February 15, 2006
HeliExpress flight from Macau to Hong Kong
After waking up the next morning I pack my bags, hop onto the ferry/heliport terminal shuttle bus where I buy a 1800 Patacas (US$235) helicopter ticket to Hong Kong—flight EA115 at 1pm on one HeliExpress’s Sikorsky S76C+ twin-engine, 12-seat helicopters—tail number B-MHH. While in line to buy the ticket I met Blake, an American guy involved in the construction of one of Macau’s newest hotel and casino, The Venetian which is due to open in 2007. (He is guy in the black and yellow striped shirt in the picture.)
After only ten minutes in the departure lounge about six of us are ushered out in order to the waiting aircraft which is already running. A short taxi to the landing spot, about 25m, and we are off! Lucky me, my seat was just behind the copilot and my view was pretty good. We flew over bridges, ferries in transit and lots of little islands. Check out the HeliExpress flight from Macau to Hong Kong photo gallery for the 36 photographs that I took.
After only fifteen minutes we approach Hong Kong Island and land near Sheung Wan station. We disembark the still running helicopter, are guided down the stairs and some guy carries my 16 kilo pack down for me. We cleared immigration and customs in record time…it must have been three minutes maximum for the entire thing. Quick, easy, exhilarating and a complete blast. But, damn, that was expensive.
Posted by stu at 06:19 AM | Comments (2)
February 14, 2006
Exploring Macau
Once I arrived in Macau and speed through immigrations and customs it was off in a taxi to The Emperor Hotel, another four star establishment. More and more I’m realizing that I’m at the end of my rope with hostels, keeping track of every little thing, and crappy showers. I want to be clean, secure and alone for a while. So, The Emperor Hotel it is. After a nap and cleaning myself up I head out to explore town. Macau is bigger than I realized and my lodging is pretty much in the center of the business, hotel, casino and ‘spa’ area of town. After walking around a few blocks I give up trying to navigate anywhere interesting and enter one of the famed gambling venues of Macau, the Pharaoh Casino. They require a membership card to enter, which is free but they scan your passport. (How many of you can say you have a year’s membership at a casino in Macau, eh???)
After looking about the two floors of the casino for half an hour I head back for my room and crash for the night. They games are just different than what you would see in Vegas and that intimidated me. I’m not really a gambling kind of guy anyway.
The next day I woke up, grabbed a map from the hotel and set out with my camera. The first areas on interest were some of the local parks, like the Comendador Ho Yin Garden…which is now a hotel construction site. Fact is, Macau is just booming with construction. It is crazy. So next I head for the shoreline to the south where I check out Alameda Dr. Carlos D’Assumpçao park which was still intact. At the part there were these funny little animal things here and there that was just plain…well…Chinese in nature. The park lead me to the sea and the Status of the Kum Lam and Ecumenical Center. Nothing to exciting, so I head east towards the art museum which was very deserted.
Near the art museum there was a horse racing track done manufactured to look like ancient Greece with volcanoes and all. It was a real Vegas like thing to see. The Sands is located there also along with the ferry and helicopter terminals. Currently, The Sands is undergoing an expansion which eats away a little bit more park space. So far, I’m not impressed and was thinking Macau was a mistake. I’ve got this thing for cemeteries and pictures of tombstones so I trek my way to the St. Micheal cemetery on Est. do Cementerio. It was really interesting and I can’t wait to add the pictures to my tombstone gallery. The tombstones varied more than any other cemetery I’ve been to and was an odd mix of Christian and Buddhist traditions and in three different languages: Chinese, Portuguese, and English. Some of the graves were as old as the early 1800s.
This put me in the area of Monte Fort which was packed with tourists. Regardless, I made my way up top where the fortress has an amazing view of the city. A few photographs later I head down to the adjacent Ruins of Saint Paul’s cathedral which is just basically the front façade—very popular with the picture taking tourists. This lead me down towards the ritzy shopping area and city hall, known locally as The Institute of Civic and Municipal Affairs.
These last few kilometers of walking have definitely shown me the more attractive, architecturally interesting parts of Macau. But the Chinese zest for the new glass and steel future is very evident. My feet are still hurting from my walking about in Kuala Lumpur with knackered flip flops so I head back for the hotel for a nap, some television and photo processing. That evening I head back into the Pharoah Casino and proceed to blow through 700 Macau Patacas within an hour and so give up and end the evening at the hotel trying to finish off No Logo.
Posted by stu at 06:32 PM | Comments (0)