Hong Kong Day 5: Big Buddha and Light Show

This was another day when Clarence and I were on our own because our friends were at work. We decided it was time to make the pilgrimage to the Tian Tan Buddha on Lantau Island.

Our pilgrimage involved yet another cable car ride. This one seemed even longer than that of the day before. This one was more pleasant though, as the whole ride was much smoother.

Another cable car shot, with the big boy in the distance. The cable car system has a quality wikipedia page that's worth a quick look. There's even an "incidents" section.

The cable car system had one of those cameras that takes your picture which is then sold to you at the gift shop. I thought it was a bit of a stretch. It's not a very exciting picture.

Another shot of the Buddha.

There is a little tourism village on the other end of the cable car line, with lots of souvenir shops and little restaurants.

Just past the area with the more polished stores is where the normal people set up shop. Their offerings were cheaper and more colorful, but just as unnecessary.

No way was I going to drink one of these little mysteries. Orange Fanta has all of the healing properties that I require.

After a few more minutes of walking we were out of sight of tourist town and entering religious territory.

There was a massive amount of incense in the air around here. I didn't catch what the meaning of the giant cauldron thing was, but it has the flower symbol of Hong Kong on the side.


Some people made a quick stop nearby to light their incense sticks and then proceeded to wave them around in a prayerful manner. It made me want to shoot roman candles.


I guess this is a temple. There were several monks chanting inside.


The building had some interesting carvings on its outer walls.

Several flights of steps led up the where the Tian Tan Buddha sits atop a giant lotus.

I spotted a tree that I don't think I've seen before. It's like a woolly pine.

Big Boy has a museum underneath his altar. It was here that I learned that this statue was completed in 1993. I always just assume that these sorts of things are ancient, so I was a bit surprised. I think it would be best for them not to tell anyone that little fact. Best to let me think it's ancient and awe-inspiring.


The large statue was surrounded by these smaller statues that sat one level lower. Each has an offering for the big guy. But hey, if I'm a dude that weighs 250 metric tons, and I invite you to an awesome party, and you show up with five tiny plums, we are gonna have words.

Back in the city, we met Mike and Allison across the water from Hong Kong's famous skyline. It looks really nice.

Several of the buildings had changed their light setup for the Christmas season.

The tallest and I think coolest of the buildings is 2 International Finance Centre. You may recognize the unique spikey things on top from a scene in The Dark Knight.




Here's a bit of a fuzzy clip of the scene in question. Batman jumps off of 2 International Finance Centre and flies into the nearby 1 International Finance Centre.




Honestly I don't think its necessary to watch this whole video, but it gives an idea of the light show put on every night. Its very sparkley, if not very dramatic.

I'll make one more post about Hong Kong, and then it's on to Thailand!

Hong Kong Day 4: Macau Side Trip

Hong Kong had treated me well so far, but Macau was too close to pass up. Macau, like Hong Kong, is a Special Administrative Region. It is part of China, but its is allowed to take care of many of its own affairs such as monetary system and immigration. I experienced both of these. It was interesting that I needed to go through customs between two parts of the same country.

The ferry ride between the two places took around one hour.



View Larger MapThis gives a good idea of the size of Macau in relation to Hong Kong. They are both pretty small though.

This little trip just fell together really well. Mike and Allison were at work, so Clarence and I were on our own. We walked right out of the port to the bus station and the first bus in line was one the we needed. I didn't know which stop was right but managed to just guess the right one. After about five steps we wandered into a store which sold pastel de nata, which is a Portuguese egg tart that my guide book raved about(for good reason).

We started off in Largo do Senado, a nice little European style square. I really liked the style of this place. Sure it was a little touristy, but everything seemed so clean, quaint, and wholesome here.

"Pharmacia Popular"


Church of St Dominic

We continued walking through the winding line of shops, taking in the atmosphere while looking out for road signs.

I really felt like I was in a unique place. How many streets in the world have signs written in both Chinese and Portuguese?


After a few minute walk we spotted it, the most famous sight in Macau, the Ruins of the Church of St Paul. Wikipedia thinks that it was "intricately carved between 1620 and 1627 by Japanese Christians in exile from their homeland and local craftsmen under the direction of Italian Jesuit Carlo Spinola". And I bet that crew didn't have any problems communicating.


I don't know if you can tell by the pictures, but all that remains of this building is the facade. The rest of it burned down some time ago.

The nearby Monte Fort rewards those who climb its steps with a nice little view.

From this direction I could see the two dimensional nature of the famous church-


-and over this way I could see the very large Grand Lisboa hotel casino. I had a sudden urge to start putting cannonball shaped wholes in everything.


Random birdcage near the fort.

By this time I was getting a bit hungry. I was too excited to just sit down at a restaurant though, so I just sampled everything along the way to our next destination, the Grand Lisboa.

This place was a bit too fast foody for me, but I thought it was funny that they had put a smiley face on that big egg tart sign. Gotta love those tarts.


Another interesting food offered in several places was these large sheets of jerky. The people trying to sell it would carry a big square of it with tongs and then cut a slice off with a pair of scissors to give potential customers a taste. The bit that Clarence and I bought tasted just like sweet and sour pork. It was super good, but I was afraid of having issues with customs, so I didn't try to bring any back to Hong Kong. Everyone is so uppity about meat products these days.

I spotted a little line at this place, so I queued up without knowing what exactly was being sold. I'm glad I did.


