Travel Diaries Hong Kong 2006 Day 6 - The calm after the storm | Day 6 - The calm after the storm |
| Saturday, 09 September 2006 | ||||||
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We awoke early this morning as Sunny was coming to the hotel at 10.30am to meet us and take us for our last day in Macau. When he arrived we walked for 5 minutes to a local bakery / cafe that served the traditional Portuguese custard tart. This is quite similar to the tarts I had already eaten in Hong Kong and is served warm in flaky pastry with a blackened top. As well as the tarts I had a danish pastry and some cheese cake (which didn't really taste of cheese cake) that Sunny recommended. Clara had a couple of tarts and some iced coffee. We were still tired after the night before and this was obvious when Sunny managed to fill his coffee with salt instead of sugar - making a very interesting combination! After breakfast Clara was feeling a little unwell. She had got a bit of a cold, probably becuase we had been staying up quite late and had constantly been going from hot areas to cold air conditioned areas. As Clara was feeling a little unwell we took a taxi up to the Guia Fortress on top of a hill in the middle of the city. As we travelled the taxi driver was friendly and he told Sunny and Clara that as we passed a few of the buildings we were on the old waterfront. Just like Hong Kong much of the land had been reclaimed and this started to make sense as we saw a small fort on a road in the middle of the island! We travelled up a very steep hill to get to the fortress which is painted all in white and actually only consists of some walls around a lighthouse and a small chapel. The lighthouse used to guide all the ships into the area and was one of the first modern lighthouses brought over by the Portuguese. As we stood on the hill the temperature really began to climb and this was not helped by the while walls reflecting the heat at us. Because of this, we didn't stay long and soon started to go back down. On our way down in the enterance to the fortress were a number or large metal signs. Clara explained to me that these were the typhoon signals I had heard about before I came. These warning signals are hung out in the fortress to inform people of the typhoon threat that is appraoching. There is a singal 3 which means that typhoon is coming up to signal 8 and 9 which mean it has hit and everyone should stay indoors. Luckily although the weather has not been great, we've not seen a typhoon! We continued down the hill through a small wooded area and back to the road to catch another taxi. As clara was feeling unwell and we were all tired we decided to finish our sight seeing and just go back to the Fisherman's wharf theme park to spend some time. As we got back we saw the theme park in the light. It consisted of a number of areas all themed to different parts of the world. There was a large tang dynasty fortress from China (although this was not finished), a mountain complete with volcano, a moorish fort and a roman colliseum. We went into a local ice cream bar to have an ice cream where myself and Sunny both had one of the sundaes which turned out to be huge! Its always a good excuse to go for a drink in Macau and Hong Kong as it allows you to go inside and sit in the air conditioning for a while. After our ice cream we took a look around and visited a few of the areas. We knew there were some rides here, but we could not find out anything about them as the information was quite bad. We eventually found out that there was a roller coaster inside the volcano and myself and Sunny bought some tickets to go for a ride. Clara doesn't really like rides and she went to have a drink in a cafe in the park. One of the problems with Fisherman's wharf is that it was absolutely deserted! There were hardly any people around, possibly becuase it is not fully finished, but this place should really take off when all the casinos arive as it really does have the tackiness of Las Vegas and is so fake that it looks like any Disney park. As myself and Sunny walked to the roller coaster we got to the enterance and found there was no-one else in the queue so we walked straight on and sat at the front. The theme of the roller coaster was very much like a mine train ride through a mountain - very much like many other ones. As we sat in the car I really thought the ride was going to be quite bad. As the ride set off and we moved out of the air conditioned station, the heat began to rise. The ride was set inside and so the heat was quite unbearable as we were taken up the hill at the start. As we got to the top the ride got much better. Due to the bad visibility it was impossible to see the corners and every corner was 90 degrees nearly throwing you out of your seat. After a while we got to the fast part and soon the ride was over. As we got off I found I was nearly deaf from where Sunny had been screaming for the whole ride! We went back to see Clara in the cafe and had really enjoyed the ride, even though it was a bit expensive at $40 (2.50) each. We sat in the cafe for a while and enjoyed a drink in the cool. By now the time was close to 2pm and we didn't have long to wait for our 4pm ferry. Although we might actually be able to take an earlier one. The last thing I wanted to see before we left was the Grand Prix circuit. Every year Macau has a grand prix (I think its formula 3 along with a few other races), that takes place in November along the streets of Macau. Earlier in the taxi the driver had shown us some of the track, which was easily identifiable as it had by far the best road surface of any other road. Next to the ferry terminal was the main pits area that was used for the rest of the year as a bus station, but if you looked closely you could still see all the parts of the track. We walked over to the main stand area where there were many builders rushing to complete a new main stand for this years Grand Prix in November. We also saw the bridge over the start line, the pit garages and the area where the lorries park. You can see the pictures and see if you can guess which part is which. We even tried to be Flavio Brigatori and stand in the area on the pit wall where the pit boards are put out! By the time we finished at the grand prix stand it was about 2.30pm and although we could have found something to do we decided to get an earlier ferry and get home for some rest! After passing through immigration (yes again!) and getting another stamp (yes again) we waited for the 3.05pm ferry back to Hong Kong. This time the ferry was very empty with only about 30 people on board. The weather was still quite grey and rainy and so visibility across to the islands was quite poor. The journey was uneventful and once we finally arrived back at the Hong Kong ferry port we took a taxi back home, as the thought of a bus trip was way too much effort (plus it only cost $30 (2 pounds!). I normally write an evening diary, but today we were so exhausted from our trip to Macau that we stayed at home with Clara's mum who cooked us wonton (chinese dumplings). I could only manage a few but apparently you shouldn't count how many you eat as it is bad luck! Things I have leared today about Hong Kong:
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