Hong Kong Rugby 7's

The main reason for our trip to Hong Kong was to attend the Hong Kong Rugby Seven’s tournament. This event had about 20 nations playing seven aside for seven minute halves. The football action was fabulous but the entertainment from the crowd was simply amazing.

On the Friday night launch my mate Neil and I found our way by mistake into the southern stand and we sat next to the funniest bunch of guys from the USA, UK, Aussie and Hong Kong....well could these guys tell a joke...one was so good I will need to practice and hopefully do it justice when I am next around ”the boys”. It was a bloody funny night.

We found ourselves back at the same location at opening time Saturday, alas the funny guys were nowhere to be seen, however we discovered that Saturday was dress up in your best costume day....and they all sat in the southern stand around us. We saw, bikie’s with stocking painted tattoos on their arms and legs making them look real mean, Marilyn Monroe’s, Fire Chiefs, Amy Winehouse (girls with makeup tattoos all over them), Matty Johns ”bring back the biff” boys, Amish people, Star Wars characters, cowboys, Indians, the hulk, you name it and it was there. However the most entertaining group was about twelve big guys from South Africa who were dressed in a pink Sharks rugby jersey board shorts and blue construction helmets.

These boys were in for a big day as we would soon find out.....games started at 9.30 and at 9.35 the chant went out from our little area SHOE...SHOE...SHOE...at this point one guy removed his shoe and held it up and pours in his 1 litre cup of beer into his shoe and proceeds to skull the whole shoe filled of beer which he does easily to the crowds delight. No more than 10 -15 minutes goes by and around us we hear the chant HELMET...HELMET...HELMET at which point previous shoe sculling man stands up holds out his blue helmet and people all around him donate beer to his helmet and again once full - proceeds to skull his helmet of beer and then put his helmet back on. Crowd is delighted with his mighty efforts...took me two hours to drink my beer and this guy does it in one minute. I think this guy was the smartest of all his 12 mates because he went first. As the day went on each guy was encouraged shall we say to do the SHOE skull and then followed by the HELMET skull. Each time more and more crowd participation in voice and beer donating. I don’t think these guys by the end of the day saw any rugby action and in fact I don’t think they would even know they were in Hong Kong....but the crowd sure was glad as Neil and I were as they sat two rows in front of us. I have never laughed so much and seen so many antics at one day at the football...unbelievable fun all day.

Imagine my surprise when reading the paper the next morning. The photo above shows the South African lads and a few others at the football in a news paper story that ran on Sunday in the South China Morning Post...if you look carefully you will see me in the photo!!!!!

That night when Dominique and I were walking back to our hotel room I noticed this car and said to D that it looked like a new Aston Martin sports car.

The grill was a give away but the lights where different, well to my amazement when I got up to the side it was only a two door car about the size of a mini!!!!!

Saturday night we went to a Japanese restaurant being managed by a friend of Neils. He insisted we do sample some high percent vol sake from his cellar. By the time he got to the 60% proof I was asking for only a few drops! It was deadly stuff.

It was above the streets of Lan Kwai Fong. For those who dont know, Lan Kwai Fong is party central in Hong Kong. Particularly for westerners. Here is a shot D took of the street as we were leaving.

There is no limit on drinking outdoors so people just buy a beer and stand in the street and chat. Each tiny bar was pumping out lound music, each competing with each other. Still they were drowned out by the competing chanting of the costumed lads having fun.

The cars are amazing over here this trip....Bentleys and Rolls Royces, Maserati’s everywhere...makes the little old Porsche look very common indeed. Check out this diamante grill and number plate surround on this Mercedes!

Anyway the football was a blast and will do again in the future....better start thinking of my costume ... anyone want to come?

Last day Macau

I was fascinated with the detail carved into the granite door way. This section was raised to support the door so it didn’t scrape on the ground.

A couple of the street signs in the older areas.

Chinese and Portuguese buildings next to each other.

A couple of the staff at our hotel were helpful with tips of local places to see. One suggestion was to go to Vila de Taipa. It was a small residential community opposite the Galaxy hotel. A very cute few streets with trees and public seating areas. We were drawn a mud map to a place that was famous for their ‘Pork Chop buns’.

We had to find the BIG coke bottle (6’ tall) and there was a little shop with a queue out the door. After a 10 min wait we had pork chops, literally still on the bone, lightly seasoned and crumbed in a bread roll. Nothing else.... but very tender and tasty.

Contrasts here...

On our last day we went to the City of Dreams, House of Dancing Waters show. I have been hearing about it since its conception and it was one of the reasons for me wanting to spend time in Macau. It truly was incredible. In a newly built indoor theatre the stage includes a massive pool. It would go from being a deep pool that enabled high divers to dive into it then within a matter of seconds, transformed into a dry stage. At time performers sunk or dived into the water and didn’t come up. Obviously they have sneaky ways to get out and find oxygen. Massive props would rise out of the water... It was like watching an amazing special effects movie, though with little discernible story line to follow!! The performers numbered at least 50 and they spent most of the time wet. There was no language so could be enjoyed by anyone. It is VERY popular with people travelling from far to see it. 2 shows a day, 5 days a week, and close to capacity seating each time. Seating was predominantly in the round.

