7NNT25: Day 30 – Hong Kong to Macau

Soundtrack: “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”, U2

Today was probably my least prepared border crossing ever (I’m ignoring Schengen Zone crossings, because they don’t even feel like you’re in a different country, those ones are like, oh, we just drove around a roundabout and have now been in 5 countries: if I don’t have to stop and show someone my passport it doesn’t count). With no flights to catch, and ferries every 30 minutes, I could take my time packing, grab breakfast, and get a taxi to the terminal pretty much whenever I wanted.

While I said yesterday I was trying not to only go to the same places, I thought I should go back to New Hing Fat Dim Sum just to show them I’d worked out what the water bowl was for and that even large sweaty white barbarians can learn. Sadly, while other places close Mondays, they close Tuesdays. Sometimes the world is unjust.

I headed back to Sunday’s dim sum spot, and ordered three different things. First was the black sesame French toast, because I obviously didn’t learn my lesson with the peanut butter, this time it was a while deep fried sandwich filled with black sesame paste, so what was not to love? Then there were little wrapped glutinous rice balls, wrapped in tofu skin rather than banana leaf, which were full of flavour and wonderful to eat. Finally I figured if I didn’t order char sui bao in Hong Kong it would be close to a criminal act, and these three small buns were wonderful, lighter than the huge starchy things found too often in Australia, and with a better proportion of bun to filling. All good food.

Wandering back to the hotel, I spotted a place, and I don’t even know if it was a restaurant as it was closed, but the sign said “mouth full”, which would be an awesome name for a restaurant. Then it was time to finish the pack, close up the suitcase (still not showing any pics, as it’s quite disorganised), check out, and get a taxi to the ferry terminal (btw, HK taxis charge an extra $6 if you put a suitcase in the boot).

The HK to Macau ferry terminal is the cleanest, shiniest place I’ve ever caught a boat. Obviously the whole point of going to Macau is that it’s all about the gambling, money, and opulence, so the terminal is full of high end stores. I did als managed to find a Macau starbucks mug in the series that we have a collection of, first one this trip, so that’s something. It’s almost a mall that just happens to also have ferries dock. Is it a mall or a moor? Anyways, it turns out if you flew into HK less than 7 days before, you can get a free ferry ticket to Macau, you just need to prebook, i.e. use your phone to access the website while standing next to the ticket office. Then take 3 steps sideways, show passport and boarding pass, and it’s a free ride.

The ferry itself is a bit less flashy than the terminal, but floats and takes around 60 minutes. Then it was a short wait at customs, and I was in Macau, the former Portuguese colony now home to some of the world’s largest casinos (5 of the top 10, apparently). From what I’ve read, Macau taxis are generally dodgy, but the big hotels do offer free shuttle buses from the ferry, so I was looking at jumping one of those to get to my smaller, no bus hotel. There are also drivers touting for business, and the first one offered to take me for 200 MOP (Macanese Pataca, yeah, as you’ll read on later the money situation here is a bit unusual, but the MOP apparently trades here 1 to 1 with the HKD, even though the MOP exchange rate to the AUD is higher, it’s confusing). Another driver offered 150 MOP (so 30 AUD for about 1km) and a third offered 100 which didn’t sound too bad so I took it. Turns out he’s from the Philippines so we chatted food on the short ride.

Checked in, hotel room has a wonderful view of the crazy tower that is the Grand Lisboa Hotel, and then went for a wander. I’m yet to get to Las Vegas, but Macau is obviously of the same thing, it’s all about lots and lots and lots of lights. All the bright shiny lights, not just for casinos, but for almost every shop. The U2 film clip shot in Vegas comes to mind immediately. The Grand Lisboa looms over everything, but other hotels and casinos abound, walls of lights and screens. Among these are what seems to be hundreds of little shops that sell moutai, brandy, penfolds wine, and macallan whisky. I never see any customers, but these shops are everywhere, all with the same items.

Noodle 10.3: Jook-sing noodles (or whatever the Macanese translation is; Wong Kun Sio Kung)

Some older stonework catches my eye and I head away from the lights and towards a part of Macau where people live. It doesn’t take me long to find a little noodle shop, covered in recommendations and pictures of celebrities without any English words at all, so I figure it’s my kind of place. Inside there’s at least some English on the menu, but also pictures so I point to the prawn roe noodles. These come out with some chilli oil and soup and taste fantastic, incredible elasticity, the chilli oil adds more of an earthy flavour that spice kick, and these are as good as any that I’ve eaten in this part of the world.

