Hong Kong cont'd

The next day, Cindy and I made our way over to Kowloon in search of the Space Museum. The subway system in Hong Kong is very efficient, clean and easy to use. The city itself is impressively clean. There are reminders everywhere to wash your hands and cover your mouth when sneezing or coughing.  From what I saw, not one woman was negligent in washing her hands in the ladies’ room. Every washroom had plenty of soap and paper towels, not a common thing in Asia.

We made our way out of the metro and onto the street but unfortunately, I got mixed up and took us to the Science Museum instead. So we walked and walked and walked before I finally figured things out….Cindy took it all in good humour.

Eventually we found the Space Museum and the IMAX theatre that was showing the documentary Born to Be Free. We bought tickets for later that night and made our way to the exhibit called Fantastic Creatures from the British Museum.  

The exhibit featured mythical creatures and themes that occur in both modern and ancient times and how these have influenced society. Creatures like the phoenix, dragon, griffin, chimera, and the unicorn.  Labels sometimes explained the myth’s origin – like how the narwhal’s trunk was thought to be the horn of the unicorn. Masks, knives, combs, boxes, etc. would showcase the carvings of these creatures. The exhibit was well laid out and extremely informative, but to be totally honest, I found it a bit dull.

We finished in time to catch afternoon tea at one of the oldest hotels in Hong Kong, the Peninsula. 

I felt very awkward going into this very fancy place in my very casual clothes. Let’s face it, I didn’t pack for fancy and it was cold in Hong Kong – too cold for my one and only dress. Oh well. Cindy and I joined the long queue but the line moved fast and we soon found ourselves at a table looking at a very expensive ‘high’ tea set. It was almost twice as much as the one at the Marriot and much less food; but it was lovely.

We had tea (of course) and scones, clotted cream, preserves, cucumber sandwiches, tiny quiche, chocolates, etc. The cucumber sandwiches were so good: thinly sliced cucumber with herbed cream cheese – yummy!  The sugary treats were boxed up for later as we were too full.

Time for some shopping! We headed off to a street lined with shoe stores. Cindy was looking for shoes and I was on the hunt for a new travel bag as mine was shot. We both got lucky – I bought a new bag and Cindy got herself some funky shoes.

Our 8:30 film was showing in a planetarium type- setting with the film played overhead. Unfortunately the seats didn’t tilt so it could have made for a bit of an uncomfortable experience. Luckily we had bought our tickets early so the attendant had given us good advice on which seats to purchase. As we sat waiting for the film to begin, the fellow beside me tapped me on the shoulder and explained that I needed to put on the headset and select English in order to understand the narration. I was a bit surprised since it was my understanding that we had bought tickets for the English version but we did as he instructed.

The headset was far too big for either Cindy or I so we ingeniously wrapped our heads in our scarves so the headset would stay on. We selected English on the channel and sat back to enjoy the experience. The movie started and whose voice do we hear? Morgan Freeman’s in English. So off went the headsets.

The movie featured Canadian Burite Galdikas and her orangutans, and British Daphne Sheldrick and her orphaned elephants. It was great seeing the orangutans; many were those that Ian and I had met on our journey to Borneo.  The film focused on the babies and their care: a female is assigned to one baby orangutan and she changes their diapers, feeds them with a bottle and sleeps with them until they are old enough to be reintroduced into the wilds.

Ms Sheldrick performed her work out of Kenya at the Tsavo National Park. With the elephants, a male is assigned as the baby’s keeper. He shares a small hut with the elephant until it reaches two years of age, then it is moved to a camp with more room to roam. When the youngsters are transferred there, the older elephants already in the wild intuitively sense the orphans approach and arrive at the camp to welcome them into their herd. I thought that was absolutely fascinating.

The following day we were off to Macau, 60 km west from Hong Kong across the Pearl River Delta. Macau, a former Portuguese colony, was handed back to China the same time as Hong Kong and Chinese development has changed much of the island. However, guide books assured us, there were still areas of charm and history worth exploring.

Entering Macau was like entering another country, so passports and a visit to the immigration counter were mandatory.  Macau comprises of three different areas: the peninsula and the islands of Taipa and Coloane.  Since we were only spending a day in Macau, we decided to focus on the peninsula. Known mostly for its casinos, there were also beaches, fishing villages, and colonial buildings to explore.