After the show we had dinner in the Beijing Kitchen again. Excellent food at very reasonable prices. Our pre-ordered Peking Duck being carved at the table. Firstly he carved most the skin off and said not to eat it in the pancakes but to have it separately with sugar sprinkled on it. Was interesting and all of it delicious.

We stayed at the City of Dreams. The site included the Crown, Hard Rock and Grand Hyatt hotels. This is the view from our hotel room across to the Venetian and through to the Galaxy hotel.

The Hard Rock hotel had some memorabilia from different performers. You can see how impressed we were with seeing Elvis' shirt!

Galaxy hotel bar - relaxing in the ‘gorgeous’ chairs for a drink.

Next stop Hong Kong.

Macau - March 2012

Well the Budgen’s are on the go again...this time we are in Macau. We have been here for a few days and have covered many things to see and do and found some out of the way places for local foods as we do so well.

We had a great flight from Melbourne... very easy, pretty good seats and reasonable leg room. We landed in Hong Kong mid afternoon on Monday and took the ferry directly from the HK airport to Macau. Before we knew it we were at our hotel on the southern island of Macau (on the Cotai Strip) and enjoying a nice drink with Laureen who had arrived a couple of hrs earlier.

DAY ONE we headed off, walking through the City of Dreams (where we were staying) and across the road to the Venetian (morning tea was a local delicacy of egg tart – yummy baked custard tart – not too sweet and deliciously warm.

From there we jumped into a cab to the historic Portuguese centre and found it quite fascinating. Amazingly Macau was under Portuguese rule until 1999 and now it is a special administrative region (SAR) of the “People’s Republic of China” (PRC), and like Hong Kong operates as part of the one country but has two systems.

This is the view from the front of the facade below.

Many of the old Portuguese buildings are painted in lovely pastel colours, are very well looked after and are located in the central region on the northern island of Macau.

This facade is St Paul's cathedral which was destoyed by fire in 1835 (?) and they have maintained the facade since then.

Tiled panels in a laneway.

St Dominic's

Senado Square.

So pretty!

We stumbled across a doorway to municapal offices which lead in to this quiet tiled courtyard. Very peaceful for sure....

That night we had drinks in the lobby lounge bar and dinner in the hotels, Beijing Kitchen restaurant. Delicious cuisine from north China region!!

DAY TWO we jumped into a cab and went straight to the southern end of the south island to a region called Coloane Village. We explored the old Portuguese settlements to get a feel for the more traditional Macau and the simple way of life.... we found fascinating old Chinese temples - hundreds of years old. We challenged ourselves to try yet another Lord Stowe’s...... egg tart to ensure they were OK.....I can tell you...they are OK...... (today we have gone from buying one at a time each to now buying a six pack to ensure our stocks don’t run out...they are sooo delicious).

Next was a bus trip to Hac-Sa beach. Recommended as it is apparently famous for its black sand. Well let me assure its no Aussie beach. The black sand just looked like dirty brown to us and the water seemed full of minerals and the little waves rolled in. We were on the lookout for a little restaurant we had heard about called Fernandos. After a short walk past a few beach huts/BBQ’s stalls selling all sorts of BBQ’d items....the only one I could identify was octopus...and I was tempted....but alas lunch was not far away and there is only so much we can eat.

Note the thick layer of ash from the incense!

On searching for the restaurant we navigated around approx 2000 school kids on the beach having bbq lunches before we found our destination at Fernando’s. It was great, huge menu and busy which is always a good sign....we ate whole grilled sea bream, wood fire roasted Portuguese chicken, Macanese fried rice (has chorizo in it) drank sangria and rolled merrily back onto the bus and headed home to recover.

That night we headed back into the south of the north island to visit Wynn and the MGM casino’s....thankfully our hotel concierge wrote where we were going in Chinese so I only needed to give the card to our driver and away we went. The money spent on the casinos is amazing; it must be hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. They just go on and on, they have shopping centres around them with all the name brands, cinemas, restaurants of all types etc.. There are many unique attractions in the front entrances and its a competition as to whose is the best. Every casino has one to two each, from the “Dragon of Fortune”, “Tree of Prosperity” and one that fascinated me was the massive diamond at Galaxy casino which rises out of the crystal swan lined pond with the water fall following it skyward with the ever changing light show and dramatic music. All so tackily fabulous!!!

Tonight we are off to see “The House of Dancing Water” and later I have booked a table at the Beijing Kitchen restaurant (yes again) under the name of Mr Mark,( long story) and have pre-ordered Peking duck.....will let you know how it goes....
We wish you were all here to share this with.... take care
Much love
M&D xx