Fools at the Beach

Mel had some school stuff to work on, so Jason and I decided to head to the beach today (since she'd already been there).

They were spraying for mosquitos outside of our apartment building when we left... god only knows what we breathed in as we walked to the subway station.

We rode the subway for an hour to Xinxiu, the end of the line, and then hailed a taxi to take us the rest of the way to Xiaomeisha Beach. It's about a 30 minute/$10 ride to the beach. Oh yeah, and something awesome happened on the drive. We were about one minute from the beach, and all of its' amenities (including washrooms) when our taxi driver suddenly pulled his car over on the freeway, got out of the taxi without saying a word, and then took a piss on the side of the road. He got back in the car, and within a minute, we were there.

We were kind of hungry, and once you go into the paid area of the beach you can't leave without buying another admission, so we ate at the same restaurant Mel and I had gone to on our last visit. Jason was starting to get pretty good at chopsticks.

He was also getting pretty good at noticing things. Things like this sign, posted by the city of Shenzhen, giving the restaurant's food safety rating the lowest possible score. When your food safety rating is bad by Chinese standards it's got to be pretty bad! Meh, it tasted good.

I was worried, because the last time we visited the beach it was so busy, but at least there was no line to buy admission tickets. This time, we had to wait in a lonnnng line and there was noticeably more people on the street and in the restaurants. I was wondering if we'd even be able to get chairs, but it was no big deal. Sure, it was crowded, but it was no busier than last time. We paid for our chairs and umbrella, but when the guy took us to the chairs and umbrella that we'd just paid $17 to rent for 4 hours, there was an angry Chinese family sitting on our chairs. There was actually a screaming match while we just stood watching, but then they stormed off and we were able to sit down. It was kind of awkward.

That lady sitting on the other side of Jason knew what she was doing- she was sitting in our umbrella's shade! For free! As the sun moved across the sky the shade started moving more and more away from me (on the other side of Jason) and was covering her more and more. But what were we supposed to do, chase her away? She eventually left, and I pulled my chair over out of the sun again. Freeloader!

We read, made fun of the beach fashion, and ate chips for a little while, and then it was time to get in the water. The water was much wavier than the last time we were there, and as a result, there were far less people swimming. It was great! Every single person was floating in an inflatable tube, so we decided to tubes too.

Since the Keddy brothers don't do anything half-assed, we got kiddy tubes. Not even the kids had kiddy tubes hahahaa. Jason got one with a giant squeaky pear on the front...

...and I got a shark with a squeaky tail. And of course, I hummed the Jaws theme as I swam by just about anyone.

The water was nice, but the longer we spent in it, the more we realized that we weren't alone. After floating around for about half an hour, we were approached by a huge manta ray! I have never swam so hard in my life, trying to get away from that thing! It was freaky! We dried off for a while, and then went back in, but when a school of about 20 big silver fish swam past me I got the hell out. Jason lasted another 10 minutes until he was almost eaten by a giant orange koi and he had to leave too.

As we dried off in our chairs a village of tents appeared behind us.

From the water, we'd seen a pagoda on a hill to the left of us. We decided to walk over and check it out.

It seemed like the most direct path was through this area, where ladies in pointy straw hats were carrying around trays piled high with lettuce. When we couldn't find a way through, we left.

No visitors? Someone's trying to keep all the lettuce for themselves :@

We found another way towards the pagoda: over a bridge and up a hill. As we crossed the bridge, we were met by a bride and groom! I said "congratulations" but they stared coldly ahead :(

It seemed we'd actually stumbled onto some kind of wedding factory. There were 2 other brides & grooms on the other side of the bridge. It looked like there was a field full of sad looking props to pose with for wedding photos, such as a rusty old jalopy with "PARIS" painted on the side, and a heart that said "Nobody, nobody but you" -the chorus from the Korean band Wonder Girls' big hit a few years ago.

A view of the beach from the hill, as we tried to reach the pagoda. Unfortunately, when we got to the top, the pagoda was actually inside the grounds of some kind of private power company or something, and there was a guard post at the entrance. We decided to head back down the hill, through the wedding factory, and into a taxi back to the station.

