After a good nights sleep, I woke up after 6am.
I have decided to take it easy this morning, as I plan to go to Macau on the ferry this afternoon. My goal is to still be in Macau after it gets dark as it seems the kind of place where darkness is important to see all the neon of the casinos.
I did go there on my first visit to Hong Kong, but made the mistake of getting there at 10am in the morning, and by mid afternoon I was hot and bothered and decided to come home. So this time I will go after lunch and the weather is a lot cooler.
This all makes me sound like a complaining child, and its true, I am. Everyone else gets refuelled on beer, and sits and plays blackjack, where as I wander around with no plan until my legs run out of steam.
This mornings walk started by taking the subway to Prince Edward station. This is a building on Nathan road, the main road in Kowloon. Its amazing to me at least how there can be shining beacons of modern and next to it buildings like this.
This is looking down on an alleyway. Under neath the sheets of plastic is a lot of fruit stalls etc. No spot in Hong Kong is left unoccupied, I think theres more shops than people.
And for breakfast I had an enourmous coffee from Pacific coffee, which is the Hong Kong owned upmarket version of starbucks.
This particular one is in the Mong Kok east station, they have lots of stuff to read.
I saw a chinese baby in here sitting quietly on the floor playing a nintendo ds. He appeared to be about 6 months old.
As mentioned above, the plan this afternoon was to go to Macau, and thats exactly what I did.
On the way I had sushi for lunch, from Genki Sushi, it was exactly the same as any other sushi train place in any other country, so I did not take any photos. However the chinese girl next to me kept telling me 'hot hot' whenever I put wasabi on things, she was quite concerned.
The ferry left soon after, getting through customs was easy, basically no line, although I forgot to bring a pen so I didnt have my departure cards, arrival cards and everything else in order, and each stage I had to go pen hunting.
Bear in mind I didnt take a bag with me, all I had was my passport stuffed in my jeans pocket, my phone, my wallet and my camera. Thats how you travel to what is effectively another country.
Once I got there, it was around 3pm, and time for a lot of walking. So much walking.
Eventually it got dark and I checked out some casinos. One had a live show on a stage on the main floor, showgirls, can can dancers, contortionists etc. I watched for about 30 minutes but then they started repeating acts so I moved on.
Then I went into the Grand Lisboa, which has an upmarket mall bit, this is the meat market. It was amazing. 100 or so prostitutes dressed to suit walk up and down this 50 metre or so indoor mall, stop, pivot, repeat.
At either end groups of boys wait, and point and I assumed discuss which one they want. But I never saw anyone make a purchase.
I had a plan for my dinner, it didnt happen, for dinner I ended up having an ice cream and some pringles on the ferry!
Whilst I was in the ferry departure lounge, a girl came and sat next to me, explained she was from the university, and doing a study on travel habits.
So I agreed to do the survey, it went for ages and she was going really very fast, every possible question on spending habits, marital status, household income, visits to the movies each year etc. She even looked in my passport to see where I had been, well she asked and I said it would be easier to just look.
I noticed there were a few people about the place doing this.
For my troubles I got the stick pin think in this picture.
This is a crap shot from the inside of the ferry. I had a middle seat, I nearly fell asleep. It takes about an hour exactly on the slow ferry, I was in no hurry so took the slow ferry.
You can see my ferry here, it looks very small, it actually holds 278 people. I know that because I read the ferry information card 15 times during the journey.
Once you get off you are swamped by free mini busses that will take you to any casino. I had no intention of gambling, but they dont even ask or try and sell you anything. No need for public transport in Macau, just go to the nearest casino and get on a bus.
heres the main piazza area, I photographed it last time as well. Its quite nice.
Nearby is this great park, had lots of giant rock sculpture things which I have failed to photograph. It was full of old people looking after it, doing their exercises, playing mahjong, playing that one stringed guitar thing with a bow while someone sang.
The view from the top of the garden, across the river is mainland China. Zuhai I think, or at least the outskirts of it.
