February 2nd: MACAU!!!

Day 17, 7AM: I wake up in eager anticipation of my first trip outside HK since I arrived! CS, Wai Zin, Chang Sheng, Ri Huang, Lucas (a friend of Chang Sheng’s from Singapore who is an exchange student at another university in HK), Deborah, two of CS’s colleagues, and I all gathered and took the MTR to the ferry where we caught the 9AM one to Macau. Now, I’m skipping stuff because the details are quite uninteresting until we actually arrive. Actually, I take that back. The ferry is a very nice boat where there are many comfortable seats and it takes about an hour to go from HK to Macau. If you are unaware of Macau and what it is, I suggest looking it up on Wikipedia. Or, I can tell you it’s a former Portuguese colony that is now a special administrative region of China and is known as the Las Vegas of the East, so basically it’s an Asian Las Vegas with an interesting history. But back to the ferry. I have never been on a boat for very long before, because I’m never near large bodies of water that I care to travel on. Historically, I have a weak stomach and get carsick easily, so I was none too happy to try an hour long ferry. The trip begins and I’m doing well because I can see out a window on one side. As the trip progresses I find myself devoting more and more brainpower to thinking about not getting seasick, which of course only tells me that I am indeed getting seasick. That was one of the longest hours of my life. I managed to prevent myself from getting completely sick, but I did hastily depart the boat once it arrived.




I'm not sure why i was so surprised here


I saw this thing when getting off the boat and have no idea what it is, but it looked sort of cool.


Me, Chang Sheng, and Ri Huang

So we get off the boat and go through customs without any problems, only to emerge and find out two things about Macau. First, it’s very cold. Second, it’s very rainy. Oh joy. So we begin by taking a free shuttle bus to a casino not to gamble there, but rather because it’s near our destination: Portuguese Egg Tarts! Now I have never heard of this food before, but everyone else I was with seemed really excited to try them and apparently they’re famous. I guess it’s just more of my cultural education. We ended up walking through our first casino which wasn’t very impressive, but it was out of the cold and rain so I wasn’t complaining much. So after much wondering and being rainy and cold (yes, rainy and cold will be a recurring theme of the trip) we finally found the place and bought our egg tarts.


Egg Tarts!!!


Our group


Me trying the egg tart


lots of these motorbikes around



After our egg tart breakfast we headed to a museum area of sorts called the Ruins of St. Pauls. It’s basically a huge church that was built a long time ago and burned down in a fire, so only the front façade and the crypt remain. There’s a very small museum there that has artifacts in one room and the preserved crypt in the other room. I must admit that it was weird to see crypts stacked on the wall with glass windows so you could actually see the bones inside. I’ve never been that close to actual human remains (that I know of). So we wondered around there for a bit, and then headed to another museum through the cold and rain, but lucky for us it was just next door.



The ruins


Me standing in the center window in the freezing rain!


Lucas and Chang Sheng


The area of the burned church with the museum behind

After paying a small entry fee we wondered around in there for an hour or so and I learned all about the history of Macau and some interesting facts about ship trading in the 1600s. I enjoy learning about history, and so it was quite interesting to see all the artifacts and read about their origins and significance. A lot of the museum was also set up to compare and contrast East and West during the settlement of Macau, which provided an interesting comparison. Admittedly, we stayed in the museum longer than we would have usually, because we were waiting and hoping the weather outside would get better and it was warm inside.






one of those cut out things for your head



After the museum we walked outside and discovered that the weather had indeed changed… for the worse. Now it was even colder and more windy! Despite our hardship we ventured for a somewhat long walk to an authentic Portuguese restaurant for lunch (despite it being almost 3PM). The food was decent; I ate pork chops and garlic bread while most other people tried somewhat more exotic foods. Personally, I didn’t want to try the Ox-tail Spaghetti.

