What a week last week was! On Monday 15th March, Stef’s job as Business Manager at JP Morgan was confirmed, pending successful background checks, work permit application and providing HK ID cards for both of us. She’ll probably start towards the end of April or even early May. She’s been interviewing in Quarry Bay on Hong Kong Island East, where they have an impressive building, but will be based at Sha Tin in the New Territories most of the time. Sha Tin is home to one of HK’s two horse racing courses and is set by the Shing Mun River Channel, it also has the 10,000 Buddha’s Monastery, parks and generally feels like a very relaxed and homely suburb- I’m sure it’s not like that when you get inside the JP Morgan building though. And best of all it’s only a 45 minute drive from our flat in Mui Wo, but more of that later...
JP Morgan Chase at One Island East Quarry Bay
JP Morgan Chase at Sha Tin - can you see a plane in the picture?
Local food area to the office
The successful applicant
On Tuesday we went to the local island(s) of Macao - well one hour away by JetFoil boat. We’d visited it back in 2005, but since the Casino boom of recent years, it’s changed dramatically, with new vast casino/hotel complexes being built on reclaimed land, such as the Venetian, Hard Rock, Grand Hyatt and Four Seasons – they call it the 'Cotai Strip' and it's a mini Vegas in the making. It has a proper airport now, located on Taipa. The islands of Macao, Taipa and Coloane have now been fused into one, by the land reclamation project and new bridges. Macao trades on its well-preserved colonial-era buildings and as a gambling weekend resort. The Portuguese colony was returned to China in 1999, two years after the British returned Hong Kong. Like Hong Kong, Macao is a 'Special Admin Region' (SAR) which means it benefits from the principles of "one country, two systems". Questioning the benefits of the "one country" (read Beijing) is the source of hundreds of miles of local media speculation every day...
Jorge Alvares
During ancient times Macau port was part of the Silk Road, ships were loaded with silk bound for Rome. Jorge Alvares landed in Southern China in 1513 and set about finding suitable trading posts and in the 1550s the Portuguese colonised Macao. These days Macao has a population of around 0.5M.
The terminal boats to Macau on the left, blue Cotai strip boats on the right
Leaving from the main sea terminal and heliport on the west of Central district on HK Island, located at the Shun Tak Centre (above Sheung Wan MTR station) we boarded the red JetFoil boat (red one’s go to Macau and blue Cotai marked boats go to Taipa). The boats run every 15 minutes through the day and night and cost approx. £30 each return. You need to be at the terminal 30 minutes before departure and can buy tickets from the machines (or internet) on the day. We went on a spring week day, which I suspect is less busy than on a summer w/e. In Macao, Pataca (MOP$) are the currency, linked to the HK$ and worth approx the same, the HK$ is also accepted, even with change given in HK$, so we didn’t buy any local currency. The following 4 photos are from our 2005 trip as we didn't have time to visit the old town again this time - see Stef's hair..
Senate Square
Santa Casa de Miscericordia an old refuge for orphans & prostitutes
Buildings in the Largo de Senado (Senate Square)
Me and Stef at Ruinas de Sao Paulo
The photos below onwards are from this year's Macao trip.
The Sai Van Bridge
Between Macao and Taipa there are now three bridges, the Sai Van Bridge, Macao-Taipa Bridge and the Friendship Bridge. On the right hand side of the picture is the newly developed theme park area known as Fisherman's Wharf.
Map of Fisherman's Wharf theme park
Fisherman's Wharf - fake Tang Dynasty Temple food mall & volcano behind!
Fisherman's Wharf - one of the entrances to theme park
The impressive Grande Lisboa Hotel and Casino
Nam Van and Sai Van Lakes & Macao tower
Stef by the Nam Van lake
St Lawrence's Church with the Church of Our Lady of Penha behind
46 days to the World Expo in Shanghai
The activities we will NOT be doing from the Macao Tower
Impressive views from the 338M Macao Tower
Looking towards the old town
Parts of the flooring are glass!
Bungy jump point
Managed to get this photo as the guy launched himself off!
On a clear day you can see Hong Kong apparently...
Overlooking the two lakes
The Venetian - no photos in the casino please..
On Wednesday, my sister-in law Olivia was due to give birth to our latest nephew. However, the birth eventually happened at 13:42 on Thursday 18th March, when 3.045kg Charlie Amistoso Brown was born in the Queen Mary Hospital to the proud parents, Steve and Olivia. A little brother for Ben and Isabella. On Saturday 20th we had a welcome home party for Olivia and Charlie. Charlie remained quiet whilst we let off the party poppers and seems generally very content. Unlike some new baby’s who are jaundiced and very wrinkled at birth, looking like ET, Charlie seems in a good shape! And of course the beauty of having a niece or nephew is, that when the crying or demands start you can make for the exits (clearly marked in any house, restaurant, cinema, shopping centre…) – no matter what age they are! Sure we’ll die sad and lonely having no children ourselves, but we’ll have had no child stress getting to our deathbeds.
Steve and son
And finally, on Friday we had OUR baby, which much to our surprise and joy turned out to be black! It’s a BMW Z3 2.8 convertible, which Stef will drive to work from Mui Wo to Sha Tin on a daily basis. I guess I’ll get it at the weekends... We found it after weeks of research on the local websites, we found the car on http://hongkong.asiaxpat.com/ where you can find anything from buying/selling house/flats to finding maids, jobs and future partners! It also just so happened that we brought the car from its Dutch owner Jan in Sha Tin – so there are a few coincidences! It cost not much more than the price of a few litres of petrol in Europe these days... Driving our new baby back home from Sha Tin gave us Stef’s journey time to work, approx 45 minutes each way. Before she starts we’ll do a few practice runs from Mui Wo over the Lantau mountains to Tung Chung (where HK Chek Lap Kok airport is), onto the Tsing Yi bridge and along the Tsing Sha expressway and finally through the Shing Mun tunnel into Sha Tin. It costs HK$25 in tolls each way, that’s about £5 a day, where we paid £8 a day for the London congestion charge.
Not bad eh?!
She looks good by Pui O beach - 6 miles from Mui Wo
Got some water buffalo muck on the wing
Cheeky!
Only downside is, it's an automatic..
And that's it for this blog! Tomorrow we're flying to Melbourne for 3 days, Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef for some scuba diving (maybe underwater photos of Great White Sharks!) for 6 days and finally down to Sydney for 4 days. So hopefully some exciting blogs coming up.. Bye for now!