A typical Macau street, according to wikipedia Macau has the higest density of any 'country' in the world. Unlike Hong Kong and Singapore there are no jungle/forest parts left untouched. Much of the population now lives on reclaimed land (except this photo is the hilly part), everyones pretty confident there wont be a tsunami!
The portugese custard tart. Absolutely superb. They dont taste as good as this elsewhere, I dont like them at all unless they are burnt like this one.
Look how evil I am!
The remains of a church that fell down when an unfaithful woman went near it. I like the contrast with the sky. Looks as evil as me in the above photo.
Further up the hill is the old fort, the view is pretty great.
The view towards the casino part of town, I took photos of that gold colored one last time. Im still amazed it doesnt fall over.
I used my ninja skills to sneak around the fort. I dont know why I did this. Most other people were having a picnic.
School let out and a million people descened on this little shopping street all of a sudden.
A casino garden forecourt, they are really strict on not taking photos inside casinos, so I could only sneak a couple.
This is a casino lobby, it has some huge jade statues that chinese folks were pretty excited about. Actually Jade is everywhere for sale, the idea being if you win big at a casino you stumble outside drunk and decide you need a life size green jade monkey statue to try and carry home.
This is I presume the Falun Gong protesters. They had been protesting here all day as theres a Chinese tourism fair happening right next to them. Both groups had competing loud speaker setups.
It finally got dark, heres the grand old casino lisboa, probably the original casino in Macau.
And heres the bottom of that building I think is about to fall over thats made of gold.
Onto my dinner failure.
Last time I was here, I visited this place called fishermans wharf. The idea is that its the one part of Macau without any gambling.
I remembered there were about 40 restaurants along here, all different kinds...
Well a year later, and the adventure into an area without gambling is a terrible failure, as absolutely everything is gone or shut. Those that are shut I think arent about to open again.
Its very strange, theres no one there but the loudspeakers on light poles are still blasting music, and theres still people in coats working security.
Unfortunately this is right by the ferry terminal and I didnt want to venture back in the other direction for food, theres also nowhere to eat in the ferry terminal, so I got no dinner!
This is one of the bridges linking the various islands. Not very exiting I know, but I like bridges.
And finally, I am on the ferry going back again, so I played with my GPS using my locally cached copy of google maps. The ferry went at about 80kmph, and a few times between islands it got choppy enough for us to get airborne and people to scream. I enjoyed it.
A few lightweights seemed to run off to the bathroom carrying sick bags. Honestly it wasnt at all rough, it would be amusing to do the trip in rough seas, but I guess they go slower then so you dont fly off the top of waves.
Woke up early again to find my legs were indeed tired from all the walking yesterday.
This is a good thing, because my feet are fine, readers of my previous adventures might recall my little toes threatening to fall off, thats because Adidas shoes are too skinny at the toes for my fat hobbit feet. New Balance shoes however are fantastic.
With a bit of time before I have to leave for the airport, all I did was walk about and get some coffee, but now at the risk of being a sentimental asshole, I am going to be self indulgent and write down some stuff about why I like Hong Kong. Skip past it if you wish, next update will most likely be from Taiwan, or Hong Kong airport if theres any flight dramas.
The good things about Hong Kong
• The mix of east and west works really well.
• The transport is fantastic, not just the trains but the ferrys
• The landscape, I love the mountains, and theres so many outlying islands with cheap ferry connections
• Proximity to Macau, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and by short cheap flights to almost anywhere in asia makes day trips or weekend trips easy.
• The metropolis - everywhere theres new shops, restaurants, supermarkets, bright lights, the kind of stuff that bores most people.
• The cost of being a tourist is relatively low.
• You are anonymous despite being in China, it might be racist but in Tokyo you are aware that people are uncomfortable with you being there.
• Everythings open late, every night of the week, including holidays. Sux if you own a store I guess, good if you dont.
