Macau Macau, Portugueasia Vegas

So we left for Macau the other day for a quick one day trip to settle some visa issues. Drew and I, when we entered Hong Kong went through customs and got our passports stamped. Drew had a stamp on his student visa that stated "Journey Completed," mine did not. Initially we were worried that he had 'used up' his visa and we would not be able to leave and re-enter the country, we later found out that my visa was the one that needed to be stamped and I had to get it stamped or I would be deported, I guess. So, a good enough reason as any to leave for Macau the following day and get it stamped upon returning.

Macau is a just a little west of Hong Kong (we took a ferry ride on a Speedboat for about US$17 that lasted about an hour) and is nicknamed "The Las Vegas of the East". Years back it was controlled by the Portuguese and there is still a heavy influence of Portugal in this tiny country. The city is incredibly beautiful and strange with portuguese-esque streets and buildings, and then asian homes built on top of those, and towering skyscrapers of casinos standing behind those.

We left in the early afternoon for Macau with two other exchange students, Gavin from Scotland and Souji from South Korea. We wandered in the general direction of southwest trying to stumble upon this supposedly famous local haunt for some tasty dinner. After walking for over an hour and all of us starving we finally found it (A Lorcha), but it did not open for another half hour. We asked one of the servers up front if we could eat when it opened and they told us we needed a reservation. We asked politely if we could get said reservation, and she looked back toward a grumpy looking man in the corner and after a moment he grunted and waved acknowledging it would be alright. We finally ate, and got some delicious food - there was grilled african chicken, coconut curry chicken, pork and oysters, and baked cod and potatoes. It was a mix of portuguese and asian cuisine and worth the effort and wait as it was some excellent food.

We left A Lorcha and headed back up north to Largo de Senado (Senate Square) where they have have wavy black and white cobblestones lining the roads of colonial buildings and shops alike. Finally we entered a few of the casinos, seeing both the new and old Lisboa casinos. I gambled once and lost HK$20 on Roulette (about US$3), not a big gambling sensation, but then again I was the only one who gambled anything - everyone else kept their wallets sealed.

Another good find we had was a fish market and seeing all the people crowding around the stands. There is a video below, but there are some dead fish and guts so if it disgusts you, maybe don't watch.

There were always interesting things to notice in Macau. Walking throughout the city we noticed many signs advertising recycling and "green" thinking, exercise equipment scattered throughout parks for the public to use, giant coils of incense and offerings, lots of prayers on the streets for something we never quite figured out, and of course the architecture as well. Overall Macau was great, but a short trip and we are looking forward to going again.

First 5 days. Last 4 months.

When we arrived in Hong Kong we were met at the airport by Wayne, family of a friend, and he brought us back to his home where we stayed for the next few days. Quite gracious of them to allow us to stay in their home far longer than the one initial day we had planned to stay. They had a beautiful home in between the Sha Tin and Tai Wai metro stops, both of which were only a 10 min walk away at most and were easy to access. Their house was only 3 stories tall which is very unusual for Hong Kong, most everyone lives in skyscrapers or rural shacks it seems like. Wayne and his family, Krista and one of their sons Eric, lived on the middle floor of the house. The house had a lot of history having been used as a Japanese Interrogation house during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, it had been originally built by the Portuguese? and was now owned by the Lutheran Church. Anyway, here are some pictures of the place and the surrounding houses in the small little complex. In the house there were loads of little lofts and niches built into the house, one of which we lived in for the first week.

After 5 days living there we soon realized we were quite spoiled with the ability to eat breakfast, have air conditioning, and some couches and beers to relax with. Our quality of living quickly declined when we moved into the dorms with small rooms, a/c you have to pay for, and thin mattresses. It was incredibly hot the first night as we did not have fans, or any money on our ID cards to pay for the a/c, we quickly remedied that the next day as we suffered heavily that first night trying to sleep. We share a bathroom with two other guys from Sweden, Rikard and Janne. They are fun and we have gone out to the bars with them and shared some conversation over beers. There are lots of international students living in the dorms from all over the world, and we are struggling to remember all the names. But, the dorm does provide lots of opportunities with a swimming pool, snooker rooms, gym, and yes - even a karaoke room.

The Watch Man

When we were out the the other day with our Hong Kong friends, I told one of them, Elaine, that my watch had stopped. She seemed to know the exact place to go. What I assumed would have been an expensive watch shop, actually turned out to be this man who ran a small boxlike structure off to the side of a busy street. Apparently all he does is change watch batteries. I trusted him with my favorite watch and he had it fixed within 5 minutes, changing all 3 batteries for about $70 HK ($9US). And yes, my watch has 3 batteries. I know it's ridiculous. I just like how in Hong Kong, one man's niche is another man's business.

Just to give you an idea...

Taken while crossing a street in a busy part of downtown.

Disclaimer:
Not intended for the faint of heart or those who are uncomfortable in crowded places.

Sunday in Hong Kong, crowded crowded

Got cell phones today, now we are hip to the chinese technology, except ours are on the bottom of the totem poll as far as technologically advanced. We met up with Vivi, a buddy of ours from the PolyU program and got some vietnamese food for lunch. Her friend Elaine joined us and we explored Hong Kong Island for a while, getting to see what crowded streets in sweltering hot temperatures was really like.

We stopped by a local park with some beers we had bought and walked around. The park had a small zoo in it with some orangoutangs, monkeys, snakes, lemurs, and a few other animals. We hopped on the MTR and headed up to Mong Kok where there was an outdoor street market featuring tons of cheap and bargainable wares for sale. Also on the street were performers who would stand on a chair frozen and perform only when tipped, and then freeze until they were tipped again.

