Weekend in Macau

Last weekend was my birthday weekend so one of my close friends and I headed over to Macau to celebrate.  In the past Macau (an hour from HK by ferry) was home to pirates and the Portuguese, but today it is an SAR and welcomes tourists from all over to its casinos and historic sites.  It has many of the famous hotel/casino names: The Venetian, The Parisian, MGM, Hard Rock, Wynn, and more.  But in my opinion it doesn’t quite live up to the moniker “Vegas East”.  While the hotels and casinos are large and impressive there isn’t quite the same night life scene as Vegas is known for.  People go to Vegas to party, people go to Macau mostly just to gamble. But not to worry we certainly still had a great time!

Saturday night we had dinner at Hard Rock and checked out a club, which was sadly disappointing both in music and crowd.  After that we visited some of the casinos and of course took pictures.

Sunday we spent the day checking out some of the historic sights including the Ruins of St. Paul’s, Senado Square, Mount Fortress, the Museum of Macau, and Old Taipa.  After our day sightseeing we headed out to find a bar to celebrate me turning 23 at midnight. We were very happy to find Moonwalker which had great music and a great staff who brought out a flaming drink, a plate of peanuts with a birthday candle, and played the birthday song at midnight for me.  Definitely a great way to start the year!

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Bagan: That’s a lot of pagodas

Last weekend two friends and I went to Bagan, Myanmar.  Let me start by saying that spending essentially one day there is probably not ideal, but sometimes you take the chance you’re given regardless.

We flew into Yangon sometime around midnight on Friday (had to leave after work) and were thankfully picked up by my college friend (who I stayed with last time).  It was a very good thing he picked us up because when we arrived at our super sketchy, nothing like the picture, cheap hostel in the bad part of town, he immediately told us to get back in the car and took us to his family’s hotel and put us up for the night.  Bless good friends. By that time it was around 1am and we went to sleep knowing our bus to Yangon would leave at 8am.

So the next morning (Saturday) we got to the bus station with little trouble thanks to the super helpful hotel staff and taxi driver, and settled in for our 9 hour bus ride across the country… I don’t have much to say about the bus ride, I slept pretty much the whole way (no surprise to anyone who has traveled with me before). So we got to Bagan and our hotel around 530pm and decided we would just eat in the hotel restaurant and plan out or next day (it also had started to storm at this point… it’s the wet season). We had great curry for dinner! Myanmar might be home to my favorite curry.

We got up pretty early Sunday and rented e-bikes from our hotel.  They’re like the learner’s permit version of a moto and totally electric and eco friendly. After a quick into lesson in the parking lot we were off! We honestly didn’t have much of a plan and so armed with a really unhelpful map we kind of just followed the main road until we saw some pagodas/stupa/temples. Most of these involve turning off onto dirt paths which really added to the explorer experience of my first time on a moto.

We did hit some of the bigger ones of course, my favorite of which was Dhamma-yan-gyi Pagoda because it’s the only one I had known the story behind.  Basically it’s the biggest because the king who built it was really cruel and he killed his father and brother (to get the throne) and then also his wife.  So he built the temple to atone for the sins, but he also commonly would chop the architects’ hands off if he wasn’t pleased with the progress. In the end he was assassinated before it was completed.  For unknown reasons parts of it are bricked closed, and the local belief is that it was done to trap the bad karma inside.

At the end of the day we found a spot to watch the sunset but by that point another storm was rolling in so there wasn’t much of a sunset.  So we grabbed dinner and headed to our hotel.  In the morning we caught another early bus back to Yangon (another 9 hours) and met up with a friend from HK to visit Shwedagon Pagoda since my other two friends hadn’t seen it (if you want my experience on that check out my previous posts about visiting Yangon).

We ended the trip with a 1am flight back to HK arriving at 6am Tuesday morning.  It was a rapid trip but it was a lot of fun.

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2 Weeks Away: Halong Bay

The last stop on our two week trip was an overnight on Halong Bay.  We went out on a very nice small cruise ship and I loved it.  Halong Bay is one of the most peaceful and mystic places I’ve been.  The limestone isles jutting out of the still water and the mist in the distance really just makes you imagine all the movies that could be filmed there.  And it made me imagine what the first people to discover it must have felt like in the shadow of the isles.  It also has the cleanest air I’ve had in a while.

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On the first day we had an excursion to see a small village of fishers floating on the bay and a pearl farm.  Even without common amenities I could definitely feel a draw to the peacefulness of that floating community.

Back on board our main ship we watched the sunset from the top deck before dinner. And after dinner we went squid fishing! (I was not successful)

In the morning we did Tai Chi on the deck before going to see a cave on one of the limestone isles.   Then headed back to shore and to Hanoi for the night before flying back to HK the next day.  I’d definitely recommend Halong Bay for anyone going to Vietnam.  It’s something otherworldly.

