Mid-term Macau and Cancelled Camping

Over mid-term break, some friends and I decided to plan a trip away from campus for a few days; first going camping at Tai Long Wan, Hong Kong's nicest beach, then crossing the Pearl River delta by ferry to Macau.  In the end, only half of this happened, but it was still a great break from school.

Two days before the break, when I had to get my overnight stays approved by LPC, I heard from a teacher that unsupervised camping is illegal.  Somehow wholesome hiking, camping, and swimming is illegal, but taking an hour and a half ferry to Macau, the biggest gambling city in the world, was allowed by the administration.  Anyways, my friend James invited us over to his house on Thursday instead of camping, and we went out for some Italian food and a movie.  We watched "We're the Millers", which I tried to watch 2 months prior in the US, until my sister accidentally ditched me .  Thanks Hollywood for the delayed release in Asia!

The next day, I returned to school, grabbed my clothes, camera, and passport and headed to the ferry terminal.  Our group bought tickets, went through security, then hopped on the comfortable high speed ferry.  An hour and a half later, we ended up in a very different city, with Portuguese signs everywhere and a completely different skyline. Of course we had to pass through customs, but using our Hong Kong residency cards, we managed to skip the long line filled with mainland Chinese trying to go to the casinos. 

MGM Grand...Not our hotel, but we took their bus by accident and went into the lobby

By a combination of complementary casino bus and taxi, we arrived at our hotel and checked in.  Afterwards, we started walking around until we found a good place for dinner.  We ended up at a Portuguese restaurant, where we ate great seafood, stews, and bread.  When people from my group tried to talk in Portuguese to the waiters, no one understood.  Macau may have many signs and buildings from Portuguese colonialism, but during our entire trip we only met one Portuguese speaker, and he wasn't even a local.

Near the restaurant

The skyline

 

After dinner, we walked around the city for a while, buying traditional pastries, and ultimately ending up in the casino district of the city.  Its so strange walking from a colonial street, then two blocks later entering casinos rivaling Vegas.  We went into the lobbies, but couldn't enter the casinos.  We tried to get to the top floor of the Grand Lisboa casino (the strange looking tall building above), but we could only take the elevator to the 40 somethingth floor.  At midnight, our group split into two, half taking the taxi back to the hotel, the others walking across the 2km bridge back.

On Saturday morning, we started the day at the hotel pool before checking out and returning to downtown Macau.  We spent the next 5 hours walking around the old city of Macau, a World Heritage site.  There were old cathedrals, forts, and parks everywhere, and we took plenty of the obligatory tourist pictures.  At one point, we all bought matching rice hats and posed in a public park, as dozens of other tourists stopped to laugh at us and take pictures.  Our multicultural group of tacky hat wearing tourists caught plenty of attention, and we continued to wear them the rest of the day, just because. We even wore them for a while on our trip back to Hong Kong, getting
plenty of glares from people on the subway. 

 Ruins of St Paul's Cathedral

 

That weekend flew by, just like all my time here.  I'll be in mainland China next week, volunteering in a school and touring the city of Guangzhou, and after it will already be November.  I might not get to celebrate Halloween (such an important cultural holiday), but we're still going to a cake factory that day, so I should get my obligatory sugar overdose.  Miss you all, and see you soon!