Hong Kong & Macau - Spring Break Trip 3/3
Update - midterms went well! Teachers have yet to grade and return the exams, but I am feeling decently good about them. In other news, one week ago the island of Taiwan experienced a 6.1 magnitude earthquake near Hualian, which our city felt roughly a 4.5 magnitude earthquake. Sadly, I was napping and slept right through it (which I would have really liked to experience it if it is going to happen😅). Friends and others said that things really shook, enough for some things to fall over. But there was really no damage as it only lasted for about 20 seconds. In talking to the locals, earthquakes are just common things here on the island. They just said that thankfully there was no tsunami or flooding that followed it. Typhoon season is June - October, so I think I will be missing most of that.
But back to my travels... The last part of the journey took us to Hong Kong and Macau. Which are independent countries but still parts of China as I came to find out. Each has their own currency, and it is a 1:1 trade. (So if you visit, don't worry about paying to exchange money... they accept both in both places and you'll just waste money to convert - which I learned the hard way, haha.) Hong Kong is a beautiful city. It is a big city, like New York, but much cleaner. Lot's of development was happening there, and it just felt like walking into a beautiful movie.
First, right after we flew in, we stopped at a giant buddha. It was really gorgeous - right in the middle of the mountains. Here there were feral cows roaming, and they were very sweet. After this we headed into the heart of the city, and viewed the Monster building where one of the Transformers movies was filmed. At night the sky line of the city was a site to die for, and they had a light show where the buildings lit up and shown lasers to music from across the harbor. After this we viewed the Hong Kong Space Museum, because of your's truly, and it was very lovely. I would have loved to see what other museums had to offer in Hong Kong. Next we went to a night market, which sold fabulous knock-offs of any name brand item you could ever think of! I didn't take any pictures there because I was too nervous, haha. But I definitely picked up a few souvenirs.😉After this we went to the world's second tallest sky bar, the Ozone on the 118 floor of the Ritz Carlton Hotel. It was an amazing site looking down at all of Hong Kong in the night.
After this amazing day, we really slept hard. This was the end of the journey, and we were both beginning to become very tired from the late nights and early mornings. But we got up the next day and headed to Victoria Peak, which has a very famous view of the city. And then we headed to catch the ferry to Macau. The ferry ride was about one hour, and the boat was very nice - set up just like an airplane with air-conditioning and all. Macau meets its expectations as "the Asian Las Vegas". It is just like a newer version of Vegas. Full of large lavish hotels full of gambling machines. Macau is also under development, and you can see many different large hotels being built. At the Wynn there was a fountain show, similar to the Bellagio in Vegas, and it was a truly gorgeous site, see video. From there we headed to the airport, and stayed the night there. By this time we were both feeling a little under the weather, so we didn't have a very restful night there. And upon returning back to Taiwan we slept for 12+ hours straight! It was truly a great trip, and so much fun.
Currently I have two more flights booked to different countries, and hopefully I will visit a few more after these as well. Stay tuned to hear about what's next!
-Ayla
