Musings of a Food and Travel Addict
Sleep? What’s that?
Didn’t sleep well last night, but not tired either this morn. So since I’m up ANYWAY, I think checking out the Big Buddha today would be good. It’ll take a while to get there so leaving early is a good idea. Besides Wor Lau Bau for breakfast sounds really good now.
Just got back from Macau.
HKG maintains a 24 hour frontier with the rest of the world compared to China which closes its border at 0000. I was told that this is for the gamers who play in Macau but need to get back home.
The Turbocat runs every 30 minutes from 2200 to 0600. Wow. That’s better than late night MUNI. And oodles of taxis waiting for the passengers that get off the boat because public transport shuts down at 0100. How convenient!
Ana told me that Steve Wynn of various Las Vegas resorts received a gaming license, thus breaking Stanley Ho’s monopoly on gaming here. It’s a good thing because the Lisboa casino is a dump. “Check Your Guns at the Door” and “No Spitting” is posted at the casino entrance. I would have taken pictures of these signs, except you can’t take pictures in the casino. This is not bullshit!
However, the Lisboa Hotel lobby and rooms have been renovated. It even has some art here which is nice. But when you go downstairs to the shops and canteen, there are a LOT of hookers working the floor. That area at night is known as the Racetrack.
A lot of hookers. Good looking hookers. Zhuhai’s favorite exports.
And for you hom-suppy people out there, over here, it’s a buyer’s market!
We’ve been puttering around the various districts around Macau and I’ll have to admit, I’m rethinking my original opinion of the second SAR of the PRC. It’s more than gaming. I like it. Along with the egg tarts.
Although Macau is still kind of sleepy (many of the shops in the non tourist areas close around 2000) and dangerous looking (lots of dark alleys and the triads are big here), much of the city is still narrow alleys and colonial architecture.
Shopping is scenic, but still no gore-tex to be found.
Macau has been making efforts to preserve many of the old buildings and has aspirations to join the UN’s list of world heritage sites. More power to them.
After two bottles of wine and one big nice lunch, we’re going to do some shopping and walking around. Got to find some gore-tex jackets and what not for China cuz it’s cold there.
So we’ve arrived at Fernando’s, this legendary haunt on one of the outer islands of Macau. It’s a beachfront bar/restaurant serving Macanese food. That’s a mix of Chinese and Portuguese food. Sounds yummy, right? Well, it is. Mmmmmmm.
When we left the ferry pier, the roads surrounding it had still had the race course barriers up from the Macao Grand Prix from the previous weekend. It’s F3 along with a motorcycle race. That would have been cool to see.
Crap!
You need your passport to go ANYWHERE around here. And that’s kinda cool.
I just have to remember to bring it with me. Ana sent me an SMS when I was on the MTR pulling into Wan Chai.
PASSPORT?
Yes, I forgot my passport. Geez. At least I’m only one stop out. Back to Causeway Bay…
So I finally wake up, SMS Ana and get my butt out to the Causeway Bay MTR. We’re going to Macau today, meeting at the HKG-Macau Ferry Terminal in Sheung Wan, which also happens to be the terminus of the Island Line. Verrry convenient.
I finally got my go bag set up. It has the tourbook, cameras (digital & film), notebook (the paper kind), Clie and whatever I pick up on my travels. I think I have everything now.
I’m outta here!
Airport Express to Hong Kong Station, MTR to Causeway Bay.
Thai food for dinner and off to bed. Good night.
So we finally land. Whoo hooo!
But now it takes time to get off the plane since I and others are in the back end of the plane.
Passport Control (a very long wait).
Get the luggage (sort of a wait).
Customs (pretty quick).
Wonder why it takes so long for the bags to show up? I mean, you wait for a realllly long time for Passport Control. You would figure that the ground crew would use that time to get the checked bags onto the carousel so they would be ready for people to pick up.
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