macau | FridgeMagnet Tales

It was day 3 of our trip to Hong Kong. Our destination for the day was Macau – we had planned to do a day-trip covering most of the must-visit places in the city.

Starting the day with 3 breakfasts

As you make your way down the Central-Mid-levels escalator in the morning, the smell of freshly baked goodies would drag you into the bakery called Bakehouse. There was a line at 8 am itself! I have a weakness for bakeries and wanted to eat everything! Since that wasn’t possible, we went for the beef rendang pie, vanilla custard doughnut and egg tart. Everything was delicious! The egg tart felt like a warm hug with a crispy flaky outer cover.

bakehouse in hong kong — Freshly baked goodies at Bakehouse

Next stop was a tiny place called Fineprint. It had a very unique vibe – dimly lit, a long table in the center and people sitting all around. Most of them were occupied with their own laptops or books. We ordered a half and half – avocado toast on one side and tomato with feta on the other. It was too good – I had never tasted avocado like this before – it was the perfect combination with the buttered crispy sourdough bread!

Best avocado toast ever at Fineprint — Discovering delicious food in the tiny lanes of HK

It's tough to find the place as it doesn't have a prominent signage — Discovering delicious food in the tiny lanes of HK

Our third breakfast was a small one – pineapple bun with BBQ pork and wife cake (one story goes that a baker loved his wife’s creation of wintermelon pastry so much that he named it “Wife cake”) at Hang Heung bakery. All these places were on our way to the Macau ferry terminal – so we could just keep eating without any deviations.

pineapple buns and wife cakes — Pineapple buns and wife cakes

The ferry terminal at Sheung Wan

Google maps showed us that the ferry terminal was right across the road. But there was no way to cross it – and Maps told us to go half a kilometer down the road and then cross. We stood there for a minute eating our pineapple bun – the bun helped slow us down. That’s when we noticed the metro station entrance right there – and it had an exit on the other side!

Pro tip: don’t always be in a rush. Sometimes it helps to slow down – it opens up new options.

As soon as we entered the ferry terminal, we realised that we hadn’t carried our Hong Kong PAR form. But we felt safe as we had the entry slips which we got at immigration. They asked for neither as we exited immigration to board our ferry. They just looked at the passport and let us go. Huge sigh of relief!

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As with all my itinerary blogs, I’ll start this one with the origin story – why did we even make a Hong Kong itinerary?

Nam is a huge fan of Imagine Dragons and she was tracking their latest world tour to see if they would pass by somewhere near India. The closest options were Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Singapore and Bangkok (Thailand). All of these places had one thing in common – we could imagine them as being part of a larger trip. Then we saw Hong Kong – a place I’ve always wanted to visit!

It was small enough to cover in 3-4 days and was far enough away from everywhere else that we wouldn’t club it with anything else. Also, a close friend of mine lived in Hong Kong and I hadn’t met him in some time. Enough reasons to pick that as the destination! We bought tickets on Viagogo and got started with trip planning!

Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. In 1997, it was handed over by the UK to China after their 99-year lease expired. Given its strategic location in the Asia-Pacific region, it evolved from a fishing village to one of the financial capitals of the world (like New York and London). It is also blessed with one the deepest natural maritime ports in the world – it ranks among the top ports in the world in terms of activity.

The word Hong Kong means “fragrant harbour” referring to the incense that used to be traded here.

Hong Kong culture and modernity - Hong Kong itinerary — Temples and skyscrapers co-exist in Hong Kong

Hong Kong has the highest number of skyscrapers in the world with the number standing at above 550. The definition of a skyscraper is that the building should be taller than 150 m. The region is also the 4th most densely populated in the world. Enter the contradiction – over 75% of land is not used for development and is covered by dense green cover. This can also be found in the heart of the city – we’ll explore these places in later blogs.

On the north of Hong Kong is the Silicon Valley of China, Shenzhen (the third most populous in China) and Macau which lies to its west in the South China Sea.

Macau is a former Portuguese colony and feels like a bit of Europe planted in China. It is a unique experience as well and something that we were also looking forward to.

hong kong itinerary blog — Hong Kong and Macau in the South China Sea

I was particularly excited about this trip because of the food and culture. I had never been to China before and Hong Kong would be a perfect fusion of China and a typical global city. This is also the trip where both Nam and I realised that we were both “city-people” – people who are more excited about travelling to cities.

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