In Mong Kok we had our first official street food that included curry fish balls, vegetable dumplings, and beef organs (stomach, lung, intestines, and others). It was very cheap food and quite good, some of us liked certain dishes more than the others...

Finally we stopped in a local Game Station and played some arcade games. It was packed with people of all ages, some looking like they had been there longer than they may care to admit. Walking down the stairs into the arcade (yes, it was in a basement) there was a sign that stated, "No one allowed in under age of 16 or in a school uniform." It was a fun day out with Elaine and Vivi, they showed us some new parts of the city and introduced us to some new foods as well.

Quick things

This girl is everywhere in a lot of advertisements, we are infatuated.

Toilets in Hung Hom MTR Station.

Guy trimming tree branches.

Soccer in the city.

Dragonfruit and Durian fruits and grocery shopping.

Lots of stairs.. from buddhism to consumerism.

Today we headed up North a little ways to the 10,000 Buddhist Monks Monastery, which is exactly what it sounds like. Navigating our way there was a little difficult and when we arrived there is a little tiny side path that weaves around a giant building that looks like a monastery (and is apparently mistaken for the 10,000 Buddhist Monks often) that we followed till we arrived at some steep stairs. When we started our climb there were dozens of golden statues of Monks along either side of us that just continued up as far as the eye could see. Each one was unique and we couldn't believe there were actually 10,000 but it soon became clear we were wrong. It was one of the most impressive things we have seen here and it just kept getting more impressive the further up we climbed. It was extremely humid, and we were dripping sweat soaking completely through our shirts. At the highest point there was a single giant statue that sat in the middle of a pond with a waterfall falling behind it, and behind us a view overlooking much of Kowloon. It was an extremely exhausting and amazing hike up to the monastery.

On our way down and out of the monastery we chose a small back path instead of the way we came and were weaving down stairs that ran next to small rural cottages and shanty houses. We saw a crude sign for a bookstore and decided to investigate. Needless to say we were taken aback by what we found when we were greeted by a old man who looked like a holocaust survivor who beckoned us into his "book store" which contained only 5 books, all of which he wrote himself. His english was excellent and he loved walking us around his small bare house explaining to us the "story" of his books and art which mainly focused on stars and the cosmos. He gave us each a free original calligraphy print of his and we each went ahead and bought a painting from him, and a book. He introduced us to his neighbors who had a bee farm in their back yard and we bought some honey and took pictures of the bees. They brought us into their home where we got the honey and found out they had been raising the bees for decades.

We also ended up at the Nan Lian Garden and the Chi Lin Nunnery where we explored for a while and then stopped in the mall before hopping on the MTR back home. At the mall we stopped in an arcade which was as bright and loud as you would expect, and just a great experience being there.

Good Morning Hong Kong, my god you are humid.

August 20th

Our first morning waking up was refreshing, and we didn't really suffer too badly from jet lag at all. We got up at 7:30ish believe it or not and played with the dogs for a while before leaving to the computer market to pick up some plug adapters. We hopped on the MTR at Tai Wai headed to Wan Chai and had to make a couple transfers because we were heading really far south onto Hong Kong Island. The trains were extremely clean with glass walls separating the trains and the passenger lines, and arrows telling where to line up to enter and exit the trains, and people actually line up where they are instructed. The trains run advertisements and TV shows on televisions in the trains themselves, and run extremely smoothly and fast.

When we reached Wan Chai station we were immediately greeted by the Wan Chai Computer Center, which is really just multiple stories of strictly computer stores, probably housing around 80 or 90 stores. You can barter for the electronics and many were fairly to extremely cheap. The shops are so crowded and an absolute maze with no windows and winding, narrow hallways that you lose yourself in easily. We kept happening back into the same stores we had been at earlier and finally got what we came for after a while of just being overwhelmed. Many of the stores in Hong Kong are based around collections of similar stores, the computer stores are an example, but also if there is a coffee shop there will be competing coffee shops right next door, or candy stores, etc.

We had our first street food after wandering around and not understanding any of the signs, we were roped in by some nice people on the sidewalk who pointed for us to sit down. Being foreign and naive we followed their direction and when the man said noodles, we said yes, when he said pork, we said yes, and vegetables, another yes. It was right after that we found out these were the only english words he knew, but we were brought out our dish of noodles, pork, and vegetables and we both enjoyed it, some to lesser degrees. Below is the menu we had to choose from.

Following our meal, which we were very thankful didn't send us running to the bathroom right after we headed to PolyU to check out the school we will be studying at for the next 4 months. We struggled a LOT trying to find out how to get to PolyU from the train station, we could see it but couldn't seem to cross anywhere because the walkways are very specific and there is never anywhere where you can just cross a street many times. Walking through the campus there were groups of kids all over, some of whom would spontaneously scream and then run around for little to no reason. We visited the design school and met the chairman of the Industrial Design department, and our first impression is that it is impressive, much more so off the bat than Ohio State.

Next we ended up visiting the Hong Kong Museum of History which was $10, and we asked for a discount with our Student cards and got it for $5. Then we realized we were talking Hong Kong dollars, and HK$5 is about $0.75. We are cheap, and we love it. The museum was impressive and afterwards we headed to the Kowloon Harbor for the light show that happens every night at 8. It's free and you watch from the harbor as the buildings on the Hong Kong Island light up and strobe to music (cheap tacky 64bit videogame music). It was not as impressive as we would have hoped, but it was crowded and it was great mixing in with the crowds. This was a long post, but it was a long day for us, and we fit a lot into it. We will update fairly often and keep you posted on our... adventures?