Honeymoon: Macau's Monte Fort

While casinos are the major pulling force for the majority of tourists to Macau, the area does have a lot of other things to offer. Its unique history as a Chinese-Portugese outpost has shaped the landscape, with various forts and 16th century European architecture spread across the territory.

The Macau government imposes a 40% tax on all gambling revenue, and has used a good portion of the profits to boost infrastructure and preserve its cultural relics. The Monte Fort is a good example of this, sitting a little away from the city on a hill, with authentic stonework and well-kept gardens.

Intricate tree root lattices like these cover much of the old walls. I like how the smaller roots merge with each other over time and become one larger vessel. It's similar to what happens when you graft plants together.

Off in the distance, the conspicuous outline of the Casino Lisboa can be seen. It lights up brilliantly at night, and can even be seen from mainland China.

The grounds keeper was watering the flowers below with a hose. He was standing on the edge of the wall, with a good 20 metre drop below him.

The purpose of this lighthouse was to warn residents of incoming typhoons during monsoon season. A large portion of the population used to be fisherman and traders, and this lighthouse would flash different patterns according to what the weather would be like. For example, there was one pattern which meant 'incoming storm' and another that meant 'clear skies'.

The Monte fort was described as Macau's primary defensive structure in times of siege. Fortunately though, it never had to be used. These large cannons were able to hit targets out in the harbour.

A nice view of the lighthouse and sky. It's a pity that lighthouses don't have much of a role anymore. There's something mystical and romantic about them. For sailors lost out in the dark seas, they were beacons of humanity.

I like staring up at them while the clouds pass by, inducing a mild state of vertigo.

I told Heather to pose on these stairs. I imagined that the slightly rustic paintwork would make for a nice vintage photograph.

Back when I was an undergrad student, I started to get into the more detailed aspects of photography. But then I gave up when I realised that most of my photos were not very good, compared to the ones that people were posting on the photography forums.

Then Heather told me to pose for some photos. For some reason, I have never been very photogenic. See that smile that I'm doing? That's the one that says 'You don't need to count to three every time you take a photo....'

Here's some bamboo scaffolding that was supporting a radio antenna. Bamboo is reliably strong enough that construction workers have no qualms about climbing around on the top of structures like this. They remind me of the engineering projects we used to do in primary school, building things out of drinking straws and sticky tape to see how much weight they could support.

Running underneath the fort is a network of tunnels which were built as an air-raid shelter.

The views were nice but the day was an uncomfortable 37 degrees. I prefer monsoon season, but you do tend to get ridiculously wet in a matter of seconds.

Despite the heat, these little kids were playing in the sun without any problems. Heather and I stared at them for a while, wondering what their secret was. Maybe they had cold packs in their undies.

Luckily for us, there's a cable car service that takes you down the other side of the hill. But it wasn't air-conditioned, which was interesting. You wouldn't want to get stuck in the middle during a day like that.

People who come from Macau are called Macanese. The population is 95% Chinese, but because the official languages are both Cantonese and Portugese, most public signs include Portugese translations. Jo-anna informs me that Spanish and Portugese are two distinct languages.

I don't know any Portugese, but I can hazard a guess at what 'excrementos' means.

Macau has yellow taxis, whereas Hong Kong has red ones.

I appreciate trivial facts like these.

You can use Hong Kong dollars in Macau, or their local currency which is called Patacas. One Pataca is worth only slightly less than a Hong Kong dollar, and the locals here treat them as the same thing. There are 100 Avos in a Macanese Pataca.

I like the sound of 'Patacas'. Throughout our stay in Macau, I was often asking Heather how many Patacas she had left, just because I wanted to say the word Patacas.

This is the central business district of Macau. Besides tourism, there is a smaller fishing industry here, as well as a lot of financial services companies.

A lot of the streets of Macau have good mosaic tiling. The stones are all individually cut by council workers and the process is more labourious than concrete, but it's much easier on the eye.

I'd say I'm about half way through posting the pictures from our honeymoon now. It was only two weeks, but we kept ourselves busy. The next couple of posts are still from Macau, then it's off to Australia!

That's all for this post. More from Macau coming soon...

