor, and purchased our tokens to ride the boat. It's really cheap; when converted to US dollars, fare was just a little over thirty cents per person. The boat was very old and was reversible, both for piloting the boat and sitting on the benches. There weren't too many people on board, so Liz and I sat near the front to take in the view as we approached the island.

We weren't entirely sure where we wanted to go next, so we walked an elevated passageway until it took us to the island's main drag. Hong Kong Island is very busy and compact. The traffic mostly consists of buses, taxis, and double-decker streetcars. There are private vehicles too, most of which are more expensive cars since if you're driving a private car on the island, you're probably very wealthy. We briefly searched for a place to get some money, but they were either closed, or had poor rates. We tried to do the outdoor escalator, but in the morning it is actually going downhill to bring people to work from the hills south of the central business district.

We decided to go to Hong Kong Park instead. Finding the park was actually more difficult than we originally thought. The way there was fairly hilly and the directions were not clearly marked. We eventually found it, and tried to go to the aviary. It took us a while to find. We could clearly see where it was, but it took a few wrong turns to get us to the entrance, The park is very hilly and laden with staircases, so wrong turns were costly. We couldn't go in until it opened at 9. It was a very nice place with lots of interesting birds. We walked mostly on an elevated wooden walkway. It also rained on us, but we were prepared. We took a break at the tai chi garden before continuing.

I'm going back to my roots!

We also happened upon a conservatory while exploring, and took a detour through it, They had a flower garden, a cactus garden, and a humid area. There was a group of school kids going on a field trip there, and we briefly heard them all cheering (we assumed this was when they were finally let into the conservatory).

We read in our book that the Bank of China tower has a free observatory on their 43rd floor, so we made our way there. Once again, it was not clear how to get out of the park and get to the tower, so it was a small challenge to figure out how to get there. We were disappointed to discover there is no free observatory any more. We were starting to get hungry (all that stiar climbing can work up an appetite) so went to look for dim sum - the place we wanted to go to was in city hall.

Yet again, it was difficult to find out how to get there. After some frustrated wandering, we finally found the place. It looked a lot fancier than we were expecting, but the price was reasonable enough and the food was tasty. Some things we got were shrimp wrapped in fried bean curd, fried squid tentacles, veggies wrapped in thin tofu, and the best sesame balls we've ever had (filled with custard) and egg tarts. We were very satisfied with our meal.

We finally got some money exchanged - the rate wasn't great, so we only exchanged part of it. We bought our Octopus cards (the fare card people use to pay for transit use) and decided to ride the trams. Colloquially known as "ding dings," the streetcars are double-decked, which is unique. We rode one westward to Causeway Bay, then decided to turn back and head over to the outdoor escalator.

The escalator was now going uphill, so we decided to ride it all the way up. There were lots of interesting views of the city as we ascended - and a lot of good smells, too. Along the way was a card scanner that gave people a discount on their next MTR ride if they scan their Octopus card (we did so). Once at the top, we now had to climb down. Liz decided to time herself on this one, and it took us 15 minutes to descend.

We rode the MTR back to Kowloon. Dale and I went to the ferry terminal to get our tickets to Macau (we're glad we did, as once again getting there was a confusing affair) and met back up with Liz in Kowloon Park. Afterward, we headed back to our apartment and took a power nap. We were all very tired and it was difficult to work up the will to get out of the apartment in the evening. We looked for food, and found a reasonably priced restaurant nearby that sold fairly standard Chinese food. Liz got the house specialty: "snail soup" with noodles and various fixings that you can add to it (she added a fried egg). Dale and I both got pork dishes. They also sold a Chinese equivalent of lemonade, which was effectively sugar water with slices of lemon in it.

We headed to the harbor to check out the "Symphony of Light" show. We weren't really sure what to expect, but it ended up being a 10 minute presentation playing fairly cheesy synth music and lights going off on the skyscrapers (most across the harbor, but some on our side in Kowloon). Some of the lights were interesting, but overall we weren't too impressed.

We now were more than ready to head back to the apartment and get some rest. Tomorrow: Macau!

Observations:

• There is a lot of construction going on in Hong Kong, but they actually use bamboo scaffolding for their buildings. Looks precarious, but it apparently works. Even in the heart of Hong Kong Island, they use bamboo.
• There's a lot of luxury items available in Hong Kong, especially Rolex watches. Likewise, most of the cars that aren't taxis are usually expensive: Mercedes, Audi, Porsche, even a couple of Lamborghinis.
• Walking around in TST, it's fairly common for people to try to attract you into their shop to buy a custom tailored suit. I wouldn't actually buy them even if I were looking for one, though: the good tailors are probably not the ones that have people hawking their wares on the sidewalks.

Hong Kong Days 1 & 2 - Travel and Arrival (Liz)

Our adventures began with a nice lengthy 14 hour flight. I can't complain too much though because it was much less painful than a non-direct flight would have been. Props to Delta for having a very large media collection and I'm also very happy that you can now download Netflix shows to be watched offline so that I could continue working on the Great British Baking Show. Since we were traveling west from Seattle to Hong Kong, it was daylight the entire time which was pretty crazy. We departed around 12 pm on Monday from Seattle and arrived in Hong Kong around 6:30 pm on Tuesday. The flight was uneventful aside from Delta running out of my entree of choice during both meal services, so that was a good thing. We only got a couple hours of sleep which was what we wanted in order to fight jet lag.

Dale and Mark snoozing in the sunshine

It was super simple and quick to get through immigration and customs, and also very simple to take the Airport Express train then transfer to a shuttle bus to get to our AirBnb. Of course Mark was very happy to be on a train in a new city and naturally he took photos. Unfortunately none of us had window seats on the train so we didn't get the best view but we still got a sneak preview of the high rises and bustling city.

Our AirBnb is in a very convenient part of town. We are on Kowloon in the Tsim Sha Tsui neighborhood which is very close to the harbour. After settling in we decided to go for a walk to help us stay up until a "normal" bedtime. We ended up walking down Nathan Road until we reached the harbour. Nathan Road is home to much of the high-end (and some knock-off) shopping. To some degree it reminded us of walking along The Strip in Las Vegas. It was very crowded and full of tourists. There were lots of men, mostly of Indian descent, trying to give us business cards and convince us to go to their stores to buy handbags and watches. At least it wasn't cards advertising prostitutes like in Vegas, right? :) Let me tell you, Victoria Harbour was just lovely and breathtaking. It was a cloudy evening but I feel like that just added to the effect. I'm looking forward to going back another night to watch the light show. And it's so nice that it's walking distance (about 15 minutes) from where we're staying.

Signs like this crack me up 

 

On the way back we stopped at the Wellcome supermarket to pick up some water and groceries for breakfast. I have never seen so many groceries crammed into such a small place. They offered small carts for you to use (luckily we skipped that), but the aisles were so narrow that you couldn't have 2 carts traveling in opposite directions in the same aisle. There was also lots of extra inventory sitting in the aisles which made it quite the maze to get around.

We went to bed at a normal time in the hopes of adjusting to the time difference. Unfortunately I am typing this post in the 4:00 hour of the morning, so we were not totally successful. I think we will be needing a power nap today.

Observations:

• Car traffic travels on the left side of the road as we anticipated. When we were in Japan, that led to foot traffic also traveling on the left side of the sidewalk. However, I noticed that foot traffic still seems to move on the right side of the sidewalk here.
• Many of the high rises have big air conditioning units hanging out the all the windows on one side. I think it's pretty ugly (but necessary given the climate) but Mark thought they looked kind of cool. We will try and get a photo of it to post.