Christin and Jared in Hong Kong: Day 9

The previous few days were all about stretching our boundaries in Hong Kong. Today it was time to leave Hong Kong altogether and see a bit of Macau!

Macau was a Portuguese colony, but returned to Chinese rule in 1999

Once we were all ready in the morning, we went to the Macau ferry terminal in Sheung Wan...

Waiting in line for TurboJET tickets

We had a 1.5 hour wait for our ferry (lots of people going to Macau!), so we tried to get in the mood by eating brunch at a Macanese fast food restaurant...

"Macau Tea Restaurant"

Jared's curry beef soup noodles

Katherine's ham and abalone macaroni soup

Jared and Katherine each had sides of fried egg, toast, and Spam

Christin's macaroni in "borscht" (no beets in it, though, so it would be more accurately called "vegetable soup")

Christin's crispy Macanese bun with butter and sweetened condensed milk

My pork chop sandwich with scrambled eggs

After brunch, we killed our remaining time by shopping a bit in the ferry terminal...

Just before we boarded, Christin and Jared couldn't resist the lure of Starbucks...

Caught red-handed!

Entering the immigration exit checkpoint

Boarding the ferry

The spacious cabin

The ferry took about an hour and was mostly smooth (though the water did get choppy from time to time). After we docked and cleared Macau immigrations and customs, we found a taxi and went to Senado Square...

Just off the Square, we turned up Rua da Palha towards the Ruins of St Paul's...

Rua da Palha is home to many traditional Macanese bakeries

...and they all provide free samples!

We couldn't just take the samples and run, though, so we did a little snack shopping

Eventually we made it to the Ruins of St Paul's

...and climbed to the middle tier so we could peer down upon the city

We even got to practice our secret Chinese nun photography technique!

After the ruins, we made our way to Coloane, the southernmost island of Macau, to Lord Stow's Café (my favorite place in Macau)...

"Get in there already!"

Fresh lemonade

Rose petal tea

Creamy serradura ("sawdust" pudding)

Incredible Portuguese egg tarts

"Do we have to leave?"

While walking off our tea-time snack, I experienced a bit of head trauma...

...but some of us didn't have that problem...


A short taxi ride to the eastern side of Coloane put us on the black sand beach...

...and right in front of Fernando's, our dinner spot and home to Macau's most famous Portuguese food...

On our way in to the rear dining room

Outstanding crusty bread!

Katherine's caldo verde ("green soup")

Christin's pork ribs

Gray's veal chops

Jared's roasted chicken

The meal was excellent! Amazingly, we had exactly enough money to get back to the ferry terminal (via bus and taxi), and we got there right before the boat we scheduled began to board. Perfect.

"To Hong Kong, my good man!"

Christin and Jared in Hong Kong: Day 8

Yesterday's visit to Lantau Island pushed us to the far western edge of Hong Kong. Today it was time for the opposite extreme by journeying to Sai Kung...

On our way out, we stopped at our favorite 茶餐廳 ("tea restaurant", bastions of original Hong Kong fast food) for brunch...

Just opposite the Sai Ying Poon post office on Pokfulam Road

Christin, Jared, and Gray had HK-style French toast
(two slices of bread, battered in egg, deep-fried, and covered in butter and golden syrup)

Katherine's ham and abalone macaroni soup

A ham and egg sandwich for Gray
(note that there are no crusts - this is how all HK-style sandwiches are served)

Fast and delicious!

Once fueled up, we took two double-decker buses to Kwun Tong, the district where Katherine grew up (and, until the end of last year, where Katherine's parents lived)...

Gazing up at the building where Katherine spent most of her young life

After meandering through Kwun Tong for awhile, we took the MTR to Hang Hau, near another area where Katherine lived for a time. On the way out of the station, though, a number of people - including Christin - had trouble with the Octopus cards. A quick trip to customer service took care of the problem, though...

From Hang Hau, we took a minibus to the Sai Kung Promenade...

...where we ran across a street vendor selling traditional wintertime snacks...

"Everything, please!"

All the snacks are roasted on the spot

Quail eggs

Chestnuts

Two kinds of sweet potato

Peeling those little suckers can be pretty tricky

...but everything was great!

Even so, when we passed by a "little eggs" vendor, we couldn't help but stop for some

Sampling them for the third time!

Further down the promenade was a pier lined with local fishermen selling their catch of the day (all still living)...

Lots of variety to choose from

Cuttlefish, eel, crab, lobster, etc

Just past the pier, we found someone to take us on his boat for an island tour...

During the trip, we exited the boat for some island exploration by foot...



...and then we climbed back in so that the captain could show us a local floating fish farm...

We were ready for dinner as soon as the boat returned us to the mainland, so we made our way to Chuen Kee, our favorite seafood restaurant in Sai Kung...

Seafood restaurant to the stars!

First we hand-picked the seafood we wanted them to cook for us

Boiled fresh shrimp

Stir-fried razor shell clams

Mantis shrimp fried with salt and pepper

Steamed abalone with ginger and scallions

Crab stir-fried with garlic and scallions

Chinese broccoli stir-fried with garlic

Chuen Kee hits another grand slam!

Sai Kung is also the birthplace of Honeymoon Dessert, one of Hong Kong's most famous dessert shop chains, so we had to stop by the original location before we left...

The original has grown into three shops just on this block!

Gray's durian pudding

Jared's mango pudding

Christin's banana crêpes

Katherine's ginger milk pudding