The bad things about Hong Kong
• The pollution, it has to be said, its not getting better, it ruins the view of the fantastic landscape. Im not sure what can be done about it.
• The internet sux, its either super fast if white listed or super slow if Beijing needs to deep packet inspect whatever you are looking at.
• The tourists, yes I am a tourist, but theres a lot of sports team type groups that charge around drunk insulting people.
So I do think I would still like to work and live here, perhaps for just 6 months. A lot of people apparently think thats a good idea but return home soon after arriving.
I do wonder if they are coming here expecting to sit in bars in Central and drink themselves stupid like they did on their 2 day holiday.
Theres a section of Hong Kong that seems closed off from most things Chinese, full of mainly English people trying to pretend they are in England, I guess if you were trying to live like that it would be difficult for you whenever you left that area.
This is Kowloon park, right on Nathan road, full of people doing tai chi and a few old men doing kung fu sparring. They were really good at it too.
Another view of the park.
Redundant photo of upmarket shopping area, I had to put something here though, couldnt just have that huge block of text above and no photos.
Theres a film festival on, I have seen a lot of posters and demonstration areas like this one.
I spent about 8 hours in Hong Kong airport today.
This morning I left the city around 9, headed to the in town check in, dropped off my bag and caught the train out to the airport. I got my boarding pass in town.
I then spent some time hopping between first class lounges and walking the huge distance of Hong Kong terminal 1, because I like airports, because im a nerd.
I pause every few metres to check out the different airlines planes, I will spare you those photos.
Anyway, its time for my flight, ive been up the other end of the airport, so I walk to my gate.
No plane there.
My boarding pass definitely says that gate, I am not dumb, I have taken over 600 flights and never missed one.
So I ask the nearby help people, they say I missed my flight, I say where is it on the board? They say, it not on board, your flight cancel!
So was it cancelled or did I miss it? I am still none the wiser.
The boards show all flights that left in the last 2 hours but mines not there, somethings up.
So I head to the Cathay Pacific help desk thing, where they tell me they were waiting for me, it seems my flight was merged with another.
At the time I didnt understand why, Harry tried to explain it to me (he told me 9 times his name is Harry) but his English isnt great.
I later realised/worked out, Cathay Pacific have freedom rights out of Taipei, to operate flights to destinations other than Hong Kong. They therefore use Taipei as their hub to connect to Japan using smaller jets.
Now theres no volume going to Japan at all, so they are merging the big feeder flights together.
Now things get tricky, because my flight is technically a Qantas code share frequent flyer redemption thing, they couldnt find me by phone to tell me.
Because I had checked in before the flights were merged/cancelled, I had confused the system.
So I was told to go to Qantas, as they have to sort it out, as its their system thats buggered. So off I head to the Qantas first lounge (see below how that turned out).
Eventually a kind chinese lady at the Qantas business lounge called around everyone, sorted it out and got me on a flight, problem was, it was in 5 hours time.
Luckily as mentioned, I have full lounge access and love airports!
Hong Kong terminal 1, Apparently the 3rd largest building in the world by volume.
Just yesterday I was at a Macau casino that sits in 5th place on the same list.
The view from the Cathay Wing lounge. Nothing special, this is the long bar. Long bar is long. This lounge had a noodle service made to order.
Flights missed by now, here I am trying to figure out my dilemma. I never got mad or worried, I could see on the boards there were literally 20 more flights to Taipei that day. And its only an hour flight, so if I had to pay for one even and argue about it later, it couldnt be more than $100.
Inside the Cathay Cabin lounge. This one had a health bar, serving stuff that wasnt really healthy.
Healthy is apparently a ham and cheese toasted sandwhich made to order.
Nearby me were some old english aristocracy transiting. They were in full argument mode, tired and cranky.
The husband was explaining to his wife that to call England you dial +44 not 0044 like you would, and shes saying 'but I always dial 00 for international, like when we call Judith in Australia I dial 0061. So I am just going to do that'.
Then the husband, 'You do that, you arent in England you fool'.
