GARGANTUAN steps

Friday, January 06, 2012

a tale of three cities

Happy 2012 to one and all. This year will prove to be a major milestone in my life, where I finally graduate and enter into the working world. Also, me finally being home in Singapore will be a major plus point. I'll definitely miss London and the rest of Europe, but I'll reminisce about that closer towards the end of my stay. I will probably only have the time for that after exams.

Meanwhile, 2011 ended with a flurry of activity. It was an excellent Christmas break, though calling it a 'break' is a misnomer. I think I did a bit too much travelling at the tail end of the year. I flew from London to Reykjavik, and then back. And then from London to Singapore, then on to Hong Kong, followed by a ferry from Hong Kong to Zhu Hai, crossing over to Macau, and then another ferry back to Hong Kong, before finally flying back to Singapore and then on to London again! All within a span of two weeks. Anyway, you've heard all about my trip to Iceland. Now it's on to the warmth and bustle of Asia. If Iceland was nice and peaceful, then my next holiday after that was one rude awakening.

I've been wanting to go to Hong Kong for quite a while, mainly cause I've met a lot of friends in Imperial College who are from Hong Kong. The main propaganda from them was that Hong Kong cuisine was cuisine par excellence. Unfortunately, it wasn't my Hong Kong friends who brought me around, and the food we ate wasn't particularly memorable. But that shouldn't detract me from the trip. It was time well spent with my family, and that's all that matters. And frankly, I had a great time!

Day 1 - From Singapore to Hong Kong to Zhu Hai (珠 海)

There was a slight change of plans from the itinerary given to us by Chan Brothers (the tour company we booked our holiday with). We were initially suppose to spend our first day in Disneyland, but this was changed to spending the entire day travelling to get to Zhu Hai, China. The day consisted of a three plus hour flight from Singapore to Hong Kong, finding our own lunch at the Hong Kong ferry terminal, taking an hour's ferry ride to Zhu Hai, and then spending the evening at a shopping street, which I was told is called 女人街 (Lady's Street). I'm not too sure if I got that entirely correct, since there is another area in Hong Kong known exactly by the same name. One thing I wasn't entirely impressed about this organised tour was the amount of additional activities or necessities we had to fork out money for. These included - our first night's outing to Lady's Street; toothbrush, toothpaste and soap at our hotel in China (apparently, the government bans the hotel from providing these for hygiene purposes, and charges a nominal fee if we want them; furthermore, the tour company didn't mention a thing about it at all); a trip up to Victoria's Peak in Hong Kong; plus many other meals, and even transport, which were not provided.




Ferry to Zhu Hai



Dad and KFC China



Kungfu Fast Food Restaurant
(we didn't eat there if you are wondering)

We spent our first night roaming this shopping avenue (Lady's Street) in Zhu Hai. Multiple warnings from multiple tour guides about pick-pockets made me completely paranoid about the area. Stories of people slashing your bag from beneath to get at your contents weren't particularly helpful. Thankfully this trip pass by relatively uneventfully in terms of such incidents. This shopping avenue was a mixture of certain known shops (such as Giordano) and tonnes of other shops selling counterfeit goods (as to be expected). It was here that I also developed a paranoia of Chinese food - I had a chocolate ice cream which tasted more like a rock-melon ice cream. I started to be extremely suspicious of all the food I had in China. Also, we had a warning from our Hong Kong tour guide about the public toilets in China. I thought he was joking. He was under-exaggerating. I fancied putting up a picture of one of the toilets we used, but I think it would have been too distasteful for my blog.




Lady's Street in Zhu Hai

Meanwhile, the hotel we stayed in was a paradox. It had glitzy neon lighting welcoming people at the entrance, followed by a large-scale Renaissance-like painting on the walls and ceiling in the main lobby, but it provided neither toothbrushes nor soap. To top it all off, I was constantly woken up throughout the night by the KTV lounge beside the hotel. As an aside, China does provide good laughs though, as you will see in some of my pictures.



