The Pacific Princess pulled into Victoria Harbour around 7:00 am, docking at the Ocean Terminal South which is on the Kowloon side of the harbor right across from downtown HongKong.
We were in Hong Kong at the end of our China Trip in 2009. So, instead of revisiting highlights of Hong Kong, we decided to visit Macau instead. This involved spending a great deal of time going through immigration. First we had to clear Chinese immigration which we did on board ship. Then we took a 20 minute bus trip to the ferry terminal and then went through Hong Kong immigration before we were allowed to board the catamaran ferry to Macau. The ferry ride took about an hour. We then were required to go through Macau immigration before we could join our tour. (Both Hong Kong and Macau are both special administrative areas of China. Therefore, each has its own boarder control; China, Hong Kong and Macau.) As we walked out of the ferry terminal, we were greeted by a fleet of buses waiting to take us to the Casinos. We stuck with our tour …
The first stop on the tour was a museum of Macau. It was housed in an old fort and featured exhibits of Portuguese housing in Macau, the history of trade between Macau and the rest of the world, the history of the Chinese in Macau and even an exhibit about the history of gambling in Macau. After viewing the exhibits we went up on the roof of the fort. It was surrounded with parapets with old Portuguese cannons emplaced. Except for the smog, there would have been a great view of the central city from the top of the fort. As it was the view was limited to a block or two …
From the top of the fort, we walked down to the ruins of St. Paul’s Cathedral which is all that is left of the first Portuguese cathedral in Macau …
We walked down the steps from St. Paul’s and right into a busy little street filled with Chinese shops selling everything from food to electronics …
From the ruins of the cathedral, our tour continued down the hill into an old Portuguese residential section of Macau …
After our walk through the city the tour guide took us by bus back out to the waterfront and to a structure that looked very much like the Seattle Space Needle but which was, in fact, the 1,109 foot high Macau Tower. We went up to the sixtieth floor for a buffet lunch in a revolving restaurant. We had an excellent lunch and from the vantage of the restaurant we could see to Taipa which is the mainland section of Macau and, across the Pearl River, mainland China. As we sat peering through the fog and enjoying the view, we noticed that there were people on a cat walk up above the windows of the restaurant. Apparently, for a fee, you can climb up there, hook a life line on and ‘sky-walk’ around the top of the building. We didn’t try it … but then we saw a a woman fall past our window … apparently, for another fee, you can also bungee jump off the top of the building … we didn’t try that either.
After lunch we went to the temple of A Ma, for whom the city of Macau is named. The shrine was built in the 15th century by fishermen and is made up of three temples built up the side of a rocky hillside near the waterfront. It was a stiff climb up to the second and third temples. Each temple had a statue of the goddess and lots of burning incense.
Finally, we were bused back to the ferry terminal for our return to Hong Kong. After doing the immigration thing again but in reverse, we were returned to the cruise terminal and we reboarded our ship. We had had a very nice day in Macau and had not once stepped into a casino … amazing!
That night we decided to watch the laser light show over Victoria Harbour from the balcony of our cabin. Eight years ago we had enjoyed the show from the Hong Kong side of the harbor and we were curious to see it from Kowloon. I’m sorry to say that we were disappointed. On the waterfront of Hong Kong Island the light show is accompanied by music that is broadcast over loud speakers. I think we saw the same light show from our cabin balcony but it didn’t seem to have an force or coherence with out the music …