After a visit to the tourist centre and studying a map, we boarded a bus for Largo do Senado (Senate Square).  Immediately, we felt like we had left China and entered Europe.  Facing the square sits Leal Senado with its interior courtyard and blue and white Portuguese tiles. Cindy and I stumbled into that one quite accidently. We had no idea what the building was when we went in.

On route to the square itself, we passed a bakery with warm egg tarts. Before leaving for Macau, Cindy had looked up what to eat, buy and do in Macau and number one was – eat an egg tart. So of course, we immediately purchased two and it was scrumptious. I am hoping that I can find homemade egg tarts somewhere back in Toronto when I return home.

We found a seat in the square to eat our egg tarts and watch the tourists wander by. A water fountain sits in the centre of the square and coloured tiles create waves on the ground. The buildings surrounding the square housed a variety of stores within them.  

Through the square and onto the narrow pedestrian streets, we noted several stores selling dried meats – as I do not eat beef, I tried in vain to get Cindy to take a bite but she wasn’t going for it. The flat square pieces of red meat really did look rather unappealing to me but not to others. Samples were offered at all the stores and people (mostly Asians, if not all Asian) were crowded around these freebies happily gobbling them up.

One shop with candied ginger, almond, sesame, and ginger cookies, and tons of samples did lure manage to lure us in. We wandered around tasting a variety of snacks. One such goodie was a pastry with seaweed. Cindy told me to try it first and only when I reported it as quite tasty, would she take a bite. Little did I realize, I had only eaten the pastry.  Cindy of course ate both pastry and seaweed and her face said it all. It was disgusting. In surprise (and not yet realizing it was only the pastry that was good) I helped myself to another nibble and could barely swallow it.

It was without a doubt one of the foulest thing I had ever tasted in my life – I can only describe it as something a kin to rotten fish. Being in the centre of the store in plain view of everyone, and without a napkin, I could hardly spit it out. Nor did I want it in my mouth so I swallowed it; along with a lot of water, candy and anything else that could get rid of the taste.

The streets we wandered on were quite lovely – cobble stone and pedestrian only lined with shops, historic buildings and churches.

As the day progressed, the streets filled with more tourists and it was soon very crowded. Eventually we came to our goal, the ruins of the church of Sao Paulo.

Only the façade remains but it is still an impressive site.  The doorway leads to an open area behind the wall and stairs lead up to a viewing platform. This is the view through the second story windows.

East of the ruins lies the fort so we wandered around the outside eventually making our way to the top.

Once we had exhausted this area of Macau, we decided to visit the ice sculpture at Fisherman’s Wharf that Cindy had read about online. First of all, I thought that Fisherman’s Wharf was an actual fishing village so it seemed somewhat odd to me that Macau would have an ice sculpture there but hey, whatever.

It turned out that Fisherman’s Wharf was not at all what I thought. My guide book describes it best: “a bewildering array of amusements, shops and restaurant” (Rough Guide).  The area is huge with convention centre, parking lot, fake volcano and fake stucco fisherman’s wharf all within a walled compound. There are several restaurants, bars, and clothing stores but the place was a ghost-town. It was hard to find an information counter, employee, or building with someone actually in it.

Finally, after much wandering and asking anyone we could find we were eventually directed to the ice sculpture park, exhibit or whatever it was called. I shouldn’t have had any expectations but I did. I couldn’t help it. I imagined a huge indoor building with several (at least a dozen) ice sculptures inside and loads of tourists wandering around reading accompanying signs and taking photos of the amazing sculptures.

Needless to say, it wasn’t like that at all.

On the outside, the building looked quite tiny. There was one woman working at the desk and after taking our money, the same woman took us into another room where we donned winter coats and boots.

Once properly clothed for the -10 degree room, the worker pulled open a thick metal door and then showed us how to get out when we were done.  We could spend as much as we wanted inside. No employees were inside supervising…

Our first introduction to the place was some sort of ice sculpture followed up with an ice bar complete with bar stools and beer bottles stuck in the ice. Next were two ice slides – and that was it. I’m not exaggerating.

Since we paid good money for the experience, we took advantage. I carefully climbed the ice stairs and down I went on the first slide. Bumpy but fun.

Once I discovered plastic sleds, it was near impossible getting Cindy out of the place! She was having a great time.

The entire place was smaller than my house and anyone who has visited, knows it’s a tiny place. Oh well, didn’t matter, we had a great time. Lots of laughing.

