Hong-Kong

Macau & Doha

July 2009

When my brother called me a few weeks earlier to come and spend some holidays in the South, I told him those dates wouldn’t work as I would be on a business trip in Asia.

This was my first long-haul for this this employer. So he asked if he could come along. Therefore we extended the dates and went to discover this little part of Asia.

We flew Qatar Airways from CDG via Doha where we had a stop-over and visited the place, but more on that later.

We got there late afternoon local time and after fixing a slight problem with the booking and unpacking we headed of through Causeway Bay by foot, then caught a Metro across the straight to the mainland part of town where we ended up in the Kowloon district, strolling along the night markets and finally settling to indulge some local colorful food.

On the next morning, after an Asian breakfast, we walked through Honk Kong Island pounded by the hot and moist air. As every,  tourist we caught the cable car that would take us to The Peak for a breathtaking view of the skyscraper forest!

After lunch at the top, we caught a cab back down the other side to the Aberdeen district for an afternoon on the beach. The water wasn’t very inviting but as Tim said: “That’s another sea off the bucket list” !

After a shower to remove whatever was in that water, we walked to the center of Aberdeen indulging the rush hour atmosphere and then went for diner and the legendary JUMBO floating restaurant.

The next couple of days we moved over to Kowloon where we had a room at the Sheraton, as my event took place there. As I did the job, Tim went exploring more places and strange habits.

One evening as we were having a late diner, the day before the main meeting I was assigned to, I unfortunately drank a whole jar of tea. Add to that the jet lag and I didn’t get a minute of sleep that night!

The day after I was done with my work, we decided to catch the one-hour ferry to nearby former Portuguese colony: Macau. The Asian Vegas!

Having visited the old town, had a peak into the casinos and went for the mandatory swim on a Macau beach (... bucket list!...), we caught the ferry back to Hong Kong where we had the nice surprise to come across the Beerfest in Central.

Then, the eight hour flight back to Doha where we had a 6 hour stop-over, strolling through the construction sites of this Dubai replica.

Unfortunately, that’s where the taxi dropped us when we said “City Center” and we totally missed the old town.

Instead of traditional shaded souks and mint tea stands, we walked amongst the to-be skyscrapers put together by Philippine slaves and ended up having breakfast at Starbucks in the western-style mall, hosting an ice-skating rink when the outside temperatures were nearing 50°C!

Once again the bucket list took us over and this time whatever was in the water we need that refresher! Persian Gulf: DONE!

Feeling slightly cooler, another 6 hours Up In The Air before touchdown at CDG.

Really cool discovering the world with the Bro!

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