Honeymoon: The Casinos of Macau

A couple of hundred years before the British colonised Hong Kong, the Portugese were already in Macau under a slightly more amicable agreement. Macau was once a major trading portal for South East Asia, but declined in that role and has since become more famous for its casinos.

The best way to get from Hong Kong to Macau is by ferry. There are a few different services, but they're all around the same price. The trip takes about an hour and if you have a Hong Kong tourist visa, it's very simple to go to Macau.

You don't need to reserve tickets beforehand, because there are ferries departing every 30 minutes. You just pay for the ticket (around US$50) and an hour later you can board with your luggage.

Macau does have an international airport, but it's only popular with the richer crowd. Departing by ferry also gives you some better sights of both harbours.

As soon as we got on the ferry, Heather spotted a packet of dried squid for sale behind a counter. But they wouldn't let us buy it until the ferry left the port, so Heather sat down and did a good job pretending that she was thinking about other things, beside the squid. But I know Heather pretty well. Some people get dollar signs in their eyes when they think of money, but Heather gets little squid silhouettes when she wants to eat dried squid.

As soon as the ferry left port, she had the squid in her hands and was munching gleefully. Late at night, squid parents tell their squid children about the Heather Monster.

The first thing I noticed about Macau was the blueness of the twilight sky. I was so used to the grey skies of Seoul that I had forgotten about its usual pleasant tones.

Hotels and casinos are big business in Macau and shuttle buses constantly arrive at the ferry terminal to transport new guests to their destinations. At the bus station you can roughly gauge how popular your hotel is, just by seeing how frequently the shuttle buses arrive. For the Venetian Hotel, buses come every couple of minutes. We had to wait around 45 minutes for ours.

We stayed at the Casa Real Hotel, which was pretty good in the end. A nice room with breakfast will put you back around US$130 per night.

I usually don't like to spend a lot on hotels, because we're normally out for most of the day anyway. But I spent a little more on the honeymoon just because.

As soon as we dropped off our luggage, we went out to have a look around. Macau itself is smaller than Hong Kong, and it similarly has both a peninsula and an island.

The first thing you notice about the city is an abundance of neon that one may previously have believed could only be found in Seoul.

What do we think of Macau? Small and dazzling.

Macau has historically been a gambling destination, as the Portugese government introduced relaxed gaming laws centuries ago. There are about 11 major casinos in the city and probably around 40 other smaller ones.

This hotel is called the L'Arc New World. It opened on the week we arrived and is currently the tallest hotel in Macau.

Coincidentally, the general manager of the L'Arc is my old Casuarina boss from Adelaide, Peter Ng. If you look back through the archives of this blog to 2007, you can see his old hotel where I used to teach, which was at The Seacloud in Busan. If we had come on any other week except opening week, we probably would have stayed here.

This is the lobby of the hotel. We'll come back here in a later blog post.

All the big name hotels from Las Vegas are now in Macau, including the MGM Grand. In terms of gambling quantity and number of tables, Macau has already overtaken Vegas and continues to grow. I would attribute that to a more ingrained gambling culture in the Chinese tourists who make up the majority of visitors. Luck is a prominent part of Chinese culture, with all sorts of symbolic things considered lucky. And when you have enough people believing in luck, there's money to be made.

But one good thing about lots of people spending money is that the casinos have reinvested a small portion of that into free attractions. In the lobby of the MGM Grand is this display on the ceiling, representing the heavens. It's much larger than it looks in the photo.

Directly underneath it is the Earth. The whole display starts moving at 9pm every night and people crowd around to watch the show.

The ceiling opens up to reveal an enormous LED display, and from the ground emerges the Money Tree. On some nights, the tree comes out, and on other nights a large golden dragon comes out instead.

It rotates slowly in its dazzling glory and people throw coins at it for good luck.

Here's a slightly long video of part of the show. Love them or hate them, the casinos of Macau know how to impress people with a good show.

More of that coming later. See you soon!

First Website Sponsor

At this point in time I'd like to turn your valued attention to a little banner on the right hand side of this blog, underneath the LKB fish pond.
KoreanClass101.com have been nice enough to pay for advertising on this humble little blog site. Not any great windfall mind you, but it will go towards keeping the photos on this blog permanently. Blogger is a great host, but photos are limited to 1 GB per account, after which you have to pay for the extra. I'm currently at 65% of capacity and will be looking to upgrade the account soon.
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The only reason this site has attracted advertising in the first place is because you, the readers, keep coming back and maintaining a steady hit count. So I would like to thank both you and KoreanClass101.com for your support.