We poked around Fisherman’s Wharf for awhile, had some yummy (but expensive) Indian food and then headed back on the later ferry for Hong Kong and our comfy beds…

Next morning we were up for a visit to Stanley on the other side of the island. The concierge team at the Marriot was fantastic providing us with small cards in both English and Chinese with directions to Stanley via bus. We found our way to the bus stop and boarded a double decker bus full of tourists and paid about $10 Hong Kong dollars each for our journey.

The bus wound its way through the tall high-rise buildings in the financial district and into a tunnel taking us to the other side. We made our way up and then down a hill with gorgeous views of Repulse Bay. According to my guide book (Rough Guide), the name came from the British fleet’s repulsion of pirates in the 1800s. The bay has some lovely beaches but it was too chilly for us to be swimming so we stayed on the bus to Stanley.

Stanley is located on the water and is a small town with restaurants, shops, and a market selling super cheap clothes, purses, shoes, souvenirs, scarves, etc. As usual, I bought very little but should have bought more. I’m the worse shopper. I tend to talk myself out of things: do I really need that? Or better yet: do I really want to carry that around? After spending a few hours there, we found a taxi to take us to The Peak.

The Peak is located on the 550+ metre hill and has spectacular views of the harbour and Hong Kong. We were lucky as the day had cleared so it was probably our best day to go up there. The line up however was very long but when you’re hanging out with a friend you haven’t seen for a while, you’ve got lots to talk about and time goes fast. Before we knew it, we were squeezed onto the small tram’s hard wooden seats for our ride up the hill.

Unfortunately, passengers face the front so getting any sort of good view isn’t possible. The angle up is very steep, climbing 373 vertical metres in 8 minutes. The exit is in a small mall (surprise surprise) and we followed the several escalators up to the top to the viewing platform. The view up here was spectacular.

The buildings on Hong Kong Island were fairly clear as you can see. The Kowloon side was a bit hazy.

At one point I leaned over the side and was astonished to hear noise of birds and cicadas. When you lean back in, you can’t hear a thing.  It was such a spectacular view up there and hard to leave but we were flying out of Hong Kong that evening so it was time to return to the hotel and gather our belongings.

The shuttle bus and train were an easy way to return to the airport but finding our way to terminal 2 where Air Asia departs was ridiculous. As we exited the train a sign pointed to a set of elevators for terminal 2 so we entered but there was absolutely no indication of what floor to exit on so we guessed. Of course, it was wrong. We wandered around and around that airport for what felt like forever – and that was after asking information for directions. The absolute lack of signage didn’t help. Eventually we had to get on another elevator, walk on another pedestrian bridge and around in a circle till we found it. All this only to discover there wasn’t even a gate assigned  for a flight yet so we grabbed some dinner until we heard an announcement for our gate.

The flight went well and we spent a night at a hotel very close to the airport – a really decent place for about 60 dollars including a free shuttle to the airport. However, when I went to unpack my bag I discovered my portfolio wallet was missing. I had put it in the top of my backpack because I didn’t have room for it in my shoulder bag (I had the computer in it).  Our insurance cards, extra passport photos, my international driver’s license (Ian had his) and about 120 dollars US were in it. Clearly someone at the airport, in the baggage area, had taken it since there was no way anyone else could have lifted it. I was appalled that someone who worked at the airport could do such a thing.

As there was absolutely nothing I could do about it, I set my phone and went to bed. About 1 am I got a call on my cell phone from someone asking for me by name. He said they had my wallet at the airport and could I come in the morning to get it? I was half asleep but understood that I was to go to the information counter. I thought it was all rather odd but at least they had my wallet so I didn’t care. Of course, in the morning when I was awake, I started wondering how on earth they had gotten my cell number.

The next day Cindy and I were hopping on a bus to do some diving in Pattaya. The bus left directly from the airport so we were using the airport shuttle from the hotel at no cost so we went early so I could visit the information counter. We found it easily enough but the fellow behind the counter was not only rude but extremely unhelpful. It took everything I had to stay calm and keep smiling. Eventually we figured out we had to go to Air Asia’s counter so off we went – they did indeed have my wallet minus my international licence but everything else was there, including the cash. I figure someone pulled it out, opened it – didn’t see anything to take (the cash was hidden behind our vaccination records) and threw it aside. The licence was loose so it probably fell out. Air Asia had my phone number from my online bookings – lucky I had written it in!

That took a lot longer than expected so we raced downstairs to catch the bus. The bus was $10 dollars each and was only an hour and a half to Pattaya with a drop off right at our hotel! Can’t beat that!

I was looking forward to getting back under the water and doing some diving with Cindy.