I'd been up Victoria Peak a couple of times on the bus before deciding to try the famous Peak Tramway funicular. I happen to have a recurring nightmare of driving up an intensely vertical hill where I gain traction, then slip down, down, backward. That happens to be the Victoria Peak tram ride.
Operating since 1888 without a single accident, they say. Up it goes, ascending a dramatic incline then slipping back as it adjusts itself. Coming down isn't any less terrifying because the tram is on a single track and passengers are thrown against their seats in what feels like a backward freefall.
Glad I did it. Once.
On a Sunday afternoon William and I sailed to the island of Macau, a sixty-minute ferry ride from Kowloon. Macau, a Chinese territory settled by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, remained in Portugal's hands until 1999. Today Macau is on a fast track to becoming the Atlantic City of Asia.
Because the Black Ships of Lisbon traded goods between Japan and China from Macau, Portuguese architecture dominates the landscape in pink, yellow and white buildings with arched windows and ornate staircases.
Macau is not, however, a quaint, sleepy fishing village. It's a gambling hub of flashy lights and showy fountains competing with its more vintage aspects.
Wandering up and down the narrow, hilly cobblestone streets, we saw furniture shops filled with reasonably priced pieces that would cost a fortune at home. They're advertised as antiques but I learned that craftspeople here are very good at creating "antiques," so who knows, and really, who cares? I'd have been happy with any of them but wasn't about to start shipping, certainly not without a Black Ship of Lisbon.
We settled into just looking, and lunched on a popular Macau treat: custard tarts. Flaky pastry encasing a creamy and airy pudding. We sat with our paper bag of sweet goodies on the steps outside what was once the Cathedral of St. Paul.
A tall gray stone façade is the only remaining component of the original structure, giving it the appearance of a film set. This poor building apparently never got the memo that it wasn't supposed to be here, ever.
First constructed in 1580, the cathedral barely survived two fires, one in 1595 and another in 1601. It was rebuilt, phew, breathed a sigh of relief and then a typhoon stormed through in 1835 and the building caught fire a third and final time. Periodically the Ruins of St. Paul's are restored...to what? I guess being really good ruins. I can vouch for the ruins as a dandy place to eat tarts on a sunny spring afternoon.
After our day on Macau we headed home to Kowloon. I babbled on to William about tomorrow being the day we would pick up his newly tailored linen suit. He didn't say anything. I did all the talking, using words like dapper, classy and rakish. William studied the shoreline as we breezed by on the ferry. He seemed amused that I didn't get the memo any more than those poor builders of the Cathedral of St. Paul.
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