Here's hoping that I can return the favour and keep this blog interesting...

Honeymoon: Hong Kong Harbour

It seems the British did good things with Hong Kong during their extended leasing of the estate. The deep natural harbour and central shipping location have also contributed to its rise as one of the more impressive financial centres of the world.

On the top floor of every skyscraper, I like to imagine a millionaire businessman sipping coffee and staring contentedly at the concrete empire below. Then I like to imagine that one day I'll be someone rich and powerful like that. Then I imagine that I would buy a speedboat and zoom across this harbour, drinking Moet & Chandon straight from the bottle while gloomy office workers stare from their office windows.

But then I wake up and realise that we can't all be at the apex of the capitalist pyramid.

They say it's lonely at the top anyway.

Although Heather and I were pretty keen to buy these 'I love HK' shirts, we haven't worn them since. They seem a little irrelevant elsewhere, and I'm trying to think of other things that HK could mean.

Happy Kids? Heptagonal Kangaroos?

In case you didn't know, the new hip thing to do in now is to take a photo of yourself when you jump. The aim is to create a non-digitally altered special effect, whereby it looks as if you're floating in the air. The most logical way to approach this task is for the camera operator to count to three and synchronise the timing with the jumpee.

(Jumpee (n): One who jumps).

Easier said than done. Canon cameras autofocus as you press the shutter down, which means that the timing of the image to the split second is a little difficult.

It took a while for Heather to get airborne, but in the end it was well worth the effort. If you use your imagination extensively, you might look at the picture above and think that Heather is actually floating around on her anti-gravity knees. As our friend Anthony likes to say "Nothing is impossible."

And then I like to add "But some things are infinitely unlikely."

Yuen Wo Ping is a kung fu choreographer who has worked on some of the classic Hong Kong movies. He also directed the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Incidentally, him and I seem to have almost exactly the same sized hands. I wonder if that means anything.

Well, for a start I guess it means that I could borrow his gloves and they would fit quite well.

Here's Heather doing a bit of role playing.

And here's Heather doing a bit of shopping. We'll have to change the name of this blog soon to Lee's Heather Blog.

The Intercontinental Hotel in Hong Kong has one of the best lobby views in the world. They've really made the most of it too, with large glass panels and an elevated seating area.

One would expect hotel lobby food to be overpriced, but it's still fun to look at the menu and proclaim daylight robbery anyway.

You do need to divide by seven to get US dollars. But still, that is a bit steep for a bottle of wine.

Heather and I ordered a cocktail each. Whenever I find myself drinking cocktails before midday, I always think of our friend Jef in Busan. Not because we used to drink cocktails together before midday, but because he taught me never to feel guilty about being a daytime alcoholic.

I like the composition of this photo.

It takes a while to get a westernised tongue around the pronunciation of Tsim Sha Tsui.

On our first day in Hong Kong, we found a foot massage place. Heather really wanted to go back to the same place on the third day, but we couldn't quite remember where it was. We finally found it after walking up and down the streets in 30 degree heat. In the photo above, Heather is displaying how pleased she is at recognising the poster in the lift.

For about US$13, they will massage your feet while you watch TV for 45 minutes.

The funny thing was that Heather really likes strong massages, while I like soft ones. But I ended up getting some dude who really got stuck into me, and Heather got a little lady who barely touched her. Contrary to our appearances, Heather is actually the big tough one in our relationship, while I'm fragile and delicate.

Then our three nights in Hong Kong were up and we left on the ferry to Macau. The photo above is from the HK-Macau ferry terminal. In a nutshell, Hong Kong is a place worth visiting. The locals are friendly and the city is geared toward tourism. The good points are that the food and shopping are excellent. The bad points would be that it is a little congested at times, and the humidity can limit your outdoor options. All in all though, I'd definitely go back again. Hong Kong reminds me of Kuala Lumpur, but with more British flavour.

And in the next post, we're off to Macau.

See you soon!