HUBBERS BLOG

Wales 10-45 New Zealand

The Welsh got hammered but then so did we!!!

Photos in the usual place

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France 11-23 New Zealand

There is an inverse ratio of the number of Mexican Waves at a live sporting event and how exciting the match is. And while this weekends match rated a stonking 5 Mexican Waves it only scored a dire 2 out of 10 for excitement.

That didn’t matter though because we had a blast anyway and Paris scored massive 9.5 for tourism, restaurants and generally getting messy.

Photos in the usual place

This morning I Caught the fast hydrofoil to Macau which takes only 45 minutes with another hour or so for the inevitable border control since I am travelling from China to China again.

Not much in Macau in the way of tourism (some run down churches) or, much to my surprise, shopping. Although bizarrely they do have two New Zealand speciality shops selling the usual sheep skins, wine and honey.

What they do have is casinos. A few small run down old ones and some huge Vegas style casinos. Some of the Vegas chains like Sands and Wynn have already moved in and there is a massive Venetian on the way. It seems that the main purpose of Macau is to drain cash out of any tourists and Chinese who fancy a flutter. And if what I saw is anything to go by there are more than a few of those.

Highlight of the day was a trip to the top of the Macau Tower which has an unbelievable view of the … massive cloud of pollution choking Macau. I kid you not China is the most polluted place I have ever been. They are literally choking on their own success. And like it or not, we are going to choke on it as well. Sadly in my entire time here I cannot remember seeing a single bicycle.

The other thing to do on the tower is you can put on an orange jumpsuit and clip on a rather thin looking safety cable and you can go for a guided walk around the outside. I saw five Asian blokes to this and they made them do all manner of lunacy like stand on the edge with only one foot. Bloody eejits.

For dinner I stumbled upon an Asian food festival and stuffed myself silly.

Top Travel Tip: Steer clear of Macau Beer.

Afterwards I lost a fair whack of Macau Dingbats on blackjack at Sands Macau with some American and Australian bankers. Their main topics of conversation were ‘what I’d like to do to the cute dealer’ and ‘where is the best strip club/sauna’.

Interestingly Macau Dingbats are the third currency I have had to use in three days as they use Hong Kong Dingbats in Hong Kong and Chinese Dingbats in China. Confusing.

After all that shopping all I managed to buy was some shirts and ties and a dim sum fridge magnet.

Photos in the usual place.

Today I decided to go to the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone which is basically the area of China just outside from Hong Kong. I Got up early and walked to the train station caught the train and then about half way there I realised that I would probably need my passport to get into China, even though I was already in China, because Hong Kong is in China. Ever been to a country that you need a passport to go from one state to the next? Well that’s communism for you. An hour and a half later I was back on the train with my passport in hand. On the second journey I noticed some Australian women with large rolling suitcases also heading for Shenzhen. The odd thing about these ladies was that the suitcases were all empty. As they should be when you go to one of the cheapest places in the world where you can but almost anything.

At the full international level border between HK and China I was stung for a temporary visa to get entry into China. I wonder if this is the reason for maintaining the border or if it really is all about controlling the masses.

The first place I visited in Shenzhen was Louhu City which is a noisy tourist trap where each shop is staffed by at least three bored local teenagers who have mastered English up to the “come into my shop, oh that is only eight million dingbats” level. After an hour in this hellhole anyone could be forgiven for thinking that PRC stood for the Pushy Republic of China.

To take a break I visited the local Russian Air Craft Carrier called Minsk World. This was well cool and had all sorts of Russian jets and helicopters. It is also staffed by incredibly fit Chinese girls if you ever get a chance to visit.
On the way back to the border I dropped by Dongmen (snigger) Market for some more pushy sales torture. Fortunately Dongmen is nothing at all like the Louhu City tourist trap. Imaging the biggest shopping district you have ever been to and then double it. And not just double it on one dimension. Double is in every dimension and this is the sort of size we are talking about. Now cram it with half a million Chinese (half of whom are talking at any given moment) and four Australian women (who are all talking at any given moment) and you start to get the idea. Now you are probably starting to get an idea of the scale of this place. The best I could do in this shoppers paradise was to find the Starbucks and pick a direction to walk in. Once I found the Starbucks again, which could take 5 minutes or an hour, I would pick another direction. The double advantage of the Starbucks is that it had the only English speaking local I had found on this side of the border. When I was done being lost shopping I asked for even more directions back to the border.

This brings me onto my next point. The people from Hong Kong and China a really nice. Except the pushy teenagers in Louhu City that is. In Hong Kong they speak a lot more English but most of the people I have met here have been really nice and very helpful. I have also caught a number of taxis (cos they are dirt cheap) and at no stage has there been even the slightest hint of a scam. Those of you who read my blog know my thoughts on taxi drivers in the developing world so I was pleasantly surprised to find that everything was above board here.

Sadly I have had to tell the girlfriend that she can never come here as her smaller female brain would not be able to handle the shear inundation of shopping available here and would probably explode all over the inside of her skull. I think eventually she come to understand that this is for her own good and I am pretty sure she will start talking to me again soon.

Up at 6am to get the jump on the other tourists visiting the giant Buddha on Lantau Peak. The plan worked perfectly and I got to the cable car at the bottom of the peak before any other tourist. Sadly I also arrived a full two hours before the cable car started so I have time to do some shopping and catch a local bus up the Peak. When I got to the top the Buddha was still closed for another hour. Tourism is obviously done at a sedate pace here in Hong Kong.

In the afternoon I did some more shopping at the outlet mall at the bottom of the peak and then headed to Mong Kok which is the rammed shopping district where the locals do their shopping. If you ever need anything wacky and Asian then this is the place to come.

Top Travel Tip: You can charge any battery for camera and phones and the like at any 7-eleven in HK.

After only a few hours in Hong Kong I have managed to deduce quite a lot about the language spoken here. Almost all sentences are made up by stringing three and four letter words together a quickly as possible. Interestingly many common English words seem to have their origin in the Chinese language. Some of the ones I have spotted include chow, fang, ding, dang, dung, me, pee, king, mo, fo, ho, long, dong, hung, wang, chew, dim, chop, sum, loo and wong to name a few. And if I am not mistaken the Chinese also seem to be behind the well know international drinking game Ping Pang Pong.

Spent the day on Hong Kong Island doing the get on something high and take photos tour. High things on the tour included the Bank of China Tower and Hong Kong Peak. In total I walked for about 9 hours and saw pretty much everything touristy on HK Island which included shops, shops and more shops. My mo fo (excuse my Chinese) legs were bloody sore by the end of it.