Zhuhai Dihao Holiday Hotel
(where people who can't afford to stay in Macau stay)



Warm Prompt



Renaissance ceiling



Can't do it

Day 2 - Zhu Hai, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Silk Factory, Gongbei Underground Shopping Complex and on to Macau

I wouldn't be over-exaggerating if I said that there wasn't much to see in Zhu Hai. Sight-seeing lasted for all but two hours, and this included visiting the Fisherwoman Statue by Lover's Road, and her corresponding male counterpart up on one of the peaks of Zhu Hai (in which we had to pay additional fees for a cable-car ride up and a luge ride down). Up on the hill was a good view of the city, and a huge rock with lots of locks chained to it. It was apparently a 'lucky' wishing rock and people who touched it with their hands were in store for a slice of fortune. All the more appropriate for many on this tour since we were movng on to Macau that evening. The lock was then meant to be put by the those who had gotten lucky, so that the luck be securely locked in - if you believe that sort of superstition.

On the way down, the luge operators didn't even allow us to manoeuvre the luge. They even claimed to be the only one in the world to have such a 'transport system' down a hill. Evidently delusional, since I have sat on a luge twice before - once in Lucerne, Switzerland, and another time in Sentosa. And in neither of those times did I have the ignominy of being treated rudely and disrespectfully like I had been in Zhu Hai. Definitely a huge turn-off for me.



Dad and Mom at the Fisherwoman Statue
There is a typically mythical sob story behind this statue. In essence, she sacrificed being with her loved one to prevent the city from being flooded by the gods



Cigarette graveyard



Lynette and bro on the way up



Zhu Hai City



Praying to the gods of fortune



On the luge down

The afternoon was spent having a health check-up done by a traditional Chinese medicine physician, and he was spot-on in diagnosing the gastric problem which I have had since I was last in China, which was way back in 2003 when I was in Beijing. Funnily enough, it only surfaces when I'm in China, this gastric problem. And all he had to do was look at my face. I wonder what gave it away. At least they are consistent. He wanted to prescribe some medication for me, but I was more inclined towards further investigations first, perhaps an abdominal X-ray or an endoscopy. That's what six years of medical school does to you. Besides, looking at the types of medication being prescribed (see below), I would much prefer to continue having my gastric problem, whatever that entails.



Mineral Tibetan medicine - click on photo to see bottom right ingredient

We made our way to the silk factory after that (we also went to one in Beijing - apparently it is a governmental edict that all tourists should be brought to these places whilst on tour, including a trip to see the Chinese physician), and we proceeded to get a few silk quilt covers for ourselves. Extremely good sales tactics made sure we didn't leave the shop empty-handed, but our pockets were much emptier. In our hands, a fourth generation cover, a fifth generation cover (the Emperor cover) and a sixth generation cover (better than the Emperor cover). We then spent our remaining hours in Zhu Hai at the Gongbei Underground Shopping Complex, which, as the tin says, is a massive underground shopping complex with thousands of shops (small ones and big ones). We even managed to try out China's KFC. We then made our way across the border to Macau and on to our hotel, which was infinitely better than the one we stayed in in Zhu Hai. I even tried my hand at the gambling table that evening in our hotel, but a single bet was all I made (on 大小). Let's just say the odds are never in your favour.



The Emperor's silk quilt cover



Gongbei Underground Shopping Complex
Find me if you can



Rio Hotel and Casino




Bro and Lynette at the Rio Hotel and Casino

Day 3 - A-Ma Temple, the Ruins of St Paul's, the Venetian in Macau, and Lady's Street in Hong Kong

Macau's a slightly different ball game altogether, compared to Zhu Hai. Macau used to be a Portugese colony, before it was returned to China in 1999. This is Asia's version of Las Vegas (though I've never been there before), and all in all, there are 33 casinos in this territory. According to our tour guide, the government gives out annual sums of money to keep its citizens happy, as well as provide free education to their children. This is an economy propped up by the shoulders of addiction and debt.

