Macau

On Sunday I needed to go to Macau to activate my working visa. I was really lucky as Candy - a really nice Hong Kong Chinese girl accompanied me. Macau is an island 65km west of Hong Kong. The Special Administrative Region of Macau is "Chinese Las Vegas" as it's the only place in China where gambling is legal.

Tough, Candy and I preferred to walk through the streets rather than spending money in casinos. The ruins of the church of St. Paul is one of the most famous scenes in Macau. Once it was a Jesuit church. But in 1835 a fire destroyed the church - with the exception of the portal, statues and engravings you see on the picture below.

As Macau once was a Portuguese colony, you find Portuguese street names as well as buiscuits and other sweet stuff everywhere. And what's best: cookies are for trial ;)

Buddhism and Christianity are equally represented within the city centre.
 

Big Buddha

Saturday was then time to get to another one of Hong Kong's top tourist spots: Tian Tan Buddha (or "Big Buddha" as everyone calls him). The seated Buddha statue is the biggest of its kind in the world. I even saw it when I landed on HK airport. In 1993, Big Buddha was unveiled and it's still the biggest seated bronze statue of Buddha in the world. Getting there is quite convenient - you can take the MTR to Lantau Island where the buddha is situated. From the MTR station there is a hiking trail up to Big Buddha. Or you can go for a 15 minutes trip with the cable car which we did. ;)

 Afterwards, my flatmate and I visited Tai O. It's a village at the west coast of Lantau. It was once home to the Tanka people. Below you can see a picture of the tiny traditional village houses - stilt houses-  that still stand in the centre of Tai O.

Preparing for work

On Friday in my first week I visited BASF's headquarter to meet with the HR responsible because I had 2 important things still to get done:

1. receiving my working visa
2. opening a payroll account

But before going to BASF I had a look at the HSBC building. The headquaters of the Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation was designed by Norman Foster in 1985. Costing over 1 billion USD iIt's said to be the world's most expensive building in that time. Built of glass and aluminium this 52 floor building is full of examples of good feng shui, for example there is no structure blocking its view of Victoria Harbour as water is associated with prosperity. Two bronze lions are guarding the main entrance. They were actually designed for the previous headquaters in 1935.

Luckily, my visa arrived just in time - Friday at noon. So I could pick up the visa documents as well as a letter of BASF stating that I'm working with them until end of March, 2014. That letter enabled me to open a payroll account. Usually, opening a bank account takes 20 minutes in Hong Kong. Tough, I spent more than 1 hour at the citibank branch in Exchange Square 1, Central HK. The assistant was still on training. So she had to double-check all documents with her supervisor. And - if something is supposed to get wrong, it will get wrong - printers were out of order for a couple of minutes, too. But as you see below, I finally received my citibank ATM card. ;)
 

 

As the weather was just perfect - 25°C and sunshine, I decided that time was there for my first visit to one of HK's beaches. The only problem was, that I considered myself more intelligent than Lonely Planet. Therefore, I decided not to follow the instruction to take the MTR and then a bus to Clearwater 2nd beach but to try to walk from the last MTR station to the beach. Well, when I arrived at the final MTR station, I found myself at the end of a residential area with skycrapers only. No water or beach to be seen somewhere. So in the end, I stopped a taxi and tried to explain the driver where I wanted to go. Well, he did not really know where Clearwater 2nd beach was, but he tried his best figuring that out on the map while driving! at the same time. When he noticed, that he was not able to find the beach he called the general office. Luckily, they found the location and told him how to get there. As you can see below, it was definitely worth going there! Besides myself there were only 5 other people at the beach. So after one week wandering the crowded streets of Hong Kong, I enjoyed two hours of fresh air and quietness. ;)

 

IFC & Tsim Sha Tsui East Promenade

On Thursday, I meet Sherman, a Hong Kong Chinese man, working with Deloitte. He took me to a traditional dim sum place in Sheung Wan. I would have hardly been able to find the restaurant on my own as the restaurant was on the 2nd and 3rd floor. It's more a place for locals to have lunch. I was the only non-Chinese speaking one. So I was glad that my companion asked for the dim sums. Dim sum are Cantonese snacks served with tea for breakfast or lunch. Each dish is shared among the people sitting at the table. As it was an old-style restaurant the waiter passed by with a cart. All we did was stopping him and choosing from the cart. And everything we chose was really yummy. ;)

As the weather was finally sunny, Sherman recommended me to go to IFC to visit the museum of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. One IFC and Two IFC is Hong Kong's most luxurious shopping mall with more than 200 fashion boutiques. The Monetary Authority is on 55th floor in Two IFC. You have a perfect view up there.

 

 And besides the view - I learned something about Hong Kongs's currency.

In the evening I took the Star Ferry over to Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade to see the sunset. This was actually quite nice, too.

The Story of Hong Kong

Well, time is passing by quite quickly. As you noticed, I still haven't even finished describing my first week. So here we go:

On Wednesday I went to the Hong Kong Museum of History. The permanent exhibition "The Story of Hong Kong" guides through the history of Hong Kong territory - starting wit prehistoric Hong Kong and ending with Hong Kongs return to China in 1997.

You learn a lot about the ethnic minorities that lived here, too. Before Hong Kong a British colony there were 4 main Chinese ethnic groups living in Hong Kong: the Punti, the Hakka, the Boat Dwellers and the Hoklo. The Punti ("local people") migrated into the region now known as Hong Kong around 960-1127 and settled on the fertile plains where they engaged in farming, farmland leasing and small businesses. The Hakka ("guest people"), who migrated into Hong Kong much later than the Punti, could only settle in relatively remote and infertile hill areas. The sea-born Boat Dwellers lived by fishing in the waters of the Pearl River delta.The Hoklo  originally came from coastal places such as Huizhou. They mostly settled in Hong Kong as fisherfolk.

If you ever came here to walk through the museum yourself, I can give you 2 advices: 1. Go on a Wednesday, too. As it's free admission. 2. Come here in the morning. The museum will be captured by hundreds of juniors who go there with their history teachers from noon until the museum closes.











In the evening I went to a film festival where they were showing independent movies. The venue was actually quite cool - as it was the Hong Kong Arts Centre. The film "Exodus of nowhere" consisted of several parts - each dealing with another issue about life in Hong Kong, e.g. the relationship between mainland Chinese and Hong Kong Chinese people.