This is a very short video of a man making the little pastries. How could these not be awesomely delicious? There was what seemed to be three family members working here, and they only sold one thing. This guy's operation was so beautifully simple. Dough goes in, cookies come out. He had his little charcoal basket on the right there in case the fire went down. This part of Macau was very lovable.


They tasted just like the pizzelles my family makes. That is a flavor that I was really surprised to find in Chinese territory.


Even the derelict buildings here were charming.


We strolled all the way to the Lisboa. The building looked really cool on the outside and more or less looked like a nice but typical casino on the inside. The casinos in Macau were pretty serious about no pictures happening where betting was taking place. Unfortunate, because I would've like a shot or two of me whomping the house at dai siu.

By this time we were ready for a real meal. We took a bus to the south side of the territory and began the search for a place that served local food. We stopped at a restaurant that had a few interesting dishes on the sign out front. As this would be my only real meal in Macau, I stretched my dinner out into a few courses.

For an appetizer I chose Portuguese olives. They had a little sauce on them. They didn't have a strong pickled taste like most olives. Very light and nice. HK$18


Next was the smoke duck breast salad. I'm bad at describing food, but this had a really herbal dressing on it. HK$48


I chose a Macanese roasted sea bass for the main course. The preparation on this one took some time. Clarence was pretty much finished with his meal by the time I could taste mine. It was worth the wait though. HK$88


Couple of these at HK$15


I didn't need dessert, but my guide book made a special mention of serradura, which is cream and condensed milk pudding topped with crumbled cookies. I figured I should get involved. HK$16

It was a bit of a splurge at around US$26(today 1USD is worth about 7.75 Hong Kong dollars), but I was happy I could make a little dent in the food culture. Plus hey, I was on vacation.

The last thing that I wanted to see before going back to the boat was The Venetian Macau. These things change so fast that its hard to tell, but I've seen a few different titles thrown around. The guide book says it is the largest casino in the world and three times the size of the Venetian in Las Vegas, and wikipedia thinks its the third largest building in the world by area. Long story short: its rather spacious.

Why build a giant casino in such a small place, with several more casinos being planned? A U.S.News article sums it up. "The only place in Asia with full-fledged legalized gambling sits within a five-hour flight of 3 billion people--nearly half the world's population. Vegas, by contrast, is the same distance from only 450 million people." Simple as that.

I can't remember every detail of the one in Las Vegas, but this Venetian was all the fake Venice a person could need.





Fake singing is so romantic.


Then it was time to go.

And that's the story of how China's smaller special administrative region got rocked like a hurricane.

Hong Kong Day 3: Theme Park Fun

The highlight of this day was a fun trip to Ocean Park, a theme park in Hong Kong.

There is a newly built Disneyland in Hong Kong that I would have liked to check out but group opinion did not fall in its favor. That may have been for the best, as the new Disney park has been widely panned by critics due to its small size and low number of exciting rides.

Ocean Park was all decked out for Christmas and had a special zone dedicated to the holiday theme, but we didn't find it too interesting and didn't spend a whole lot of time there. There were two noteworthy aspects to our experience. The first was the excellent view. The park is built overlooking the sparkling ocean.

A fairly long cable car ride connects the two separate areas of the park which provided a relaxing bird's eye of the whole area.

The second interesting thing was the pandas. If I have seen pandas before, its never been like this. We were lucky enough to see the pandas eat their dinner. A big pile of bamboo and some other little snacks were placed next to the glass to force them to be still long enough for everyone to thoroughly gawk at them.




Around five of the animals were “bestowed” on the park by mother China, which continues to use the little guys as political doggy treats for governmental good behavior. Between the glare and the mass of slack jaws with their faces smashed up against the glass, I only managed to get a couple good shots of the pandas.

The pandas had perfected a cool little leaf eating system.

These two refused to even look at their fans. They briefly bent over backwards when it was time to grab more branches.

I'm confused, and a bit worried about these things.


A very otherworldly jellyfish exhibit with psychedelic lights and music.


Another party jellyfish, this one with long tentacles.

Here's a random concession stand to give a little hint at the sort of things being offered. Allison actually recommended trying the fish balls, but I missed my opportunity.


Clarence had an introduction to Chinese medicine at the gift shop. Reading the boxes was really entertaining. "This will fix you" was pretty much the gist of it.


Mmmm, minty snake oil.


After the theme park, we finished up our day in the part of Hong Kong called Stanley. Wikipedia offers an interesting bit of Stanley history: "Stanley was the location where British and Canadian troops made their last stand before surrendering to Japanese troops during the Battle of Hong Kong in December 1941".

There was a market here too, but it was a bit more upscale compared to the earlier markets. There were a few overpriced art galleries and a whole lot less copyright infringing happening here.

Mike fighting his urge to buy.

A few steps away was a boardwalk type area near the ocean. It was lined with expensive pubs and little restaurants, all with tables and chairs outside. The patrons were mostly affluent looking white people. I got the impression that no one bothered to tell these guys that Hong Kong is no longer British.

A random little shrine that caught my eye. These are hidden in lots of little areas everywhere, just like in Japan.

One thing that was cool about being in Hong Kong was the writing. My understanding is that Hong Kong is using the more complicated old school version of the Chinese writing system, some of which carried over to Japan. So occasionally I could understand the meaning of written words without having the slightest idea how to say them.

Last but not least, I had my first fresh dragon fruit.


I cut that fiery looking fruit right down the center and found the flesh had a consistency near that of a kiwi. The flavor was very subtle though. Mike joked that the plant spent all its energy looking cool so it had nothing left for flavor.