Sleeping in this morning was glorious. The beds were so comfortable and I felt like I was sleeping forever compared to all of the 4:00 am mornings we have had. After we managed to get out of bed, we packed up all of our stuff and checked out of the hotel by noon. Our first project was to get a real meal in Macau since we had yet to have one, but first we stopped by a bakery to get some more Portuguese egg tarts. We made sure to get a group picture eating them in the square because it would probably be the last time in a long time. After that we were still on the mission to find some good food when we saw a sign for a Thai restaurant, which sounded perfect. Bryan had never had Thai, which settled that and we had to go.
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| The last tarts! |
The guy who owned the restaurant was awesome and really nice. Bryan and I got shrimp Pad Thai that was absolutely amazing. Adam got a peppered beef and rice dish and John got a curry-fried rice with egg, both of which were also really good. The tea was also amazing; we probably had 5 refills. After we finished eating we asked for a picture with the owner and then were on our way to our next destination, Hong Kong.
We got to the ferry station by bus and got our tickets without a problem. This time we were on a Turbojet boat, which was also really nice but a lot louder than the ride there. I still managed to fall asleep after some blogging and was woken up by the violent swaying of the boat. Docking was nowhere near smooth as people were flying across the boat trying to get off. Adam said he was about 30 seconds from throwing up by the time we got off and I was right about with him. After we caught our bearings for a second, we got a taxi to our hostel and definitely got ripped off. Because we put our bags in the trunk versus on our laps, we had to pay an extra $10 on an already expensive ride.
After getting over that and taking note of it, we ventured in the direction that the cab driver told us until an Indian guy who saw him point us that way said that “Chinese people are mother fuckers” and that he pointed us the wrong way. After a quick laugh and finding the building we were in, it was a whole other mission to find the hostel. It was a 20-story building with 4 different blocks. We made it to Block B and then saw a sign for our hostel saying it was on the 10th floor so we got in line for the elevator. Meanwhile, two Indian guys were talking with the police, one of which got arrested for what seemed to be having a fake passport. We felt safer that there were police in the building but also I little concerned that that was the first thing we saw upon arrival.
It seemed as if we were staying in the Indian ghetto, but once we got up to the 10th floor things were looking a little better. The woman who checked us in was really nice and was very helpful in giving us directions to where we wanted to go in the next couple of days. She took us down a locked hallway into our room, which also locked, which made us feel a little safer, and was actually pretty nice. It was very clean and had its own bathroom, but there was approximately 10 square feet of floor space not covered by the beds or desk. Unfortunately there was a box protruding from the wall so we couldn’t make a mega bed. We thought about flipping the beds around so we could, but the legs were cut off so that the bed could sit on a ledge so that would make the bed lie at about a 45 degree angle, which definitely wouldn’t be preferable.
We decided to deal with sleeping arrangements later and head out to try and catch the sunset from Victoria’s Peak. We got on a bus that took us right to the entrance of The Peak Tram where we were greeted by quite a crowd. We waited in line for tickets and decided we probably wouldn’t make the sunset, but it is supposedly really cool at night to see all of the buildings lit up anyway. After some ridiculous rushing by the people in line with us from each stop to the next, I somehow ended up right in front of the door to get on the tram and was the first person on! I snagged a seat for Bryan and I, and John and Adam got a bench as well. The ride up was really cool to look down on the city and it was really surprising how steep of a mountain we were actually going up.
Once we got to the top, we had to go up a few escalators until we were eventually all the way up to the viewing deck. The view from the top was pretty amazing. We all thought Shanghai was a big city, but Hong Kong was just huge. We decided that the big difference is that Shanghai is so spread out compared to how dense Hong Kong is, which just gives a whole other effect. I must say Hong Kong is one of the coolest skylines I have ever seen because having a mountain in the background really adds something. After we made sure to get in some good pictures and see all of the different views, we headed back downstairs to take the tram back down and stopped in some of the shops on the way.
We then realized we walked downstairs for no reason because the tram leaves from the top so we went back up and got in line. It was a bit of a wait but eventually we got on a tram down and I even managed to get a seat again. Once we got down we walked around the city a little more and looked for a good and relatively cheap place to eat. We ended up finding this place that claimed to have healthy Chinese food with no MSG and less oil and had a bunch of food awards so we decided to try it out. All of our dishes were amazing and I was absolutely in love with mine, which was eggplant with minced salty fish and pork.
Very satisfied, we found our way to the subway and got back to the island our hostel is on and headed towards the night markets. It was a pretty cool strip that actually had some different stuff than normal but I didn’t actually buy anything considering I don’t think I would have any room for it. We made our way back from the market and decided to take a little detour to see the skyline from across the water. It was a pretty awesome view and none of us could look away. We got some pictures and then decided we were all pretty pooped. We got back to the hostel and after some question as to where everyone was going to sleep, John and Bryan passed out on one bed leaving Adam and I in another. Within a matter of minutes we were all out cold.
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| Night market |
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