Tuesday 13 November 2007

Macau

(October 24-25)

Macau is a peninsular about an hour west of Hong Kong by fast ferry. It is the world's new Las Vegas with flashy casinos being built on all available turf. Indeed, Macau's gambling revenues are now greater than those of the Las Vegas Strip. However, our guide book which was published three or so years ago failed to mention casinos at all despite gambling providing 50% of the area's GDP! (Note to selves: we still shouldn't trust those pesky guide books!)

Macau has a similar history to Hong Kong in that it was governed by a foreign power for many years, except the Portuguese were invited to move in after helping the Chinese rid the area of pirates; the British just took HK. After a buoyant few years for the Portuguese in Macau, Britain's subsequent move into the region made sure Hong Kong became the dominant trading port. Macau stayed under European rule until 1999 when it was handed back to China although, like Hong Kong, it remains a Special Economic Area, and is likely to stay that way considering the loot it's drawing in.

Here's a little taster of the type of jaw dropping architecture that's gracing the shores of the Pearl River Delta:
MGM's new mecca

The Grande Lisboa next door to the Casino Lisboa

Ocean's 14 - in front of the Sands Casino

It's not all casinos and gambling - there's also some monuments ...
We can't remember what the monument's for ...

And then there are some more casinos - even themed ones:
Casinos are erupting everywhere ...

The places we have visited over the last 5 months have been very kind and put on events for our arrival and Macau was no different. The second indoor Asian Games started whilst we were there - and here was the team from Tajikistan to greet us:
Perhaps these chaps are not the gymnasts ...
Joanna preferred the Macau Games Duck:
Yes, that is the Coliseum behind her - or at least a theatre in the style of...

But what you really want to know is - did we get into the swing of the gambling and lose our fortune at the Blackjack tables? Well, no. In fact, we made a bit of a discovery in Macau: Joanna is tighter with money than Ben. He would have been happy to splash out 6 squid a pop to have a go on the roulette, but Joanna was a big ole killjoy. She puts it down to watching too many Las Vegas films where the only winner is the meanie casino owner like Al Pacino or Andy Garcia who sit in their control rooms counting the pots of money that the punters are throwing away. In other words, if you want to go gambling, don't take Joanna, it's no fun!

But Ben still managed to get into the Las Vegas vibe ...

Jaunty angle on a jaunty man ...

Sunday 11 November 2007

Hong Kong I

(22-23 October)
To tell the truth we didn't do that much in our first couple of days in Hong Kong, other than organise 2 days in Macau & 6 more days in Hong Kong... We did have a nice walk about, and some yummy Chinese food (especially at the "Best Shanghai" restaurant). And did a bit of blogging, skyping parents etc. Nothing exciting to write about. But we were on a relax mission by this point. And a prepare to go home mission. Ooo, yes, Ben bought sandals, as we were back into our shorts. Lovely. And we were enjoying the no smoking inside, or indeed in the public parks. And all the Public Service messages telling us to Love & Care for Your Family, Vote, Stand Still on the Escalator, etc. And they've solved the escalator problem of the hand-rail going at a different speed to the steps. Handy when they've got an escalator that goes 800m up Hong Kong Island.

And we went on the Star Ferry back from Hong Kong Island - costs 11p (each!).
View (They signed the hand-over treaty on top of the flat building in the middle):
First use of artificial wind to make flags fly on a still day apparently

Ben:
Sky-scrapers, sea, excitement!

Wednesday 7 November 2007

Bangkok

(21 October)

We weren't in Thailand for long, just an overnight stop-over. But long enough to wander out for a nice dinner (Nabe - style), and for completion of the drink challenge:
Mae Khong Thai Whisky - slightly sweeter, but very nice

Joanna found a nice vanilla shake for her part-time drink challenge:
Lovely

We watched the movie "Goal" rather than be sensible and go to sleep, but sometimes it's exciting to see TV in English.

Almaty

Joanna, the camel, has 3 humps...
This post will be brought to you by the Apple and Camel Marketing Board.
We were in Almaty for the nights of 15 - 20 October.

We found new friends in Almaty. Tara, a friend of a friend, offered to put us up, which was very kind of her. It was very nice to be in domestic circumstances again, and with a young baby about the place, Joanna could ask lots of pertinent questions about our own impending circumstances. We've not had much chance to talk / think / read about what is soon going to hit us, so it was good to get a glimpse of how such things can work... And they had a very nice bed for us too! We stayed with them for a couple of nights before Tara's folks came to visit her.