We met up with Mel and went to the Garden City Mall, not too far from our apartment, for some awesome Korean BBQ.

Then we took Jason to a Chinese Wal-Mart, just because... Chinese Wal-Mart is so weird.

Posing with a new friend.

Fishing out some turtles for dinner.

Some Great Value brand duck necks to snack on. Why don't they sell these at home?

Dongmen Market Take 2

On Jason's first full day in China we went to Dongmen Market, a few city blocks of malls and crowded shopping markets, which -so far- is my favorite place to shop in Shenzhen. 

Of course, the first place we stopped was at the Modern Toilet restaurant, where we got a quick photo op with their giant poo mascot.

The atmosphere is delightful.

From our tablet, we were able to look down at the street and watch this amazing woman who worked at a stall which sold BBQ squid. You HAVE to click on this video. She was amazing. She did this whole "marinatin' muh squid" dance repeatedly the whole time we were there. I had tears in my eyes for pretty much the entire meal. It seemed like it would draw a crowd, but actually she was like the only stall with no customers. Maybe they were intimidated by her moves.

On our way out of the restaurant,, we checked out some of the poo-related products for sale. Unfortunately, we were in someone's way. "Ooops, pardon me!"

While there are some shops in Dongmen where there are prices on the tags, most of the places require you to barter with salespeople to buy the item you're interested in. For me, this isn't really ideal, because the price of a product usually determines if I'm interested in it. If you ask a salesperson here for a price, you automatically enter yourself into this song and dance of negotiating prices, which is kind of annoying if you were just curious, just trying to get a handle on the store's price range, or just looking. Anyway, even though it's not my preference, I've gotten kind of used to the bargaining, and it can even be sort of fun. But it's something you really have to be in the mood for or else it can be irritating. I wound up getting quite a few new things at the market, but unfortunately it really wasn't Mel or Jason's style at all so it wasn't totally enjoyable for them.

Anyway, may I now present the top 3 store names found at Dongmen Market today:

3. "the mashing a calculator pad to make a store name" shop

2. Titi

1. Two shops down from Titi: Jiss.

We finished the night by going to Pizza Hut in the Sea World area by our apartment (where a "regular" pizza is smaller than a personal size at home) and getting massages at Foot Massage Massage (where we got to watch The Voice: China on personal TVs), where Jason may or may not have had his spine permanently fractured. It was a good day.

What up, Tian Tan Buddha?

Tuesday morning, we woke up in Macau and took a taxi to the ferry terminal (riding behind a noodle delivery bike) to cross our first of 3 borders of the day! After a sad ham sandwich breakfast in the terminal, we boarded our ferry. The waters were choppy once again, and word that a ferry had sunk off one of the nearby islands the night before made our ride seem even more thrilling!

The ferry terminal back in Hong Kong.

We proceeded directly to our next ferry to Mui Wo on Lantau Island (about an hour's ride), which happily accepted our octopus transportation cards. The ride to Lantau was much smoother, and once we arrived he hopped on a bus to Ngong Ping Village to see the Tian Tan Buddha: the Big Buddha!

The bus ride was about another hour long (it was beginning to feel like we'd spent a lonnnng time traveling that day!) and let us off at the main gate of the park where the Buddha and the Po Lin Monastery are located.

You don't get to visit a temple or monument in Asia without first climbing up a bunch of stairs, and this place was no exception. Big Buddha is located 240 steps up.

Tourists!

This Buddha was the largest sitting Buddha in the world until a few years ago. It's made out of bronze and weighs 250 tons. This Buddha is pretty much the center of Buddhism in Hong Kong. I have to tell you, up close, it looks really, really big and very, very cool.

Buddha is surrounded by 6 other statues, each one carrying an offer for the Buddha. The view from the top is quite nice: the park is surrounded by lush, green mountains and you can even see an attractive beach below, as well.