We were brought to two (non-gambling) sights in Macau - the A-Ma Temple and the Ruins of St Paul's. The former is a temple dedicated to the Goddess of Seafarers, and it existed even before the city of Macau came into existence. The oldest structure within it was built around 1488, and people came here to pray for a safe journey when they were about to go out to sea, hence its strategic location by the coast. Unsurprisingly, there were no 'lucky' wishing rocks here, but I wouldn't be surprised if people came here for other reasons now (besides tourism of course).



Rio Hotel and Casino - our four star hotel in Macau




The A-Ma Temple



Me and bro at the top

The second sight we saw in Macau were the Ruins of St. Paul's. Apparently, this used to be the largest Catholic church in Asia (when it was first built between 1582 and 1602), and it was destroyed in a typhoon in 1835. All that's left now is its front facade, which is still pretty impressive, admittedly. Each layer on the facade tells a different story, if you have the time to look at the details on it.



The Ruins of St Paul's



Family photo

We now went on to the main attraction in Macau (for most tourists), which also happens to be the largest casino in Asia - the Venetian. It comprises of a shopping complex, a hotel and a casino. I can't say much about it except that it is really huge. The interior of the shopping complex was quite pretty, and I can see how Singapore's very own Marina Bay Sands came about. It even has its own indoor gondolas and waterways. That seems entirely all too familiar.



The Venetian casino



The Venetian shopping mall

After spending just over an hour at the Venetian (not enough I'm sure for many on the tour with us), we took our ferry across to Hong Kong, where we were greeted by our tour guide, Tom. Tom's an interesting character in that he is quite philosophical, and he tries to be comical. And he is definitely very much in awe of the founder of modern Singapore. He spoke with a mixture of Cantonese (beginning every other sentence of his with 'kan man', which means '那么' in Mandarin), Mandarin and English (which just comprises of the word 'ok'). I do quite a mean impression of him.

We checked into our hotel, L'Hotel Nina et Convention Centre Hong Kong, which is a massive, 88-story building. We even lived at the dizzying height of the 71st storey, which provided superb views of our surrounding Hong Kong residential area. Hong Kong is a massively cramped up city, with minimal usable land area (even worse than Singapore, I am told). Motor highways are located right beside residential homes, which are all at least 30 over storeys high. These residential homes are themselves located on top of shopping centres (or what looks like shopping centres). Every where you go, you can just feel how vibrant and bustling the city is, even more so than Singapore. I have been told that the residential homes are so small, a family of four lives in something akin to the size of a one-bedroom flat in Singapore. How true that is, I have to see it for myself when I return to Hong Kong another time. Meanwhile, space was definitely not a constraint in the hotel we were living in. It even managed to trump the hotel we stayed in in Macau, in terms of size and luxury.



View from our hotel room



L' Hotel Nina et Convention Centre Hong Kong

Our first evening in Hong Kong was spent amongst the crowds at Lady's Street. Here, fake goods abound and shopping is a test of your wits and patience. Bargaining is expected, and there is an unwritten code of conduct that everyone is expected to adhere to. In simple, Singlish terms - 'See no touch, touch no see. See and touch must pay money'. It was from here that we had to make our own way back to the hotel as well, with no transport provided. It wasn't too difficult taking a cab back in the end.



Lady's Street Hong Kong



Words of wisdom

Day 4 - Disneyland Hong Kong

I initially scoffed at the idea of going to Disneyland, thinking that there were better things to do in Hong Kong. It wasn't such a bad day in the end. I actually had quite a bit of fun there! Maybe if the Hong Kong itinerary had included a trip up to Victoria's Peak (which is the top most attraction recommended in most travel guide books), I wouldn't have been that apprehensive about going to Disneyland. In the end, we paid for an additional trip up to Victoria's Peak for our final day in Hong Kong, and I was happy to spend a day in Disneyland in return.