Almaty is the most cosmopolitan city in central Asia. They're not used to backpackers though. Without our backpacks we could blend in without anyone giving us the slightest look; with them, everybody gawked open-mouthed.

There's a few cool things to see around Almaty. Here's a church made without any metal:
Let's take a closer look...
The nails are made of wood. We looked closely however, and despite what the guidebooks say, there's plenty of metal attached to the outside now.

And here's 15 soldiers bursting out of the 15 states of the former USSR, to protect it:

We've slipped a few sideways pictures of Joanna in

They're both in one of Almaty's many lovely parks. In fact, Almaty, with its lovely leafy boulevards is a city that looks like it was built in a forest:
leafy

There's nice mountains to the south too, even if it is all a bit smoggy:
The mountains are clearer in real life

We went up a great cable car to get that look of the city, and as the weather was nice, Joanna felt it appropriate to have a nap:
Don't try this at home

Autumn makes it all very pretty:
Red!

There are a few apple sculptures, marking the fact that the name of the city means "Father of the Apples":
This one might be a little too crisp to bite into

Bonus points for spotting some of the many camels too:
Not many points, it's pretty easy to spot.

That camel is at the foot of the big obelisk in "Republic Square" that shows their new national symbol, the Golden Man:
Goldy on top of some 4-legged eagle thing

The Golden Man is an archaeological find in a funeral site of a body that was covered in gold, and latest research suggests instead of being a mighty warrior, the person might have been a young girl. The Kazakhs brush over that however. There are versions of it all over the place as they seem quite proud of it. We saw it at the National Museum, as well as in a couple of places in Astana.

We also went up into the lovely mountains, first to the ice-skating rink at Medeo:
melty ice

All the USSR's speed-skaters trained here. There's a 10,000 seat stadium around it:
water so pure you can drink it - apparently

And that's super pure water in the swimming pool from 3 separate streams in front of it. Ben's not keen on ice-skating, ever since he skated over his own hand at university. So we headed up 800 steps:
Just a few more steps...

And then took a minibus and cable-car:
cable-car-matic

Up to the lovely Chimbulak ski-field:
It was this big!

Joanna was happy to climb a mountain again, even if we did cheat this time (with not actually doing any climbing).

On other days after that we went to places that didn't photograph so well. There were more parks, and an absolutely amazing food market ("The Green Market"), with hundreds of vendors offering gorgeous fresh fruit & vege, spices, knick-knack stalls, fresh meat including horse and, yes, Ben's drink challenge drink Shubat, or fermented camel's milk.

We did get some. Ben did drink some:
Will it taste good?

He wasn't impressed:
No.

It wasn't just the lack of alcohol (it's about as alcoholic as ginger beer), it just didn't taste good.

We mentioned in previous posts we were going up a canyon: it didn't happen. The weather in Kazakhstan was fabulous, until the last day. So as we waited at the bus stop, and waited, and waited... it was quite cold. Turned out the tour company had given us the wrong time. We got our money back, but all a bit disappointing. The tour company were very disappointed too. You get the feeling that as Kazakhstan gets so few western tourists, that they really want to get it right with each one...

Monday 5 November 2007

Party!

Well, we weren't content with ending our travelling in Auckland; so as a little surprise, we went down to Wellington for Saturday night.

It was Ben's brother's engagement party, and although he'd put on the invite that there were relatives coming from Kazakhstan for it, we had told him we weren't going to make it. So David and his fiancee Katrina were very happy to see us. And we were pretty happy to see them too...

Joanna grabs some pies

4 ears are better than 2

I've been busting to see you again

We'll get on with filling in the gap from Kazakhstan to New Zealand now. And then maybe think about getting a job, joining the real world etc.

Friday 2 November 2007

Home! / New Home!

We support Liverpool here too!

We made it! We survived the flight through Singapore and are now safely ensconced in the parental Clark household, with Kimba:
Purrrr!

We'll largely recover for a the next few days, along with finishing off this blog, adding way more photos to the photo site, cleaning clothes, and maybe even buying some new ones that don't smell. But NZ immigration let Joanna in, so she's fine to stay and gestate the bump, and Ben can start thinking about getting a new job, us a new house etc...