After walking back down the stairs, we shopped for some souvenirs, and then headed to the grounds of the Po Lin Monastery. Inside, there were monks praying in a room full of golden statues, rich carvings and offerings of food. At least they were trying to pray... they were constantly stopping to tell nosy tourists to stop taking photos.

Incense outside of the temple.

Located in an area just before where our bus had let us off earlier was the small Ngong Ping Village area, not really a "village", but a small strip of touristy shops and restaurants leading to the cable car terminal. One of the touristy shops was Chopstick Gallery... probably a hot seller.

We decided to buy tickets for the cable car and to take that back down instead of the bus we'd rode up. After buying our tickets for the cable car, we were passed by a random parade of flamenco dancers.

Upon reaching the cable car line, we immediately regretted buying tickets. There was so many people. We should have checked the situation out first! We joined the end of a long, winding line quite a bit past a sign that said "one hour wait from this point". So, I went to get coffees for us to drink in the line.

As promised, we waited about an hour to get into our cable car. From our tiny car we waved goodbye to Buddha.

...and headed straight down. This cable car is a surprisingly long ride. I'd say it takes about half an hour? And you're really, really high up for most of it.. dangling helplessly over pointy mountain tops or water as the car rocks and shakes around. There were times when it sped up really fast and it felt like we were going to shoot right off of the line. I hadn't expected a thrill ride!

Safe at the bottom, we were let off at a mall that had a subway station nearby. We got some dinner of NOT baby pigeon, and headed back to the ferry terminal where we crossed our last border of the day by sailing back home into China. It's kind of weird to think of China as "home sweet home", but home is where your stuff is, and we were happy to see our stuff again after 5 days away.

Chapped in Macau

On Monday morning we packed up our rental apartment in Hong Kong and the doorman hailed us a taxi down to the ferry terminal so we could get tickets to Macau. Of course, since it was a holiday, a lot of other people had the same idea, so we wound up waiting a little over two hours for the next available ferry. Luckily, there's a decent mall attached to the ferry terminal so we checked our bags in a locker, got some breakfast and shopped around. A combination of the heat, denim shorts and all the walking had given me a nasty diaper rash, and I had to shop for a remedy! TMI?

I get sea sick pretty easily so I felt pretty doomed when I stepped on the ferry. It hadn't even left the pier yet and it was SO choppy! The three of us had to get into "the zone"- the "I'm-not-gonna-barf-I'm-not-gonna-barf-I'm-not-gonna-barf" zone- so we put on our headphones, took some gravol, and tried to stare at the TV in an effort to ignore the rocking. With a chapped ass AND nausea, the day was off to a good start! Lucky for us, the waves settled down within a few minutes of the ferry starting up, so we didn't wind up using the provided barf bags. Less than an hour later, we'd arrived!

When I booked our room at the Ole London Hotel, I'd read comments on tripadvisor that it was hard for some taxi drivers to find. Our driver had no clue where it was... he tried his best too, by calling dispatch for directions (no help) and calling the phone number Expedia gave us for the hotel (invalid number). It was my own fault for not printing out the address in Chinese. I know better than that!! I'd read that the hotel was within walking distance to Senado Square, the center of tourist activity on Macau, so we had the driver just take us there. We hoped we'd see it when we arrived, but of course it wasn't that easy. I asked a few traffic police for directions (there were SO MANY people around, and naturally many cops too) but they had no clue. We walked towards the square with all of our bags when Mel noticed a tourist information building. Phew! Lucky for us they knew how to get there and had the address is Chinese. We got another taxi (it wasn't close enough to walk with all our bags) and got there no problem within a few minutes.

After we checked in, we walked back to Senado Square to start our sightseeing. This is the area with the majority of the Portuguese architecture you see in pictures of Macau. While most of Macau definitely looks just like any other Asian city, this square certainly has a unique look and atmosphere. Being there on both a national holiday and the day of an international fireworks festival, we got to share that atmosphere with about a million other tourists. I mean, it was TIGHT trying to walk around. The square leads to the Ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral, and only goes for a few blocks, but it must have taken more than 20 minutes to push our way through. It was nuts.