A few points to note - my brother's favourite ride was 'It's a Small World' which consists of riding in a slow carriage and listening to 'It's a Small World' played and sung in various languages and music styles (I found it particularly hilarious as well); my mother wanted to sit on the Dumbo ride (which consists of sitting on Dumbo the elephant and going about in a circle, and you can either elevate or depress the Dumbo that you're sitting on); and I still don't particularly like sitting on roller coasters. I had a bit of a neck pain after sitting on the indoor roller-coaster, Space Mountain (which only twists you to 90 degrees sideways at most, as oppose to going 360 degrees). Favourite ride of the day for me - probably the parachute ride in Toy Story Land. 



Family at Disneyland Hong Kong



Donald Duck and me



Mom and Daisy Duck




On the jungle cruise in Adventureland
(our first ride of the day)



Me at Toy Story Land



The Parachute Ride



It's a Small World



Me on Dumbo



Astrobusters - ready for action



Night view from hotel room

Day 5 - Golden Bauhinia Square, Repulse Bay, Victoria's Peak and Madam Tussaud's, and the Avenue of Stars

We had our first taste of dim sum that morning, which was just average in my opinion. The main issue is that we were eating dim sum at a restaurant that was prepped up to serve dim sum to tourists, so evidently we weren't going to get dim sum which ordinary Hong Kong people eat. We then spent a few minutes at the Golden Bauhinia Square, which was where the ceremony of the handing over of Hong Kong back to China was held in in 1997. Following that, we went to Repulse Bay which is one of the most expensive districts in Hong Kong. Even Jackie Chan lives there, or so we were told (and were shown a house right at the top of a hill, across the beach).

Following all that, we finally made our way to the supposed main attraction in Hong Kong, Victoria's Peak. Here is where we were supposed to be offered splendid views of the city of Hong Kong, but unfortunately, the city was covered in a bit of a fog/mist/dust cloud. It was barely fathomable, this view. However, we were treated to a tour of Hong Kong's very own Madam Tussaud's (which I have vowed never to go to in London) and it was, interesting. You can take pictures with any of the wax figures in the exhibition, all except for Jackie Chan, in which you have to pay additional to have your picture taken with him. They even made me delete my photo of him from my camera. Foolish me for not turning off my camera flash. Still, we got to have our pictures taken with various other wax celebrities, including Ip Man and Singapore's finest.



Dim sum breakfast




Family at the Golden Bauhinia Square



Family at the Repulse Bay
(apparently, Jackie Chan's house is the red colour house right at the top of the background, just above my Dad's head)



Lee Kuan Yew with my Dad and Mom



Wing scapula




Lynette and Leon Lai



View of Hong Kong from Victoria's Peak



Half a roast goose at lunch (looked and tasted more like a duck to me)

The mid-afternoon was spent trawling down the Avenue of Stars - a pedestrian walkway with plaques containing the hand prints of Hong Kong celebrities. I don't particularly follow any Hong Kong star, but I guess the one that makes me laugh the most is a fight between Eric Tsang and Stephen Chow, and since Stephen Chow's plaque doesn't have any hand prints, the winner of picture-of-a-HK-celebrity-plaque contest goes to Eric Tsang.



Bruce Lee - Asia's first global superstar




Eric Tsang

It was off to the airport and back home to Singapore after that. I really enjoyed myself on this trip actually. Nice to have a bit of warmth after the bitter cold of Iceland. And I've got family with me too as well! I'll definitely be back again some day, and this time to have a proper dig at the local cuisine in Hong Kong, and a better view of the city from Victoria's Peak. Ironically, I managed to see the Aurora Borealis but not get a good view of Hong Kong from the Peak.

I'm back in London now and it's just about half a year (less than half a year in fact) before my undergraduate days come to a close. Full steam ahead, and I'm taking no prisoners this time. Happy 2012 to one and all and may you all have a fruitful and blessed year ahead!

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posted by Gabriel Yan at 10:51 PM 0 comments