Lantau Island

Won't be getting around to historic Macau pictures, though there is a good chance I will upload a lot more to facebook, so if you are on that you'll get a bigger glimpse of things. This is going to be a pretty picture heavy post as it is.

Went with a tour group to Lantau Island yesterday. If you are unfamiliar, Lantau is the home to the Big Buddha bronze statue as well as Po Lin Monastery. From Hong Kong you must take a 23 minute cable car over the hills to the destinatation. Because Lantau Island is protected from development by the Chinese government, the entire trip there is very scenic.

Macau

This was the first time I had ventured outside of campus, so I just went along with the group on navigating the metro. First impression of it was that it was worlds cleaner than the public transportation that I had seen in Chicago. At every metro station there is a shopping complex with tons of different clothing boutiques, electronic shops, food, everything really. Eventually we got to the terminal to buy ferry tickets to Macau, which ran us about 120HKD if I remember correctly (not bad for an hourlong ferry).

Arrival was marked with confusion. The group was dispersed amongst 3 or 4 different hotels. English isn't as prevalent in Macau but is spoken around tourist areas. Portuguese, Chinese, and English are written on all of the signs. After a bit in the terminal we headed to the Holiday Inn. That's to the left. Wildly nice Holiday Inn. The staff held the elevators and there was a small bar in the lobby and a casino on another floor (which we never got around to visiting). The room had a nifty contraption that you dropped your card into to be able to have power in the room. It also had, for some reason, a large window right next to the shower facing into the room. Luckily it had blinds, but it was still a very unusual feature.

Settled in we all went out to explore. The concierge recommended a Macaunese (sp?) restaurant a few blocks away so we departed for it. Passed by several watch shops and a place that sold bird nests (for soup) as well as the Rio. The restaurant's name was Porto Exterior I believe; I got a vegetable curry that was brain-meltingly hot, but still very good.

The group wandered around Macau a lot. We saw dozens of watch shops, open market areas, a temple (locked to the public at the time), a Ferrari Enzo, and tons of amazing buildings. Entirely too many pictures to upload. Finally headed into our first casino, The Sands. It was smoke-filled and massive on the inside. The main floor was open to the roof with other floors overlapping it very organically. The floors were probably 20'-0" floor to floor so everywhere had high ceilings. The main lobby had an eight-story chandelier over it. This was the only thing we got a camera out to take a picture of (taking pictures in casinos can get you thrown out).

After we left this we wandered around a bit more before meeting up with the rest of the group in front of the Grand Lisboa, successor to the very first casino on Macau. Briefly went through it with oohs and ahhs and wandered on to see more of the city.

(lights out front of the Grand Lisboa)

(market in an alley)

Eventually we ended up at a club in the MGM Grand watching a live band until about 130. Drinks were steep but were definitely worth the entertainment.

I will try to find a way to upload pictures more efficiently before the next post (Historic Macau). This interface is a bit too clunky for my taste

The Journey Here

At last I am getting around to setting one of these up. Have been in Hong Kong not even 3 days and have been constantly on the move, it seems.

Plane ride from KC to Newark was too cloudy to see a lot, but pretty spectacular. Seeing the sun rise from over 10000 feet was one of the most breathtaking sights I had seen (at least until I got to campus). The clouds were fairly heavy all day, though, so not a lot of land visibility.

Layover in Newark was killer. The airport there is massive and very architecturally interesting. Open floor plan with glass everywhere. The Statue of Liberty and Central Park in NYC were visible on takeoff. Plane ride was 16 hours to HK and took us over the north pole. On arrival I got introduced to a bunch of other exchanges. Got invited to a trip to Macau (Asian Vegas). More on that later, though.