WHEN FRIENDS COME TO VISIT - PART 2

My friend, Chuma decided she wanted to spend her birthday in Hong Kong and Macau. It's not every day that a person can have the luxury of celebrating their actual birthday in two places!I have old and new friends in both places; you can refer to my article on “How to Make and Keep Friends” for more ideas about communicating with friends overseas. YiTian (Tina) is a former EF colleague who became a dear friend. She lives Hong Kong and was now our designated tour guide around the island. In Macau, I have some old friends of mine who we visited. Hannah is a Principal Research Fellow at the United Nations University Institute on Computing and Society(UNU-CS) there.

As you get out of customs, you'll see all the major hotel groups have a guest services counter at the airport. To get to our hotel, we had two options; we could either use the hotel taxi service and pay 170 HKD (about 21 USD) each, or we could take the airport express to a central station and pay 75 HKD (about 10 USD) each. From there, we could hop on the free shuttle to our hotel. We went for the latter option. It was super easy to get tickets and it helps that most people in Hong Kong speak English.

As club members, we were given the option to check in on the 41st floor. Also our elevators were separate from ‘normal' guests of the hotel. We got there and were escorted to the private lounge for something to drink. That “something to drink” turned out to be a gorgeous spread of finger foods and bottomless drinks. It was quite possibly the happiest hour of my life! I follow a mostly plant-based way of eating. However, Belgian waffles plus the most amazing Swiss ice cream were served at breakfast time. “You only live once” they say; so I indulged. The view of the Victoria harbour was just breathtaking. I highly recommend this hotel to anyone travelling to Hong Kong.

We asked Tina to plan exciting, touristy things that a visitor who has two days must see. We took the MRT (Hong Kong underground system) as the main mode of transportation. The evening ferry ride around the harbour was a highlight. The hop-on-off bus is a must to see the main sights of Hong Kong quickly. We also took a mini bus to the peak and had an incredible dinner at the top of the peak. After we experienced all we could in Hong Kong, my friends and I headed to the Ferry Terminal where we'd be in Macau in an hour.

We stayed at the one of the best Macau hotels located within City of Dreams in the Cotai area. We had the fountain view, which was extremely beautiful and mesmerizing. The hotel even had a Jacuzzi, which we took full advantage of! The area that our hotel was in is equivalent to the Las Vegas strip in America and was in a prime location.