Friday, May 13, 2011

Hong Kong: February 22, 2011

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All material including photographs are ©2011 Ronald Dunlap / Doglight Studios

I was up at seven and prepared for my day-trip to Macau.


Nowadays, Macau is considered to be the Monte Carlo of the East, but it began as the first European outpost in Asia. Portuguese sailing ships dropped anchor here in 1535 AD, and by 1557 the Portuguese had established a permanent outpost. It remained a Portuguese colony until 1976, when, after the overthrow of the Portuguese dictatorship, the new Portuguese government decided to get rid of all their overseas possessions. In December 1999, Portugal handed over administration of their former colony to the People's Republic of China.


Today, along with Hong Kong, Macau is one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China, and has its own legal, immigration/customs, and monetary systems.


Located on the west side of the Pearl River, Macau faces the South China Sea and Hong Kong, which is an hour's ferryboat ride away.


Just before 8 a.m. I exited the hotel and had the doorman hail a taxi. I told the driver that I wanted to go to the Macau Ferry here in Kowloon. INFO: You have a lot more options if you leave from Hong Kong Island, but I didn't want to complicate things by traveling to HK.

The winds were really blowing today. I could see white caps in the harbor, and at one point I almost told the driver to turn around, but I sucked it up and continued.

I paid just over HKD 40 to the cab driver, and he pointed me in the right direction. I walked into the ferry building's lobby, and the lobby attendant told me to take the elevator up to the second floor.


When I exited the elevator car, I was approached by a harried female attendant who asked if I was going to Macau. I said yes, and she said hurry. Before I realized it, I was at the counter buying a ferry ticket. I didn't have enough Hong Kong dollars, so I had to rush down to another window and exchange some U.S. dollars.


From there you go to a waiting room with layout and decor very similar to that of an airport. Within five minutes, our boat was called, and the passengers queued up. I got my seat assignment and was passed through to Hong Kong Customs. They inspected my passport and asked a couple of questions, then allowed me to proceed down a long corridor until I found the gate for the Macau ferry.


The ferry berth was empty, as the current high seas were adding an extra 10 to 15 minutes to each of the travel segments. Once the arriving ferry had docked and the passengers allowed to de-boat, it took the clean-up crew 10 minutes to make the ferry ship-shape.




After making my way down a series of switch-back gangways, I was pleasantly surprised to find the ship's interior was nothing like the bench-seated Star ferries. It was much more like the interior of a Jet Blue very-wide-body jet. The blue leather seats were comfy.



We left the safety of Victoria harbor, and while the ride was a little rough, it was smoother than I would have guessed. The ferry took something over an hour to make the crossing, docking in Macau at 10:20. My fellow passengers and I were immediately ushered into a giant immigration hall, and everyone scrambled to find the shortest line. What a pain in the ass! It took me a good 25 minutes of standing until I was up at the immigration counter. The middle-aged officer didn't believe my passport was my passport. I smiled as he held it to the light from every imaginable angle possible. He was finally satisfied and stamped it.


From the immigration hall, you exit into a large, glass-fronted room, where you are accosted by hordes of taxi and van hawkers trying to get you to sign up for an exuberantly priced tour. There are free maps of Macau in this area, and I advise you to pick one up if you find yourself here.

I opened the map and located the Cathedral of Saint Paul, then negotiated with one of the hawkers for a ride, down from $700 HKD to $200 (I found later that it should have cost only $50HKD). The old guy walked me down into the parking structure to the van's parking area (this was a sort of creepy place; my imagination was working overtime, and I was ready to start swinging at any moment), where we were joined by a young female driver who spoke perfect English.



We got into the van and headed to the ruins of the Cathedral of Saint Paul. I had read in one of the guide books that it was the best place to start your tour. The cathedral is located in a hilly region of the city, and some of the hills were extremely steep. The driver said that a lot of the old part of the city was located here because of the defensive nature of the landscape.


The driver dropped me off in the parking lot of the Museum of Macau, which is located next door to the Cathedral's ruins, so I started my day in Macau by climbing the stairs up to the museum's entrance. Once inside, I took the escalator up to the front desk and purchased a ticket for HKD 15. INFO: In Macau, you can use HKD even though you will receive your change in Macau's own currency.





The museum looks brand-new, is well laid-out, and gives the viewer an excellent understanding of the city's early history. Some of the small dioramas are very entertaining, but some of the life-sized ones border on the kitschy. The museum is a little time-consuming but well worth a visit.



