Saturday, July 26, 2008 Today we decided to hit China’s other SAR (Special Administrative Region), Macau. China has two of these SARs and uses the statement “One country, two systems.” to describe the governing principle. It works quite well for everybody involved and we got more stamps in our passport… But that was about the highlight of our Macau time. We didn’t like it so much – not our style maybe? It was SUPER tourist filled in a bad way. WAY too crowed in the old Portuguese parts of town we could have enjoyed. Too many people, shoulder-to-shoulder, in blazing, over-the-top-heat, all WITH umbrellas at our eyeball height, all withOUT any sense of self awareness or unilateral direction. They cut you off then walk *backwards* into your eyeballs with an umbrella prong. They are nuts. We are not into casinos so those were of no use to us. The heat was heavy you couldn’t force even a slight breeze no matter how you fanned your guidebook. It was not our favorite day. We did finally find a yummy “cake shop” that sold tasty lunch rolls after searching for an hour or so for suitable food in a not great for eating (we found out) part of town. The one other place we found was so ridiculously scuzzy and dirty! And needlessly so! There was a store selling toilets, of all things, next door that was spotless! But here is the list of fun things we saw on Macau that we will soon post pictures of: the odd Fisherman’s Wharf, a huge statue of Kun Iam, Hotel Lisboa, the new Grand Lisboa, the finest Portuguese building on Macau – Leal Senado, Senado Square, Sao Domingos, the remaining facade of the grand Sao Paulo, the ramparts of Fortaleza do Monte, the classical (and gorgeous) Chinese garden Jardim Lou Lim Ieoc, the botanical gardens of Guia Hill (where we rode the cable cars up to the top), the Guia fortress (and chapel and lighthouse), and of course a myriad of city views from different hills and many random buildings. We know many people have loved Macau. We do not belittle your fondness for your Macau. We may have missed something, gone at a wrong time, or it may just not be for us.

Pictures and more follow the jump.

After taking the hour long ferry back to Kowloon we reset at the hotel (luckily enough catching the city light show again), had a few pre-party drinks in the room then headed out to LKF to hit Ebeneezer’s one last time for Doner kabobs and samosas and then to go to the bars there. We got a great spot at Lost and spent our whole night there. We had great fun, then headed home to catch some shut eye before our last day in Hong Kong tomorrow. We are sad to leave, but ready to get back to real life.

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Thursday, July 24th After we checked into the YMCA, it was still too early to get into our room, so we left our weighty luggage behind and headed out for coffee, pastries, and skyline viewings from the Harbor. After about an hour or so we headed back to the Y and got to see our awesome room! You would not believe how nice our room is. No joke. Our room is sweet and our view is incredible. If you are so inclined, you should google it. We are at the YMCA Hong Kong, Salisbury. We have a Harbor View Room.  Incredible.

Pictures and our very long day exploring Hong Kong and introducing the city to Jeannette after the jump…

We gathered our wits and dusted our sleepiness from our brains and headed out right away to check out Hong Kong Central. We took the Star Ferry over and walked and walked. Josh picked up right where he left off in Central. We had lunch in SoHo under the Mid-Levels escalators in a pub called The Wheel. We then walked down Hollywood Road, went to Man Mo Temple (which had amazing incense clouds and sunlight), looked at antiques and street markets, saw the Western Market (Jeannette found this eerily similar in historic importance yet touristy cliche to Faneuil Hall Market Place) and then rode the Mid-Level escalators up a ways before walking to Long Kwai Fong (LKF) on our way to the Victoria Peak tram.

We rode the tram up the steep hill climb to the amazing views of Hong Kong at the top of Victoria Peak. The weather was beautiful and clear. It even garnered front page news in the local newspapers for “picturesque” weather perfect enough for the postcards. Josh was happy because the weather last time wasn’t as clear. We stuck around until sunset so we could see the skyline light up with night time city lights. It was beautiful. We rode the tram back down and then headed back to LKF to the Hong Kong Brew House for some light pub grub and Hong Kong Brew. No Hong Kong Brew House pint glasses for sale, unfortunately, though. Then we headed down to Ebeneezer’s, Josh’s Hong Kong place for falafal and lamb shwarma, which is just what we ordered – to go. We hopped the Star Ferry back to Kowloon, stopped by 7-11 for some Tsingtaos, and headed to the Y to eat in our awesome pad and catch the light show that started at 11pm…. that really started at 8pm. So we missed it. Josh had it in is head from last visit that it was 11pm. But we have 2 more nights to catch the citywide skyline spectacle, so we are not worried.

We ate, then we sleep.

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