Chinese New Year (part 1)

Kung Hei Fat Choi! ('Happy New Year' - my Cantonese is coming along...). We've now left the year of the dragon and the year of the snake is here!

Well I'm so glad we ignored* any advice of 'make sure you get out of HK during Chinese New Year - everything is closed, it's busy, cold and wet'.
*not wholly true, we might have flown out of here but flights were silly money and we are tight.

The view from our window as I type this currently looks like this:

Not raining and 17.4 degrees according to the HK Observatory - not bad for February!

It's not been any busier than usual and nothing much is really closed! We've had a brilliant 5 days off... could get used to this not working malarkey!!

On Saturday morning we took a ferry over to Macau (after a McDonalds breakfast at the ferry terminal, naturally...) - they depart every 10 minutes or so and take about an hour. We've both been so busy we hadn't really considered what we were going to do when we got there and it was bigger than we both envisaged. We withdrew some Macau Patacas from the cashpoint and set off walking with a couple of free maps we picked up at tourist information.

Stephen spotted a cable car and we thought that sounded like fun so headed off to find it. We paid our 30pence each return fare and went to see what was at the top!

Ticket 

Cable Cars

Stephen in Cable Car

We got to the top and couldn't really see much so got in the queue to go back down... the friendly cable car operator man was curious as to why we were going back down so soon and told us we needed to see the church and lighthouse - err, what church and what lighthouse?! We set off further up the path and lo and behold a church, lighthouse and amazing views across the city! 

Bye bye year of the dragon

Hello year of the snake! 

View of Macau

Church and Lighthouse

Cannon

These are typhoon/monsoon signals hoisted onto the Lighthouse to warn of weather conditions , v interesting!

 We decided to walk down from the top (I know, could have bought single tickets and saved ourselves 10p!) towards the main tourist part of town to see the Ruins of St Paul and plenty of CNY decs along the way.

At the ferry terminal we looked up the hotel we'd booked to stay in and according to Forbes magazine it has one of 'the most jaw dropping pools in Asia' - ah, we'd forgotten our swimmers! (Told you we were really unprepared for this trip!).

After a quick stop for freshly cooked biscuits - massive bag for 70p and super tasty, don't mind if we do, we set about trying to find somewhere to sell us cheap swimwear. (No Primark / similar in Asia - everything is Louis V / Prada etc and very difficult to find normal priced goods!!). Luckily Stephen located a department store and we got ourselves sorted - 50% off too, win!

Biscuit man!

Then it was time to find a bus to take us to our hotel and check in - as usual for Asia the transport was amazing, reliable and cheap. The hotel was amazing - very posh, but we got a really good deal and it was fab! (Had a complimentary mini bar too - what more could you need!?).

View from the room - this would be really quite impressive if it wasn't so murky! 

Honey and ginger tea delivered to our door as a welcome drink.... 

View looks a bit better at night!

Quick dip in the infinity pool!

We'd booked ticket for the House of Dancing Water show at the 'City of Dreams' so were in a bit of a rush to make it for 8pm. We spent a bit too long enjoying the complimentary minibar and researching a good restaurant for tea that we ran out of time and ended up with this - never mind!

Mc Prosperity Burger and Curly Fries - can't beat it!!

The show was absolutely amazing - i've never seen anything like it! Normally I'd be a bit dubious but after reading the reviews on tripadvisor I decided we needed to splash out on tickets. I've added a few photos but it's really hard to explain - really pretty water shows, amazing diving / acrobatics and a motorbike stunt show all in one!?

 I think there was a love story in there somewhere (with added hints of pantomime) but it was lost on us - we were just so impressed with the half stage / half swimming pool and the cleverness of the whole thing!

After the show it was time to briefly explore the casinos - having been to Vegas last summer once you've seen one you've seen them all but it's bonkers really to think there's a Venetian / Wynn / MGM etc on this small chinese/portuguese island!

Casino floor inside City of Dreams 

Ceiling artwork at the Venetian 

Galaxy Macau in the distance.

We tried to buy famous egg tarts from Lord Stows but it was shut by the time we got there but we knew we had time to go back in the morning. We got a free firework show once back at our hotel as the government had put out special bays alongside the harbour for people to take their own fireworks which was cool to watch! (Midnight that night was the official start of the year of the snake, hence the fireworks, although they'll go on all week - they do make them here after all!).

In the morning we checked out of the hotel and walked down to the Venetian... I decided to stick a $50 in one of the slot machines (for some reason the casinos take HK$ rather than Macau money?!) and woohoo - I won big $81.20 to be precise, I was pretty pleased with this and it funded the egg tarts!! There was some serious money in that casino - 10am and people just getting wedges of $1000 (£800) notes out of their purses and putting them down on the table?! And there was me thinking I was going crazy betting my £4 away...

Authentic gondola rides inside the Venetian...

City of dreams by day

Venetian

CNY decs inside the Venetian - we also found a Fazenda style meat feast place so I think we'll be back!!

EGG TARTS!! These were AMAZING!

More genuine venetian architecture... 

Never been to Venice but I imagine this is just what it's like... 

Obviously had to take some tarts home with us!

Ferry back to HK

On board the ferry

Back in HK waiting for the bus home.

Macau was a brilliant little trip out of HK and I'd thoroughly recommend it. It feels so different to HK, almost like a European city in places but so easy and quick to get to so I'm sure we'll go back at some point, if only to sample the all you can eat meat restaurant....

I'd update you with the rest of our CNY adventures but this post is already a bit long and happy hour cocktails are calling - back soon!