From the museum I walked down to the ruins of the Cathedral of Saint Paul, which in its time was the largest Catholic church in Asia. Only the front facade of the church is still standing. It sits atop a small hill with 66 stone steps that lead up to an intricately carved stone facade. Under the direction of an Italian Jesuit, the carvings were executed by Japanese Christians (who were exiled from Japan because of their religious beliefs), between 1620 and 1627.




I took several photos up on the plaza in front of the facade and then walked to the bottom of the stairs to get a different perspective. No sooner was I at the bottom than I was approached by a group of Korean girls who wanted their lucky picture taken with me. I agreed, as usual, and we exchanged picture-taking.




From here I walked downhill looking for anything visually interesting. The surrounding streets are a commercial mish-mash of upscale boutiques, medical clinics, and food outlets. I continued in a downward direction till I got to Macau's central plaza, Senado Square, which has been the center of urban life in Macau for centuries.




The square is paved in a black-and-white swirly pattern of mosaic tiles that gave me the feeling of being in South America. In the northwest corner of the square stands the Baroque church of St. Dominic. Built in 1587, the cathedral sprang from the efforts of three Spanish Dominicans who sailed here from Acapulco, Mexico, in the late 1500s.



The interior of the church is pastel yellow with accents of white that mirror the building's exterior color scheme. I was just standing there trying to decide how I wanted to shoot the statues of the Virgin Mary and St. Dominic when a guard approached. I thought he was going to tell me that photography was not allowed, but to my surprise, he simply told me I'd have to remove my hat, because it was still a place of religious worship and I should show respect.




After photographing the Virgin and saint, I left the church, put back on my hat, and walked the surrounding streets looking for inspiration. After 20 minutes of shooting, I stopped at the Haagen-Dazs gazebo across the square from St. Dominic's. I got a pre-packaged ice cream bar and sat on one of the built-in benches that the square is equipped with, to people watch.



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After finishing my treat, I spent the next three hours hiking up and down Macau's hills, shooting everything and anything that had the possibility of being visually interesting. My old legs were about to give out when I decided to head down to the waterfront area that was the breeding ground for the glass and steel Temples of Chance. My legs held out long enough to get to the Grand Lisboa Casino. I should have gone inside, but I was just too tuckered out. I got into the taxi queue and within five minutes, I was on my way back to the ferry landing.




At the transport center, I showed my return ticket and was assigned a seat and ushered into the customs area, where after a few questions I was passed through to the boarding area. The ride back to Kowloon was about the same as the ride over, but clearing customs was a little longer because the guy in front of me was traveling with a young child and the immigration agents did an exhaustive check of the baby's documents.

INFO: Customs at both ends of the trip can add a good hour to the length of the trip.










I exited the ferry building onto Canton Road, an affluent avenue home to most of the top European specialty shops in Hong Kong. From Chanel to Prada, ample opportunities to acquire the right overpriced embellishments line the road. As I walked back to the hotel I was shooting away; the high-end store fronts were spectacular. I just wish I could have afforded something from one of them.

It was near 6 p.m. when I used the card key to trip the door lock to my room. I got a snack out of the refrigerator, flopped down on the bed, and used the remote to surf the different offerings, looking for something that would hold my attention.


Just after 7, I got up, dressed for an evening out in the wind, grabbed my camera bag, GorillaPod, and hat, took the elevator down to ground level, and left the hotel by the Nathan Road entrance.

It took 15 minutes of walking to reach the promenade. It was already packed, so I headed down a block or so till I found a space at the rail. I put down my bag and wrapped the GorillaPod around the cross member till it felt secure, then used the fast release mount to attach the 5D to the railing. I bent down and lined up the shot, making sure it was in focus, and then locked everything down.

Hong Kong's Symphony of Lights takes place every night at 8 p.m. The show is accompanied by a music and narration track delivered in a different language depending on which night you are there. Tonight it's in a Chinese dialect, the name of which I can't remember.



Five minutes before 8 p.m., I made sure the 5D was in movie mode and hit the button. About a minute into filming, a boat pulled up in front of my location and the boat's mast and flag were in the center of my shot. (I found out later that the flag, a red field with a five-petal white orchid-tree flower in the center, was the flag of Hong Kong. After editing the footage, I found this accident made the sequence.) It was too late to reframe, so I just kept rolling.



The light show itself was a bit underwhelming, so when I ran out of card space, five minutes into the show, I didn't bother changing the card.

After the 10-minute show I was frozen. I packed up and headed for the Spaghetti House to warm up a bit and have dinner. It was later than the last time I was there, and I got a table straightaway. After bolting down my food and drink, I headed back to the hotel, hoping to get a full night's sleep.