This went on and on, then he complained that they only had 'Slanty eyed food and this just wouldnt do', remember I was eating a ham and cheese toasted sandwhich....
The internet area of the cabin lounge, welcome to mac hell.
Last lounge, quit complaining about lounge photos, what was I to do for 5 hours?
Anyway this is the pier lounge, probably the nicest.
To kill time I bought an internet tablet thing, Archos 70, it has a 250GB hard drive, which is the key selling point for me. It was also cheap and available.
The pier lounge had a full dim sum banquet, it was delicious. The only problem with first class lounges is they dont really have self service drinks, so instead of a can of soft drink I get a tiny girl glass that gives you one sip that someone keeps coming to fill up all the time.
Of course it you want beer, you can get a can.
Heres my plane. The funny part of this is, I think its the one that I technically should have been on earlier, like the actual plane. In that time its gone to Taipei and back again.
The flight to Taipei was very short, on a Boeing 777. The seats were huge in economy.
The entire east coast of Taiwan seems to be continuous city, the weather was clear, visibility good and all I could see was street lights.
Arriving at the airport is like a 3rd world country. They are building a new terminal but the situation currently is terrible.
Now for more news on Japan, they had a radiation screening point, flights from Japan were arriving the same time as me, and one guy set off the detector!
I was pretty excited at this.
Customs was laboriously slow, only 10 people in front of me in line but all got the third degree.
Then I get to the front of the line and my things get stamped without even a pause, Australian passports are very valuable! Hence the reason mossad steals them to use in assasinations on arabs.
Now the real fun begins. No one speaks English. There will be no English, There will be no signs in English for the busses. There is no train to the city (its being built currently, like the airport). There will be no credit card facilities. There will be no ATM for cash withdrawal.
Heres what I did, took out my blackberry with Google maps showing where my hotel is, took out my Mastercard, walked up and down the bus company things waving both, after all the other customers left.
Eventually Someone could help me pay the 4 Austrlaian dollar fair with mastercard (their machines look like nothing I ever saw before!). I agreed to go to the Taiwan central train station and figure it out from there, no bus goes to my hotel, or no one can read google maps on my blackberry.
Now to find my bus, its a construction zone remember, I had to climb over piles of bricks with my suitcase and show my ticket to every waiting bus until someone let me on.
I got a satellite fix and followed my progress on GPS, I already had a stickpin on the map for the station I set before I left Australia, and once we got near that, I got off.
The trip takes an hour and its sort of scary in the dark, the entire way is a construction site, they are building an elevated fast train above the road, and it also goes mainly through industrial areas and oil refineries. I was quite worried this all Taiwan was going to be.
The bus windows were also heavily tinted, so I couldnt really see much at all.
Once I got off the bus, I found a station entrance, again its like a third world station, but with some modern facilities that seem added in recently.
I found an ATM and took out cash, then found a machine to buy an RFID train card thing, then added cash to it, then found my train line (color coded, no english!) then got on my train, it was only 2 stops.
The walk from the train to the hotel was about 30 minutes and fascinating, lots of neon, lots of strange footpaths, it seems each shop makes their own footpath so they dont line up and are made of different colored tiles.
Everyone rides a scooter, some footpaths have speedbumps as people ride their scooters along them to dodge traffic.
All the shops seem modern, but the streets seem...interesting.
I eventually located my hotel, with a lot of GPS aiding, I am staying in downtown Taipei, not in the middle of nowhere, but getting here was quite an adventure!
My hotel room is very nice, $60 a night gets you a great room with marble, a spa, a couch, and lots of English tv channels (HBO even).
The internet in my room is super fast, and its wired and wireless, so I can mess about with my Android tablet.
I didnt have time to take many photos, would have loved to on the walk here but had my hands full, Im excited to wake up tomorrow and explore.
The antiquated airport.
Out the front of my hotel, looking down the street..
..and looking the other way. Lots more photos of Taipei tomorrow I promise!
