All three cities are alike in ways but SO different in most others. I mean obviously they are all Asian cities so the local customs, exotic food with seafood and rice (mostly for me), doing everything on the left, the languages, etc are all crazy and weird and fun (and sometimes very trying) in the same ways so my overall impression of them is sort of 'lumped' together - but they really are all 3 vastly different places. Just the look of the cities themselves are so different...
Bangkok is a very spread out, huge city with skyscrapers every couple of blocks on a pretty much flat landscape. The streets are super crowded, messy and full of people going places during the day and full of people trying to sell you things at night. Hong Kong is very modern city (it feels a lot like NYC) packed with beautiful skyscapers all jammed together on busy (but orderly) streets because it is all built on a narrow, long piece of land between big mountains (which the city goes right up) and the ocean. Whereas Singapore while also a very modern city with two small central districts of skyscrapers is much more relaxed with large well laid out streets and lots of space - and while Hong Kong felt SUPER clean compared to Bangkok, Singpore feels absolutely sterile. There are so many signs about what you will be fined for it starts to get funny after a while - I mean this is the first thing you see when you enter the country (followed by a military guy with a MACHINE gun at the airplane exit)...
But I digress... they were all very interesting places full of polite - usually friendly people and I had a great time visting them all - I would come back to Hong Kong anytime for fun, but if I really wanted another vacation here it would have to be an island somewhere off of Phuket somewhere... NICE..
My last day in Bangkok turned out to be one of my best actually - I'd made a local friend by then so I was able to get a more personal tour ;0) It also meant I could travel using some of the more 'out the way' ways... like these canal boats full of people (super cheap) that go all over the city...
We went to a House of a rich silk trader that's been turned into a museum and checked out Thai artifacts and traditional archiecture which was very cool
And then he found me some "authentic' Thai dancing ;0) It was a great way to round off my trip there...
Then I was off to meet my friend David (from Boston) in Hong Kong, with a night's stopover in Macau first for some fun...
Like Hong Kong, this city is a 'special administrative zone', which means it's technically part of China, but follows it's own rules (which were Western - Capitalistic ones). You can see why the city is called the Vegas of the East...
Unfortuantley there wan't any poker there (crap!) so we just walked around, played some blackjack (David made money and I lost mine as usual ;0) and soaked up the Vegas nightlife for a bit (its a LOT tamer and a LOT brighter than Vegas... and I think guys I go on my yearly trip to Vegas would be very dissapointed by the length of casino girl's skirts here)...
Macau during the day is much different. When you go to the center of town you can easily imagine it's Portugeuse roots - not many of them around now (athough they're forced to have all signs in English, Portugeuse and Chinese there, which is fun)...
And after a hard day of sightseeing, you built up an apetite... I had the Duck... although Turtle soup sounded interesting....
I'm glad I had the chance to see Macau... but I was very happy to finally get into Hong Kong..
It looks a lot like some of the other cities in some parts (which means you still get all the good food and exotic/ strange stuff)...
But for the most part its a very modern... very Western place (they do a very cool lazer show every night, accompanied with some not-so-snappy music)...
Getting around there can be a bit tricky though... this is the line for the subway (luckily I had David with me so we got up there pretty fast ;0)
After that stress it was time for some relaxation:
Follwed by something I'd never done before... Horse Racing... it's very big here, in fact it's pretty much followed me around this entire trip (you'll recall i was there for THE horse racing event of the year in Melbourne...).
That's my horse NOT coming across the line first... I did win one out of 8... and it was a very fun experience... David had a little more fun as he was actually winning every once in a while... (luckily the exchange rate's ok here... so wasn't spending too much money).
Had a great time there just walking around (got lots more pics for anyone interested of course)... we also did Tea @ The Pennisula hotel (which is THE high society thing to do) - it was great... i haven't had that much sugar for a long time and lots of stuff during the days... and thankfully the clubs here were great so our nights were nice and full and active as well..
It was really great having a friend with me (especially one who knew his way around a bit).
I had to say goodbye to David eventually though and headed off to Singapore... got in late and had a good sleep before heading out to explore the city for the day... Of course I had to start it off right (thats crispy baby squid salad... yumm):
This was after my first drink actualy which was a Singapore Sling @ Raffles Long Bar... a great old colonial builidng and THE tourist thing to do... it was very sweet and good..
It's a bit on the "clean' side there and there are signs everywhere telling you what not to do (they do let you chew gum now) and I did jaywalk... glad I didnt' get caught as I found out later its a $1000 dollar fine... woops... it also has a very Western (alomst like a big mall in parts) feel to it (it was an English colony after all):
But because it's such a melting pot of culture (its a major port between all the coutnries in the region) and since it's made up mostly of Chinese and Malay people it still has some interesting things to see and do.. this also means that right next to a big ol' Christian church your likely to find a Muslin mosque or a Buddist temple or even one devoted to Hindism (like the great one below with all the Indian gods on it and some firewalkers inside - a great ritual to watch complete with some lively music that sounded a lot like jazz ;0)
I also hit the Asian Civilizations Museum... which had fascinating exhibits on all the majore Asian culutres... I like this Confusious like saying on the wall saying that while parents are alive children must not travel great distances... but I'm glad I don't adhere too strictly - although I'm sure Mom wouldn't mind ;0)
There's also a really cool statue things spewing water into the harbor (its the city mascot) called a Merlion... ok.....
It was a nice chill city to wind down my time in this part of the world before heading back to Oz.
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