Check out this link and scroll down to see the foods we ate http://simplewords.genexis.net/?p=600

Next we took another long walk over to The Venetian casino. Like I said earlier, Macau is largely a gambling city an very similar to Las Vegas, so many of the casinos in Vegas built or are building casinos in Macau so they don’t get left out of the action. This was my first time in a casino, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. The first thing I noticed was that there were lots of employees. I know that casinos have lots of money and want to be as nice as people, but they had four people outside the entrance we went in just for the sake of holding the doors open. So, the pictures tell a lot of the story here, but they need a bit of explanation.







I was in a contemplative mood


ironically, this picture was just after we had lunch. What i would have given for a nice juicy hamburger right then if i hadn't been stuffed full...

So, would you believe me if I told you that this picture was taken on the second story of the casino? Yup, it’s indoors. They basically have the first floor dedicated to the gambling area, then the second story is expensive shopping in a Venetian atmosphere. There were even gondolas (the boat kind, not the type I went to see the Buddha in) with the gondoliers singing in Latin.



Myself and Ri Huang wondered around for an hour and a half or so before meeting up with the rest of the group. We did eventually wonder down into the main casino area where Ri Huang explained some of the games I hadn’t seen before and so we wondered around there and watched people play. The area was quite large, but I had honestly expected it to be bigger. They don’t allow you to take pictures of the casino area, so I am unable to show it to you.

After we all met up we then headed over to the Sands casino. First though, we had to stand in line in the freezing cold (but we were under a cover so no rain where we were standing) while waiting for the shuttle to arrive. The Sands Casino and The Venetian are owned by the same company, which is why there is a free shuttle between them. Why were we headed to The Sands? That’s where we were going for our dinner buffet! So we arrive at The Sands and decide we still have a lot of time before our dinner reservation, so we walked next door to another museum. It’s called the Macau Handover Museum, which needs some explanation. Macau rejoined China in 1999 and when it happened all the provinces in China gave Macau gifts to celebrate. This museum houses all those gifts and explains what each one means.






I thoroughly enjoyed the museum because I could examine the amazing craftsmanship of each piece and see the intricacy of the design. After that we walked about over to The Sands, but were still early for dinner. I personally liked the design of the Casino better, where the first floor had a non-smoking gambling area, the second floor was a large smoking gambling area, and the third floor was the same as the second floor. Again, Ri Huang and myself walked around the casino area on the second floor watching the games and having fun. I’m still not used to indoor smoking here and it bothers me a great deal. As I could feel my lungs filling up with happy second hand smoke and carcinogens I just kept reminding myself “it’s a new experience, and one I will hopefully not repeat again (the smoking part).” Finally it was time for dinner and the food was decent. I just ate a ton of the watermelon and pretzel bread because the main dishes were mainly seafood or other things that did not look appetizing. Because I was with my Singapore friends who place a high value on quality food they were amazed that I was eating so much break and watermelon when there was all the other food to try. I can understand their point, but I know that I like those foods and they were quite tasty, so the opportunity cost of eating other foods was simply too high (yes, I just brought econ into my dinner).









After dinner we split up again and I went with Chang Sheng, Lucas, and Deborah to the first floor gambling area where Lucas and Chang Sheng played some roulette. I should also explain here that casinos today are largely automated. This means that you place bets on your personal touch screen around the table and the roulette game is automated so that the wheel spins and the ball then shoots out. After it lands the wheel raises up and the ball falls beneath before the process is repeated again. It was interesting to watch and I learned a lot about gambling strategy by watching them play.

After that we split into two groups, with some of us going across the border to China for the night and the rest of us heading back to HK. So, we headed back to the ferry on the free bus (you have to love the free buses) and left to go back to HK. This time I managed to get some sleep on the ferry and avoid getting sea sick. In fact, the ride back was quite enjoyable. I managed to keep myself in that half sleep for most of the time, which for me is where I get my best thinking done. I actually managed to plan out several details of the company I want to eventually found as well as getting some contemplation about life finished. To be honest, I was very sad when we arrived because I enjoyed thinking so much. Anyways, that was my trip, and it was certainly memorable.






The Sands from the Ferry