As I was near the old Portuguese part of town, I took a wander over, where it’s tourist central. Some amazing old buildings, it’s picturesquely incredible how the old and the new clash on the skyline; the old with colours and stone, the new all metal and glass. I took the steps up to the old facade of St Paul’s cathedral, the place on all the fridge magnets and post cards, winding my way through all the folks stopped for their insta shots. On the way back down I stopped at three places selling Portuguese egg tarts, buying one of each on my “tart crawl”. All wonderful, all subtly different: the first had more caramel on top and flaky pastry; the second more pastry and a stronger egg filling; the third was sweeter with flaky pastry. These stores also sell almond biscuits and meat jerky, and hand out free samples, I had some wonderful jerky but doubt Australian customs would let me bring that home even if I did want to carry it around for another week.

I took a break at the hotel before heading out to look at Macau at night in all of its flashing glory. It’s bright. I thought I should at least wander into a few casinos, however not being much of a gambler, and none of a chinese gambler, I didn’t really understand a lot of the games. I could recognise roulette, and black jack, and some tables might have had poker, but the other card games were a mystery. Same with the casinos that had slot machines, none appeared to be pokies or simple one-armed bandits, there were all manner of combinations across multiple lines, and weird betting options that made no sense to me. I took a few minutes to blow 20 HKD ($4 AUD) and that was my limit as a high roller — I was also amused that the slot machines that were supposedly 5c then had minimum bids of 18 or 28 units, i.e. 90c or $1.40, which is neither 5c nor readily divisible into $10 or $20, meaning you get left with some leftover that you can’t bet (I cashed out my 40c — cashing out in the sense the machine spits out a ticket that you can either take to “The Cage” or use at another machine — and gave the ticket to one of the other folks playing the machines). High rolling at the MGM Grand Macau, 8th largest casino in the world, tick, add that to my travel resume.

I did manage to wander into the Wynn casino foyer at the right time. There was a crowd already gathered with their phones out, filming the ceiling that appeared to be opening and displaying an animation of fish swimming around. Further animations followed, then the screen parted and a chandelier came down. A tree rose from below, all gold and sparkles, before the chandelier retracted, some more animation, before the ceiling closed up and the tree disappeared. Quite neat (I’m sure the team of designers that likely spent months creating this are overjoyed that some guy wandered in, watched, and described it as “quite neat”). It certainly filled up the foyer, though once it was done and I headed in the direction of the signs that pointed to the casino, I couldn’t actually find it.

Casino hopping done, I headed back towards the hotel. In my travels I’d walked past a little restaurant that had maybe 3 tables, and the smells coming from it were wonderful, so I figured that would be the place for a late dinner. Wandered in, and was handed a menu that was full of all manner of dishes, but looking at the little kitchen and it being quite late, wasn’t totally convinced they’d be able to make them (outside the signs are for beef and rice, pork rice bowls, that kind of thing). So I picked something simple that looked good, pork belly in brown sauce. There seemed to be some confusion at my choice, but then the server turned to a different page and pointed to much the same thing, and I nodded agreement (checking it was the same price, not some crazy upsell trick). Now I’m sitting right next to the kitchen, and I’m watching the cook. First he’s doing something that involved fish (FYI I’m the only customer in the shop), then he’s chopping some chillies before throwing them into a wok, so I figured that might be my order. He adds other things to the wok, but I’m not seeing him do anything involving pork. He’s washing some lettuce, which I’m hoping isn’t for my order, and then throws that into the wok. The server disappeared soon after I ordered, following a quick chat with the cook. I’m beginning to wonder. Then the server comes back with two plastic bags, like freezer bags, which she puts in the microwave. I’m still not seeing any wok action that resembles my meal. The cook grabs a plate, opens the microwave, and dumps the contents of the bags onto the plate, which the server then takes and puts in front of me. I’m trying my best to keep a straight face, which is only helped by the fact that the plate of microwaved pork in front of me smells really good. And it tasted good too, wonderful texture, a few pieces of lemongrass, obviously wasn’t crispy but didn’t go weirdly chewy like some microwaved meat does. I don’t know there the server went to get these bags, but at least they were plain bags not some actual store-bought microwave meal. I’m still not sure how I feel about the whole experience, am I appalled by the deception or impressed by the ingenuity? At least it tasted really good. And that other meal the cook made, that was dinner for the cook and server.

Then it was back to the hotel where fortunately the thick curtains kept the lights of Macau outside my room.