Macau, the Asian las Vegas

Macau, like Hong Kong, is theoretically Chinese but not really... But as I kept on repeating the entire WE, there are a lot of Chinese people there!


In summary, it's not really like china because rules are much more flexible, no need for a visa prior to traveling but the gambling industry mainly serve Chinese people coming either from HK or main land. As European tourist, we felt very isolated! (English is not widely spoken...)

Macau is formed of Macau peninsula (who would have guessed...), and the islands of Taipa and Coloane. These last 2 are now pretty much a single island connected by the wonders of land reclamation which is also the new casino centre: Cotai strip, where our hotel was.

When we arrived, we couldn't find the hotel reception, finding the casino was not difficult, but who would have thought that the reception was stuck in between 2 casinos?

Food was the highlight of the WE for me (I wish that was the case everywhere else in asia...) the Portuguese heritage brought us octopus salads, fried chorizo, garlic gambas and pasteis de nata and the fusion cuisine of Macau added afrikan chicken, vanilla soufle and a few other thinks. Not to forget we were in southern china, we added a Cantonese fried rice on Sunday lunch time for good measure.

The weekend was divided in between finding the remains of Portuguese colonization, that includes lots of churches in the city centre but also some quiet market squares on the south of Coloane island.

And exploring the casinos trying to understand the rules of some games and deciding which one was the most suitable for spending our money

Baccarat seems to be a Chinese favorite but we still have no idea what are the rules or even what's the goal! Black jack seems by far the easiest but the insurance part completely escaped us...

We finally decided to spend the remaining of the WE money in the Pacific casino, the Venitian was too big, the Himalaya too cold ;-), the Lisboa too smoky, to be really honest, the Pacific just had the lowest entry bet for Blackjack...

Call me cheap but 200 HK$ (20€) already seems excessive to me!

 

WE in Hong Kong

After a serie of trips to Europe, it was time to re-start our tour of Asia. So last WE, we were on our way to hong kong. It is now part of China, but there is no need for a visa and it is only 3h30 flight from singapore and for once we were flying with a proper airlines (Cathay pacific, miles on BA) so we got food, tv screens, blanket and no need to pay to check in baggage!!!!
So at 22.30 on Friday evening, we are landing in HK but not on HK island. The territory is indeed made of the main island, plus some smaller other island and also a part on the continent. After 23 minutes in the airport express we are downtown where we get a taxi to our hotel. So, taxis in HK: there are cheaper than in Sg, there are millions of them and the drivers all think they are on a formula 1 track!
We do make it to our hotel, Jia, a fantastic boutique hotel with a very generous collection of weird armchairs.
We drop our bags and we are out again for a drink.
The streets are full of people but no bar to be seen! Finally we find something, not amazing but ok for a pint.
After a good night of sleep and a great breakfast we are ready to deal with a very hot touristy day (hk is north of sg and the weather is more comparable to Thailand: blue sky and burning sun)
So first we go for a tour of the business district. The number of highrise is impressive and the architects seem to have great fun in this city!



We have a look at the birds of the HK park and the museum of tea pots. It's quite interesting, tea used to be served in tiny cups (smaller than expresso) it looks like starbuck has really increased the mug size ! :-)
We then take the cablecar to victoria peak. HK is incredibly hilly which explains why they need to build highrises, because there is very little flat land! It's hard to escape the tourists at the top, but we do manage when we go for a 3 km walk around the peak giving us a 360 degrees view of all the islands.

We enjoy a real wanton meal in a Michelin recommended restaurant and head down to the bar area of HK. That's where we should have gone yesterday! After looking for a Market for a while which seems to have disapeared a while ago. We then take the longest mecanical dtair in the world (it's cheating to be honest because it's formed of plenty of small ones). We go through lovely streets with antics and a lot of bars and restaurants. On the way down, we visit a temple and we head back to the hotel for a glass of wine (or 2) and to get changed for dinner.
R is taking me out! We have dinner in a fantastic Chinese restaurant looking over the harbour. And as I was too busy looking at the view, I completly forgot to take pictures of every single plates!
Lung King Heen is the only chinese 3 michelin stars in the world so we were in for a treat! First taste of wagyu beef, some fantastic food and wine combinaisons, discovery of seafood unheard of and the first really hood Asian dessert! it was a real experience!
Sunday morning, we head to Aberdeen, yes there seem to be one everywhere I go! There are floating restaurants and boats of all shape and size randomnly parked in the middle of the skyscrappers! We take a short cruise in between these floating elements. Going back to town, we take a walk in Victoria park. It's like all HK has decided to have lunch here, any bench, any spot under the trees is covered by women sitting down on plastic sheets. I don't know where are the men (R recons they are betting somewhere). It's hard to walk anywhere. We discover a few interesting points: there is a jogging track with policemey at each crosspoint making sure you have the proper speed, shoes direction, very funny! HK inhabitants seem to have a particular think for mini speed boats as well, they were tuning engines,making sure it was turning properly in the curve (which are protected by plexi-glass)
After picking up our bag at the hotel, we take the ferry accross to Kowloon (new territories,mainland), the esplanade is very impressive with a fantastic view of HK island.

Then we hit Nathan road, the Orchard (Sg), Oxford (London), Republique (Lyon) street of HK. We get a chance of seeing a dragon show in a park next to all the shopping malls.

and after a final ice cream, it is time to head to the airport to get our supply of alcool before boarding the plane.
HK was very different from what I expected,all this green and mountains and it was really a fantastic WE ;-)