Today is both an introduction to Taipei, and a visit to Taipei 101, so my title is damn clever.
First impressions of Taipei are great, and during the day they only got better.
The subway system is great, but best of all google maps has failed me. Theres a new line that has opened 100 metres from my hotel, rather than 2 kilometres away.
Luckily the hotel put a card on my bed explaining this, or else I would have never known. This is very convenient.
Right outside my hotel, a busy street market was happening at 8am. I got to see everything thats inside a pig. Im pretty sure everything that fell out the guts of the pig will be eaten!
I got off the subway at a random station and started walking, impressed with how clean the streets were. I stopped and enjoyed a coffee, western style (because I am addicted I think).
I spotted the massive Taipei 101 on the horizon, its easy to spot as there are no other large skyscrapers at all, so I walked towards it.
Eventually I got there, did the tourist thing, it was about $10, well worth the price.
The foodcourt under the building is the best I have ever been into, the presentation of everything was superb, I didnt see much in the way of offal, sinew, bones etc. like you see in Hong Kong, it all seemed delicious to my adventurous by Western standards but conservative by Hong Kong standards tastes.
I also had a Taiwan pearl milk tea, perhaps the reason I am here, didnt really consider coming here until I developed a taste for the drink.
Would you have dumplings with XO chilli sauce for breakfast? Of course you would!
When I arrived the hotel told me breakfast was included and gave me the voucher thing. When I went to leave this morning the desk staff waved me over to the breakfast and seemed very concerned I was trying to leave without it, so I relented.
I had the rather interesting combo of orange juice, terrible machine coffee, great scrambled eggs on toast, average dumplings with XO sauce and strawberry jam on toast.
Somewhat strangely, the breakfast tables were fitted out with imacs and printers, they also had every western and chinese magazine available to read.
Heres the market in the side street by my hotel. It doesnt do it justice, down each side of this picture theres laneways under plastic sheeting. Its so low though that I cant stand up properly!
Amusingly, everytime a car comes down this street, a man walks in front and behind blowing a whistle with a flag.
I noted later in the day that the whistle men are everywhere, every single driveway has one.
The sheer number of scooters is unbelievable. Footpaths are just endless scooter parking lots. About every third shopfront is a scooter repair station, this is very efficient, I watched them change a tyre in about 30 seconds, the girl rode straight into the shop up the footpath with her flat tyre onto a stand thing.
It seems every scooter is a yamaha, so parts wouldnt be a problem.
Here I am inside the subway tunnel of the new line. It seems to have no customers besides me. Id like to thank the government of Taiwan for building a new train line to my hotel in my honor that opened a week ago just in time for my arrival.
This is looking up a main street from a pedestrian flyover. Its pretty bright and colorful, must look good at night. I intend to find out.
And theres the most famous landmark by far, all 101 storeys.
Yep, you will get bored of building photos, but thats bad luck for you really because I like them.
Inside the shopping mall at the base of the building theres some impressive steelwork holding everything up. Photos dont convey the true scale of it.
The lift to the 91st floor takes under a minute, they put on a show inside the lift with star lights and music etc. Theres also a great graphic of how fast you are going up and whats going on with the counterweights etc.
Until fairly recently, Tapei 101 was the tallest building in the world, but look how much it got eclipsed by those crazy dudes in Dubai!
The view is great, you can see the domestic airport here, its a shame the international airport isnt there as its right in the city. I guess they cant handle wide bodied jets, I didnt see anything bigger than a 737 parked there.
Surprisingly, the building is close to the edge of the city, the whole area around it is being developed into a more modern centre. Lots of cranes and glass buildings etc. I predict they did this here because its relatively geologically stable.
This giant ball is suspended in the top of the building to counter balance the swaying due to strong winds and earthquake. I didnt see it move whilst I was watching, thankfully. Theres a graphic explaining how other large buildings put swimming pools high up to do effectively the same thing.
OK, this is the last photo of the view.