2 Weeks Away: Hoi An

In the morning we flew back to Vietnam and made our way to Hoi An.  This is a much more relaxed city compared to HCMC (and Hanoi we would learn).  We wandered around the Old Town (admittedly touristy but still cool and fun) and since Hoi An is pretty famous for their custom clothes and accessories we order some (inexpensive) shoes and I got a bag as well.  It was cool to go through the whole process of choosing the style and colors and then getting your feet measured.  Also since it’s all small business/family owned you can feel a bit better about where your money is going.

The next day we went outside of the main part of Hoi An to spend the day at the beach.  Since my cousin was confident in his abilities and the traffic was a bit less crazy we rented a moto and road around the area on our way to the beach.  It was a beautiful beach and not crowded at all.  However, we did both manage to get a little burnt… For me though it was fairly obviously a case of failed sunscreen because I managed to only burn my right knee and inside of my left ankle. But man was it a bad burn, that’s what happens when you’re 13 degrees off the equator.

Our last day in Hoi An we took part in a Vietnamese cooking class that was lots of fun! In the morning we went to the market and bought all the ingredients (they even adjusted some recipes for me to be meatless).  Then we went to a little island with an outdoor cooking area where we got to learn from a great chef.  We learned to make fresh spring rolls, banh xeo (a crispy pancake thing), beef noodle salad (seafood in my case), and beef/seafood pho.  The whole thing was so fun! We would first watch the chef and then go to our stations where everything was set out for us (like a cooking show) and then try to recreate the recipe with some guidance, of course.  It was also great because I feel like I can make all four dishes on my own now.

2 Weeks Away: HCMC

Hello everyone! I just got back from 2 weeks in Vietnam and Cambodia with my cousin (a little while ago…) and it was great! Our first full day was April 30 which we learned was Reunification Day.  We spent the day in Ho Chi Minh City, better known as Saigon, and visited some of attractions while wandering around the city.

Our first stop was the Reunification Palace (Independence Palace).  This was the home and workplace of the President of South Vietnam during the war.  It was also the location of the “Fall of Saigon” when the North Vietnamese Army crashed through the gates at the end of the Vietnam War.

From there we visited the War Remnants Museum.  This was interesting because not it provided a perspective of a war that as a young American I really don’t know much about.  I never really learned about the Vietnam War in school besides a perfunctory mentioning and reading Their Eyes Were Watching God in AP Lit, so learning about the war from the opposing point of view was a new experience.  While the exhibits show graphic imagery and descriptions of violence and atrocities I think it is important to be witness to this history in order to prevent it in the future.

After this we took some time to just walk around the city and made our way over to the walking street. This turned out to be the location of the music celebration for Reunification Day so we spent some time on a rooftop bar and then enjoyed the music for a bit.

Lights in the Sky

I’m a big bucket list kind of girl.  Not in a I’ll- be- so- disappointed- with- my- life- if- I- don’t- do- these- things kind of way, but more in a make-the-most-of-every-opportunity-and-do-unique-things kind of way.  And something that has been on my bucket list (and subsequently on my dream board) for a long time was attending the Sky Lantern Festival in Taiwan.  So since I’m just an hour and a half flight away from Taiwan I decided to seize the moment and go for it.

Luckily, the festival took place on a Saturday night (I am back at work now) so I was able to fly in Saturday morning and go back to HK Sunday morning… I was there for just about 24 hours.  I have to say I had forgotten what it was like going through immigration when you are not a resident of the country… I was back to the “other” line and man was it long.

The festival actually last the duration of the Lunar New Year and there are different events across the country.  I went specifically for the Taipei Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival.  The practice of sky lanterns was originally done as a way to let others know the town was safe.  Now the lanterns are decorated with people’s wishes and hopes for the future. The lanterns are different colors which all have different meanings (mine was white which symbolized hope for the future) and you stand on the train tracks the run through the center of the town when you release your lantern to get the best good fortune.

After getting out of the airport I made my way to the train station and headed out to Shifen in the Pingxi district, where the lantern festival was happening. I got to sample some street food (very excited about the corn), buy some souvenirs, release my own lanter, and finally see the official lantern release.  It was amazing! After the lantern releases I went back to Taipei city, caught a couple hours of sleep and then woke up early to head back to HK.  It was a super fast turn around, but totally worth getting to experience this festival.

Also I’m very thankful to the wonderfully friendly and helpful Taiwanese people I met because unlike in HK many signs and the train information are not given in English so I owe a lot of my ease of travel there to kind strangers helping me find my way.

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Symphony of Lights

This week we made our way down to Victoria Harbour after work to catch the famous Symphony of Lights.  It’s the nightly light and music show put on against the skyline of Hong Kong Island.  The pictures don’t really do it justice… I would definitely recommend a visit if you ever go to Hong Kong.  If not for the show itself then at least for the atmosphere and street performers that fill the promenade at night.