St. Domingo's Church in Senado Square.

STFU in the church.

We pushed our way to the street's grand conclusion: the Ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral. As you can see, it was as if we had the whole place to ourselves.

 

The ruins are basically just the front of a burnt down church from the 16th century, and here's what the ruins look like from behind.

Behind the ruins and down the stairs is a small, free museum and crypt.

Hungry after what we'd seen in the crypt, we decided to try some street food at a stall next to the ruins. I got Macau's famous pork sandwich (needs some sauce).

And Mel tried an egg tart.

We snacked in the doorway of an apartment- the only spot that wasn't over-run with tourists!

After getting a little turned around in our effort to use side roads to avoid walking back through the square, we got back on the right track and headed for the casinos! Macau is known as the Las Vegas of Asia, and while it's definitely lacking the party atmosphere of Vegas, it does indeed have casinos... many of them are replicas of the famous Vegas casinos. The first one we went in, the Lisboa, was closest to the square and it was was kind of dingy and wayyy too busy so we walked a bit farther down to the Wynn.

The Wynn was a much nicer casino, and there were actually some available slot machines to play at! The fun thing about playing with such a cheap currency is that I got to play for a little while and it only cost me two or three dollars.

We enjoyed pressing this button many times, even though none of us were very lucky on that day.

We'd considered getting something to eat at the casino, but it was predictably pricy, so we decided to head over to the Macau Tower area of town to eat before the fireworks show that was going on there later night.

Rather than walk or take a taxi, we decided to get an old Chinese man to drive us on his bike. He had a giant laminated map of local sights and we were able to just point to where we wanted to go for 200 MOP($30). We decided to have him drop us off a temple that wasn't too far from the Tower so we could have a look around there before dinner.

Powerless, on the back of a bike, in Macau traffic. It was a pretty awesome way to see a lot of the town that we wouldn't have found on our own!

The temple was a bit farther away than we'd pictured so we were really glad we didn't try to walk there... especially since it was closing when we got there! It closed at 6pm. We got to walk around the front grounds a little bit but they wouldn't let us in to the main grounds even though we could totally see a bunch of other people still sightseeing around inside. Mel and I weren't too bothered because we've seen a million temples, but I wanted Jason to be able to check it out. Oh well, we were able to visit some other temples later in his visit.

The temple closed at 6pm, but  the restaurant next door didn't open until 7pm. So, since there was nothing else in the area, we started walking to Macau Tower.

 

On our walk to the tower we passed by a number of murals which teach proper conduct, such as cleaning up after your dog and recycling your waste. Not sure if this is directed at changing local behaviors or correcting tourist's bad manners?

Jason, Mel and I on our way to the tower.

As we walked around the lake we saw a lot of people fishing, despite the fact that we counted at least half a dozen dead fish washed up along the shore. Here's a guy fishing right next to a "no fishing" sign.

Macau Tower is connected to something that looks like a mall, but is more like two restaurants and a Toys R' Us plus a lot of empty commercial rental space. I got a pretty decent dinner of coconut chicken, herbed potatoes and cheesecake from a "pay by the pound" sort of restaurant.

Chilling out in the park in front of the Tower, waiting for the fireworks show.

Fireworks pictures always suck, so I'll skip posting them... but it was a good show. The performance was Italy's entry into the festival, and the show was a good 20 minutes long. It was really nice. We decided to walk back to our hotel via Senado Square so we could see how it looked lit up at night. Plus, we had to walk because there was no way we'd ever get a taxi back anyway... it was so busy there! Above is the casinos all lit up along the lake. It was a nice walk.

Here's Senado Square at night, lit up quite nicely with its' Veggietales hanging lanterns. We hung around until Daiso chased us out of their closed store and we finally walked back to our hotel. Why are there no Daisos in China?? Everything from Daiso is made there LOL!!

At our hotel, they'd kindly set up a cot for Jason. What were we thinking booking single beds?? Anyway, that was our day in Macau! It was time for me to slather some more cream on my ass, get to sleep, and then head back to Hong Kong at 10am the next morning...