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Round the World in 205 Days

January - August 2019
A journal of the Jones Family sabbatical 2019 Read more
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  • Round the World in 205 Days
    Day 4

    On the world's longest bridge to Macao

    February 1, 2019 in Macao ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C

    Managed to get the crew up this morning at a decent hour and moving to catch the Hong Kong Zhuhai Macao Bridge shuttle bus to Macao. We rode with the locals over the $19 billion investment, which is just about to celebrate its first anniversary, reflecting that it cost over 3x what Trump wants for his wall. It was a smooth, efficient journey with a few short queues along the way; all in all a convenient way to get between Hong Kong and Macao.

    We stayed at the Rio on the North side of the bridge (not Cotai) - there is a network of hotel shuttles that take you all over Macao for free. It is not super efficient, as there is a bit of waiting time at each transfer and almost every jump is via the Macao Ferry Terminal, but when you learn the lay of the land (i.e., hotel map) you can take better advantage of inter-hotel transfers.    Read more

  • Round the World in 205 Days
    Day 4

    First things first - to the playpark!

    February 1, 2019 in Macao ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    We have discovered that all playgrounds/ playparks in Macao come equipped with the same yellow and red adult exercise equipment - complete with government-issue security guard who ensures that users of the exercise equipment are at least 12 years old. After Davy got busted (which is how we found out about the age requirement) Meg was so proud that she managed to break the rules and capture a snapshot on one of the machines! Macao is also home to the signature single-seat bench, as well as some other cool whirly pieces that we hadn’t seen before.Read more

  • Round the World in 205 Days
    Day 4

    Monkey zen

    February 1, 2019 in Macao ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    Snuck into an active Buddhist temple, where a meditation and chanting rehearsal was underway, and found some great mi彌-le勒-fuo佛 statuettes - including one holding a monkey and a book - how cool is that?! So far Davy’s had some really good luck finding hidden monkeys everywhere.Read more

  • Round the World in 205 Days
    Day 4

    What's a ruin?

    February 1, 2019 in Macao ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    Spent the afternoon wandering around the non-casino side of old Macao. Lots of narrow winding roads, quaint little shops, and funky English signage. We (well at least Mommy) came across quite a few mouth-watering street food stands - bowls of soup noodles with beef or fish seem popular - looking forward to giving some a try.

    We took a pause by two religious places: First a living, active Christian church and then the ruins of St. Paul’s. The latter gave us a perfect segue to answer Davy’s questions about whether there were churches that were no longer active but kept in some reasonable state for tourists. Not all are ruins of course!    Read more

  • Round the World in 205 Days
    Day 5

    Venetian

    February 2, 2019 in Macao ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    Largest casino in the world - apparently bigger than its little Las Vegas cousin. We couldn't get onto the casino floor as an age limit is strictly enforced - we might have been able to squeeze Davy through, but Meg's still a bit tough to pass for 21.

    Not too sure what we expected, but the place is an enormous shopping mall of all the most expensive Western brands. We counted at least three wings that only had Swiss stuff - lots of Geneva watch brands that we'd never heard of before - probably because they don't let us into those stores in Geneva either! All the shop staff looked bored stiff - the place was fairly full for the off season, but there was not one customer in any of the stores. Perhaps the real spenders only come out at night.

    Didn't end up spending too much time here (just enough to watch the indoor gondola and singer do his thing - Davy couldn't get over the fact that the gondola had an electric motor instead of the guy pushing it) before heading onward to the old town for our first vegan fare in China!    Read more

  • Round the World in 205 Days
    Day 5

    Taipa village

    February 2, 2019 in Macao ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    After being somewhat underwhelmed by the singing of the gondoliers at the Venetian, we decided for an impromptu change of plan and headed over to Taipa village for a poke around. Very glad that we did, as the casino/ mall scene is not really us! On the way, there was a funky garden with cute Chinese zodiac shrubbery - Davy preferred to pose with the monkey hedge rather than the ox. The village itself was just bustling - lots of little shops, street food, the famous Lord Stow’s Bakery, and the place that we were after - a vegan eatery called the Blissful Carrot.

