Christmas in Hong Kong - Day 2

Day # 2 in Hong Kong was THE big day...Christmas Day! We couldn't wait to get out and make special memories from our very first Christmas overseas. Well, I'm happy to report that we did succeed in making memories...just not the ones we had in mind ;) Our agenda for the day was as follows: enjoy a nice breakfast at the hotel , take the famous Star Ferry across Victoria Harbor to see fabulous views of the HK skyline, make our way to Statue Square, take a ferry over to Macau and explore the island, make our way to the Venetian Hotel & Casino to see Cirque du Soleil "Zaia", then catch the ferry back to HK in time to call our families by 11:30 p.m.  Unfortunately, the day didn't go quite as planned...

The morning started out great with a delicious breakfast at our hotel :)

All ready for our Hong Kong Christmas Day adventures! Feeling really happy as the day started...

Next, we made our way to the Star Ferry Terminal. The Ferry crosses Victoria Harbor going back and forth between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island and offers a beautiful view of the towering skyscapers and hills of HK Island.

Just outside the terminal  is a landmark clocktower. Its the last remnant of the old Kowlooon railway terminal.

Matt buying our tickets for the Star Ferry...ohhh yeah, there was no mistaking us for locals!

Another really crowded line. We didn't do a good job of pushing our way through the crowd...by the time we got on the ferry, there was standing room only. Oops!

Now as I mentioned above, a ride on the Star Ferry gives you fabulous views of the skyline. Or should give you fabulous views...but not if its foggy...and foggy it was! So while we should have seen something like this:

(This is not our picture)

We could only see this:

What a total bummer! A huge part of the reason you would want to go to HK is for the views...and this just didn't cut it. At least it was only day 2, right? We figured we would have other opportunities to see it on a more clear day :)

Me on the ferry with another Star Ferry in the background (that one was headed back to the Kowloon side)

A foggy look at the Kowloon side of HK taken from Hong Kong Island.

As we walked toward Statue Square, we found this park with poinsettias planted ALL over the place. What a perfect picture opportunity for Christmas Day! :)

After getting a bit turned around and walking much further than we thought we would (on a very warm day...another thing that didn't work out in our favor as we were expecting much cooler weather) we arrived at Statue Square in the Central District. The area was filled with hundreds of domestic helpers enjoying their day off. They occupied nearly every bit of space in the area!

Domestic helpers eating, laughing and enjoying their day off

Statue Square was all decorated for Christmas. In fact, there were very few parts of HK that weren't decorated for Christmas! The whole city was decked out!

Seen from Statue Square is the Bank of China Tower. Famous for being designed by I M Pei (he's designed a very similar building in Singaore which I've blogged about here and of course, the Lourve in France).

The Thomas Jackson statue, a 19th century banker, is one of HK's few remaining statues.

The Legislative Council Building, one of HK's last remaining colonial buildings

At the entrance of the HSBC Bank Headquarters (the most expensive building ever built upon its completion in 1985) are two lions. There to protect the building, rubbing their paws is said to bring good luck...but we didn't do it so I can't say if that's accurate or not ;)

When in southeast Asia, its important to give the peace sign in at least 2/3 of your pictures!

So after we left Statue Square, it was time to head over to our next ferry terminal to catch our ferry over to Macau. It takes about 60-70 minutes to get there by ferry (or you can take a helicopter for $1200!). Today, Macau is a gambler's paradise...you could say its a "little Vegas", but there was a time when it was a Portuguese colony so the island is still rich with Portuguese history (400 years worth!). Our plan was to spend the rest of the day exploring the island before heading to the Venetian to see Cirque du Soleil. Unfortunately, as I said earlier, things did not go as planned. When we arrived at the ferry terminal, we encountered this crowd:

There were hundereds of people were waiting to enter the ferry terminal. Due to the dense fog, all early morning ferries to Macau had been cancelled and there were plenty of angry and frustrated people waiting to get in and try and claim their place on the next departing ferry. They kept us all waiting in a big open area and then finally opened one tiny door for everyone to squeeze through. WHOA it was madness! People pushing, kicking, and yelling! There were policemen shouting at everyone (though we couldn't understand a word that was being spoken) and news crews filming the whole thing! I was completely overwhelmed and all but ready to turn around and skip going to Macau altogether...but, we pressed on. Thankful that we finally made it into the actual terminal, we breathed a sigh of relief when we saw that our ferry was still scheduled to depart. To make a very long story short, because of the morning delays, they were sticking people on random ferries and we did not get on a ferry until 3 hours after we were scheduled to depart. So we spent 4 long hours on Christmas day hanging out in a ferry terminal, unable to understand a single word being spoken! If that's not a special memory, I don't know what is! By the time we made it to Macau, Cirque du Soleil had already started and we weren't even at the Venetian yet....yikes! We rushed over and begged them to let us into a later show. Thankfully, they did! However, we were still bummed that we didn't get to see anything in Macau except the Venetian. So much for a day of being immersed in Portuguese history...

So now that we had a little time before the late show started, we decided to check out the casino. Neither Matt nor I had ever been in a casino and we were amazed with how big it was and how many people were in there. I had to keep reminding myself that it was Christmas Day because it certainly didn't feel like it! While we're not usually in favor of gambling, we couldn't resist spending $100 HK (that's about $13 USD) on slot machines. First up was Matt...

Concentrating hard on his first pull. No pictures allowed in the casino, but we took our chances and snapped a few!

Next it was my turn...

Ready for my one and only pull...

That right there is my winnings...$470 HK dollars which equals $60 USD! Score!! We quickly cashed out. Things were finally looking up!

Look at all those people at the casino! Yep, this was definitely a unique Christmas!

Another forbidden picture taken in the casino. I'm so daring ;)

The Venetian had an amazing lobby in the casino, complete with curved escalators (we'd never seen any before), a beautiful ceiling and a HUGE Christmas tree!

Just as we expected it to be, Zaia was awesome! It was a great way to end a semi-stressful day.

After we left the Venetian, we headed back to the ferry terminal and begged our way onto a midnight ferry (they didn't want to let us due to the earlier time we were supposed to go back). We arrived back at the hotel around 2 a.m. and made sleepy phone calls to our families on Christmas day. Though the day didn't turn out exactly like we wanted it to, we still got a lot accomplished...and regardless of the stress and disappointments, we still made LOTS of memories just like we set out to do!

We hope everyone had a GREAT Christmas filled with lots of fun and special memories of your own :)