Musings About Macau

I know what you're thinking: What's with the Roman Amphitheatre?

Why a shot from Miami?

And what the heck is that last thing?

And aren't you supposed to be musing about Macau, hmmmm?

All just to show you can go around the world pretty quickly...in Macau.

Our second day of our trip was a day trip to Macau.

All I knew about Macau was that some of my old Hot Wheels cars were made there, back when it was a Portuguese colony, they have casinos, and the remains of St. Paul's church facade is a popular tourist attraction. Aside from that...nothing.

We didn't find any Hot Wheels, but we did find tacky casinos (That's what that last picture was). And it is all part of the Fisherman's Wharf, connected to the Babylon Casino. Getting to the casino, one can walk from Rome, through various locations such as Amsterdam, New Orleans, Miami, an African village, ending at the casino and the Rocks Hotel.No expense has been spared in constructing this mini world. Each building keeps its character on all four sides outside, and the motifs follow through to the interiors. And it is all fake. Even the birds in the birdcage situated in the hotel lobby are fake!
Talk about consistency.

Also tacky is the Sands Casino:
But nothing (and I mean NOTHING!) beats the Grand Lisboa Casino when it comes to being tacky!
Let's face it; how much uglier could it get?

Don't answer that yet. It tops its daytime tackiness with a neon light show at night that makes Las Vegas seem stodgy and reserved by comparison.

Fortunately, there's a lot more to Macau than that! And I'll tell you all about it after we eat:
Brunch was a luscious dim sum. Anyone who knows us knows how much Edson and I love dim sum. And this was good.

Did you hear that?

That was my stomach rumbling just thinking about it!

Anyway, the restaurant was all ready to host a wedding banquet that night, which explains the stage set behind Simon.

Anyway, back to exploring Macau!

Much of the island is a laid-back, walkable, pleasant city which feels much like Amsterdam in a way...a more conservative way...Chinese society isn't as open as Dutch!

Intricate patterns in the sidewalks abound.I found this one amusing:Others may show a church, library, etc.

I'm including this next shot just for my brother-in-law (he's a big Coke sign memorabilia collector):As soon as we saw this, Edson and I thought of you, Jim!

That building sits right beside the Leal Senado building, built in 1784 as Macau's municipal office. Here is Edson admiring the magnificent tile work in the stairs:He then caught this shot from upstairs looking down on Senado Square across the street, which was host to a jazz concert that afternoon.

Street performers play traffic signals, guiding pedestrians across the busy street to the square.The square is a great space which really brings Europe to Asia. It and all the surrounding structures are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so nobody is going to plunk a pre-fab or cinder block eyesore down in it.
Some more scenes as we strolled:


We finally made it to St. Paul's.Oh, and we weren't the only rice/potato couple there that day:

I'd say there was a festival going on that day, as evidenced by this picture, but we all know that anywhere there are large numbers of tourists, every day is a festival!These performers did make it tough to get around to go up to the church ruins, but we did finally manage.


Let me just say that it is a long uphill climb from the flatness where we started at Senado Square, with a lot to see and do along the way.

I'm tired just thinking about it...and typing.

Mostly typing.

Stay tuned for Musings from Macau Part II.

Getting There: Hong Kong Part 2

Backtracking a bit (as I usually do, I know)...getting to Hong Kong proved to be more a problem than we ever thought when at four o'clock in the morning at the airport Immigration officials notified me I had to have an "exit permit" to leave the country. This was something I was supposed to have made a trip to the office in Intramuros to accomplish.

This was news to Edson and myself. We were under the mistaken assumption that if my visa was about to run out, they were kind of expecting me to be leaving the country anyway.

Oh, and with our plane leaving at 5:30am and the Immigration Office in Intramuros (over an hour away) opening at something like 8am that would mean I would miss our flight out.

Fortunately we were flying out of the new terminal. The new terminal has an immigration office there to handle these things that happen with great frequency. Before it opened in August I would have missed my flight and had to purchase another ticket for another day and likely pay fines for overstaying my visa due to the delay of the next flight.

Don't you love government red tape?

The office at the airport wasn't open yet, but we only had to wait about thirty minutes for it to do so. I paid 700 pesos ($14US) for an ECC fee (Whatever that is. Exit Clearance Certificate perhaps?), 10 pesos ($.20US) for a legal research fee (Tell me where else in the world a legal fee is only 20 cents!!), and 500 pesos ($10US) for an Express Lane Fee (Express Lane? There were only four of us there! And there's only one window...I suppose that is the express window.) That was twelve hundred and ten pesos ($24.20US) for a stamp that took about two minutes; meaning I paid that guy's salary for the next few days.

Another interesting thing to note was that the original immigration officer asked me for all the receipts for all the visa stamps in my passport. I had also assumed that if the stamp was in my passport I wouldn't need to bring along additional accompanying receipts from the immigration office proving I had paid for each of them. Isn't that why the stamps are there in the first place?

Well, we obviously made it on the plane in time and had long forgotten all about the morning in Manila by the time we were on our way to the top of Hong Kong - The Peak.
The Peak is the place to go for the best view of the Hong Kong skyline.Hazy with smog I know. Hong Kongers delight in telling everyone it is the fault of the industry on the mainland ruining the view of the Hong Kong skyline, not to mention its air quality.

Or browse/buy prints of Hong Kong:
Even better to me was a bit later, after a bagful of fresh Famous Amos chocolate chip raisin cookies, was this view from the other side of the hill:
We went back to our hotel, the Stanford, in Kowloon, and rested before dinner.

Here's our 9th floor view:And here's some shots we got of the city while driving about on the way to and from dinner:

And before we made our way back to the hotel to take a well-deserved and much-needed rest, we couldn't resist stopping by Victoria Harbor for the magnificent night view of Hong Kong's skyline:
Once back at the hotel, I think it took all of two or three minutes to fall asleep once we hit the bed!

Stay tuned for our day trip to Macau!

Hello from Hong Kong

Friday, November 21st. Edson and I landed in Hong Kong.

Within a few hours we were on our way up the mountains of Lantau Island to the Ngong Pin plateau and the world's tallest outdoor seated bronze Buddha.



It's a lot of steps up to that big Buddha.
Here I am with my Mr. Right and Mr. Wong, Simon Wong that is. Simon and I have been friends for over sixteen years, though we haven't seen each other for twelve years since he moved back to Hong Kong after college. He toured Edson and I around Hong Kong for our weekend stay there.


Below the Buddha sits the Lo Pin Monastery.



After one more look back at the giant Buddha and the purchase of some Buddha beads for our career and wealth, we were back on the cable car, riding down the mountain.
Note the beads around my wrist.
And you may also notice the bandage on Edson's hand. That is from a mishap on his flight a week earlier from Dubai which left a nasty bruise and a lot of pain. Fortunately for him, he had to wear it just two of our three days in Hong Kong.

More Hong Kong to come...