    Given the ubiquity and prestige of meat consumption in Asia, a bit surprised that such an eatery can survive in Macao. They have been going strong for five years now and are still innovating! We tried some Indian curry and soba salad - both quite yummy - the real hit though was their kombucha. Blissful Carrot kombucha is a sort of homemade iced tea with probiotics and herbs in it to aid in digestion. Not sure if it was super healthful, but we did get a souvenir glass bottle and two cheerful kids.    Read more

  • Round the World in 205 Days
    Day 5

    Macao's best nata - and the winner is...

    February 2, 2019 in Macao ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    So the contest for best nata in Macao is apparently between Lord Stow’s Bakery and his ex-wife Margaret’s shop, Cafe e Nata. We just had to try both and add our two cents to the mix!

    Margaret’s nata are rather eggy, perhaps even slightly underdone. The crust is light, flaky and while we had to wait for the batch to finish baking, as a result we got ours piping hot! The queue of locals and Hongers alike, plus the odd foreign tourist, was impressive. PS: Final verdict is that they are better post-refrigeration, allowing the custard to solidify.

    Lord Stow owns the South Island and we had some birthday nata with singing and everything to celebrate Mommy's day. Stow’s are more buttery, solid and a bit less eggy.

    The winner: (drum roll) Any bakery in Lisbon. The real thing is way better - a little sweeter, custardy and a lot less eggy. Gotta get more next time we're in Lisbon!    Read more

  • Round the World in 205 Days
    Day 5

    House of Dancing Water

    February 2, 2019 in Macao ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    Awesome! What more to say? Sword fights and acrobats diving and flipping from huge heights.

    Did a great job of telling a story with no words at all. Was a classic Chinese “boy fights bad guys with Kung Fu and rescues girl who has amazing magic water powers that she uses to clobber everyone and then boy becomes emperor.” Only problem was that all the acrobats/ swimmers were white... and so obviously couldn't become emperor - so they added two boys who worked together to save the girl (who then revealed that she had the magic power to beat everyone from the get-go of course) and then the Chinese boy becomes emperor and the white boy gets the girl.

    And then they threw in a scene of motor bikes doing jumps and flips because who doesn't like motorbikes?!

    The stage was pretty amazing - floor becomes pool and people go down and never come back up again. Gotta find the kids a show now on how that works!    Read more

  • Round the World in 205 Days
    Day 5

    Ferrari exhibition

    February 2, 2019 in Macao ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    Old Ferraris all over the casino and a history of the making and racing of them. Nice to see the manual process of shaping clay and wood to get the right shape.

    The kids thought that a proper F1 car producing enough down force to be able to drive on the ceiling was pretty cool.

    Anyone paying for this show would be pretty pissed - they were charging, but they had people absolutely everywhere giving out free tickets. Not too sure what the scoop was with that.    Read more

  • Round the World in 205 Days
    Day 5

    City of Dreams

    February 2, 2019 in Macao ⋅ 🌙 19 °C

    Another huge mall full of Swiss watch stores. Apparently gambling makes people want to know what time it is *really* badly. Judging by this place, the less known and therefore apparently more exclusive the watch brand - the better, so long as there's a Swiss flag on it. Rolex was not doing well. Perhaps we'll have to start a new brand with just one expensive watch to sell - the Oisillons Time Piece!

    The best feature of this mall - it has the House of Dancing Water Theatre in it. Oh and random gold dragons all over the place, like this massive one sprawled across the ceiling in one of the atriums. Also other eccentric decor-playpark pieces, like a Giant Eldorado that was turned into a ball pit full of gold leather foam bricks instead of balls and quickly became Meg's go-to hang-out.

    We wanted to pause to have a nata and sing Happy birthday 🎂 to Mommy, but there are no seats in these malls and the place is so shockingly clean that no one was eating anywhere (surprised they let us in actually). We popped just outside one of the hotels to have a quick cake, but when the porter saw us he came over to tell us that the glass above our heads was faulty and we had to move - so we moved five feet and had some cake there. Next time he'll hopefully think of a better BS reason to move the vagrants on!    Read more

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