They have a kind of museum showing coral jewellery to walk through before you can go back down, I thought it was a museum but then it turns into a gift shop.
Heres the lunch I had in the fantastic food court, Shanhai soup filled dumplings, and a delicious beef wrap (I cant remember the name, the Taiwan food websites rave about them). The beef wrap was indeed fantastic, the bread is sort of sweet, and sort of crunchy, and the beef was delicious and tender. I want another one now.
Unless I go back at night (which I might), this will be the last photo of the damn buidling you are all sick of.
Taipei has implemented the free bike hire thing that Paris invented. The machines to rent them are the same. I wonder if the same French company is marketing this to world governments. First they establish the EU to take over Europe, now they are taking over the world with bicycles.
This is the inside of one of the more modern looking stations. They have the track guard things. I dont know why London and Sydney dont have these, it basically makes it impossible for people to commit suicide on the tracks (which happens every week in London, and a few times a year in Sydney!).
And heres the inside of a train, very neat and clean. Its the middle of the day so not a lot of people on it, they come every couple of minutes, no need to ever plan to go somewhere, there is no timetable.
This evening I set out from the hotel just before dusk and headed south. I wanted to get to the area known as Ximen, which is apparently the 'youth' area of the city.
It took no more than an hour to walk there, stopping along the way to watch stuff happening in the streets. You cant miss Ximen, its at least 20 streets closed to traffic with masses of bright lights and people.
The focus is on youth fashion and street food, but theres also lots of performers (really really bad karaoke style singers with very loud speakers).
I didnt really want deep fried battered sausages or octopus balls, so I ate at a burger chain, but dont scoff until you see what it is. Its not like I ate at mcdonalds.
I caught the train back, stopping at the main Taipei station to pick up my high speed train ticket to Kaohsiung, which is where I am going on Saturday. This was a pain free process, even though I didnt have my passport with me I showed the girl my email confirmation on my blackberry and she gave me my ticket.
Its fairly important to remember which subway exit you need, once I got back to my station, I got lost, but thats OK I found another night market to look at.
This is just a typical street where I stopped to watch traffic go past, the street goes on forever and ever into the horizon. I made a video of the hilarious traffic here, but because I suck at internet I havent figured out how to make a video player to embed in my site. I refuse to use youtube or similar and just embed it, I want to make my own!
And heres a street full of scooter repair shops.
Nobody likes a god damn fuxing elementary school
Heres Ximen at dusk, it got much busier as it got dark.
Of many of the streets theres places full of tiny shops like these, selling secondhand mobile phones. I havent really found electronics shops like you find all over Hong Kong, a few Sony shops, LG shops etc. But nothing like Fortress or Broadway.
This is an example of a brightly lit corner, lots of people waiting behind me to cross, I stepped in front of them and balanced my camera on the control box thing for the traffic lights.
I hope you appreciate how dangerous this was.
OK, its time for Zombie cosplay geisha girls. They sort of sway slowly like zombies. They dont do anything else.
Honestly, I cant sing, but I can sing much much better than this guy, he was singing lady marmalade too, you know 'Kitchy kitchy koo koo ka ka!', 'Shalla kalla fur ko kike'. And god damn was it loud.
More zombies, I think they are following me! Whilst I was watching, a tiny little old grandma patted my head, her grand daughter was apologetic, and I think in broken english she told me her grandmother likes my hair and to pat a head full of hair brings good fortune. I expect to wake up bald in the morning, or possibly turn into a zombie.
Heres where I got my bubble tea. So damn cheap. Ive had 2 today, they probably arent very good for you.
And this is my meal from Mosburger, the japanese burger chain. I have got a something something beef rice burger. The bun is made of rice, not bread.
The side salad is just lettuce and corn. A very mediocre meal, but a unique experience. The place was full of school kids doing their homework.
And heres a closer shot of the rice burger thing. It doesnt seem to fall apart.
Finally, obun for dessert, I had a custard one with fresh sliced strawberry also inside it.
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