Hong Kong Day 6 (Apr 17)

[Zawadi]

Return to Day 5

Today was the grand trip out to Macau. The weather forecast was cloudy with chance of showers.

We woke up to the sight of low cloud swirling around the sky scrapers along the north shore of Hong Kong island. We had a good breakfast in the main restaurant, since the club lounge was undergoing some maintenance work. Once we had had out fill we started to walk to to the China Ferry Terminal. We got to the TurboJet ticket office at 09:00 to find that the first available economy seats were on the 11:00 ferry. However, we could upgrade to Super Class, at an additional HKD130 each, and make the 09:30 ferry. We took the hit as time was precious and booked an economy return for 17:30. We made it onboard the TriCat ferry, and took our seats in a less than half full Superior Cabin, and were presented with a complimentary muffin, croissant and drink (remember that we had just had a big breakfast!). Each ferry carriers around 400 economy passengers and 100 super class passengers and they operate every half hour.

The journey should take 1 hour, but an announcement was made that we had to slow down due to fog. This caused a 15 minute delay. We disembarked and it was raining. We had no Macau Pataca (MOP) so used the Grand Lisboa Hotel's free shuttle bus. From the entrance of the hotel it was a damp 10 minute walk to the main square Largo do Senando from where we started the main walking tour. The rain was easing off and stopped by the time we reached the Ruins of San Paulo. It was the a back track to St Domonique's Church. Here we took refuge as the rain came down in bucket loads. It finally eased off so that we could walk, as opposed to wade, to St. Augustine's Square and Church (1591) followed by the first western style theatre in China, the Teatro D Pedro. We again dodged the rain to see the Civic & Municipal Building. Apart from the sign writing, looking at the architecture you would think that you were in Europe, not Asia, as Macau is an island which at one point in history belonged to the Portuguese.

At this point we gave up with the weather so headed back to the Grand Lisboa to get the shuttle back to the ferry terminal. However, this was not to simply return to Hong Kong! Instead we boarded the free shuttle bus to the Venetian Hotel to compare it to the one in Las Vegas and for DW to have some retail (window) shopping therapy. There are over 600 outlets, mainly high end across 5 floors complete with St Mark's Square and Gondoliers. We had the opportunity to try out Macanese Egg Tarts whilst watching several tour groups being guided through the malls.

We returned to the ferry terminal at 16:10, and tried the stand by line. We were lucky enough to get on the 16:30 back to Hong Kong. Our seats were on the front row and there was plenty of sea spray visible but no bad enough to delay the arrival back in Hong Kong. We got back to the hotel to get over a wet day with a few glasses of complimentary champagne in the club lounge's cocktail hour.

[VWL Mom]

Glad to see you didn't let a little rain dampen your spirits. Some great photos again.