You're Macau-ing me Crazy

When travelling in a new country, you're bound to make mistakes or missteps. My first one of this trip? Attempting to see Macau in one day. Why didn't I just spend the day exploring another area of HK?? There's plenty of things I haven't even scratched the surface on! I got greedy with the proximity and prospect of travelling to another country (well a "special administrative region of China") in a day...

Mistake #1: Leaving late. I got lazy when I woke up early today. Watched some YouTube at 6am but then fell asleep again until 9:30 and didn't leave the apartment until 11.... The ferry to Macau was about an hour away and then the ferry itself was another hour. I had to be home for dim sum dinner with James and Zoe so this limited my time I. Macau to about three hours.

Macau Tower

Mistake #2: Thinking I could do a lot in 3 hours. Maybe go see that famous burned down church, browse around the casino area, gamble a bit, have some lunch. Not sure how I thought this possible in three hours, but I was feeling ambitious. Instead, I spent about 15 minutes trying to cross the road to where the hotel shuttles were, then the 10 minute ride there, and  then wandered around feeling small and out-of-place. My sanuks and MEC backpack made me a little different than the other Vitton and Prada clad clientele. I gambled a bit, got lost trying to find the bathroom and then got lost trying to find where to get the shuttle back to the ferry. 

Mistake #3: Gambling. I like slot machines, I get very optimistic and am not normally too sad when I lose. However, when one is in a foreign country one should pay closer attention to the machine she uses. There's a bit difference between a $10.00 machine and a $0.10 one. My $170 HK didn't last me very long. :(

However even though there were some blunders today, there were also some silver linings. Try to make the negatives into positives because regardless of everything, I'm still travelling Asia at the moment and not having to wake up to go to work. 

Silver Lining #1: I saw the Vegas-of-the-East! It was pretty impressive and massive. A lot of the hotel/casino area was under construction but the areas that weren't were impressive. According to my guidebook circa 2009, the Venetian is the 5th largest building in the world with "enough space to comfortably fit 90 Boeing 747 jets". So getting lost there wasn't really something to be ashamed of. It even had a river and gondola rides throughout it similar to the one in Vegas. 

The Venice Canal in the Venetian Macau

Silver Lining #2: People watching. The Venetian was the perfect spot to watch how easterners interact on vacation. People were very helpful when I was lost and I'm pretty sure I only saw about 15 white people the whole time. I also saw some hilarious tour groups huddled together, old men playing card and dice games I could begin to understand, and children on leashes. Basically the same sort of things you'd see in Vegas, just without American accents.

Silver lining #3: Nata Tarts! Macau was colonized by the Portuguese and was only incorporated into China in '99. As a result, there are distinct Portuguese influences on the area, including their dessert. You can hear all about my love for Nata tarts in this old post from my time in Lisbon so I won't reiterate that ( http://topuptube.blogspot.hk/2011/05/dont-worry-mum-im-in-lisbon.html?m=1) Basically, I was just pretty please to be eating that while waiting for the ferry home. Desserts always make this grumpy Suse happy. :)

So, SO good

Kickin it off HK Stylz

 I made it. I survived the 15 hour flight, busy subways, and having meat for the first time in a year and a half. Welcome to Hong Kong!

The flight was.... Long. I was spoiled on my last flight to Asia with the benefits of first class, but settled for being a common coach passenger on this trek. It was the biggest plane I had ever been on, I think! It was Air Canada's Boeing 777 (about 450 seats according to my pal Mr. Wikipedia). Seat mates were a young man and an older lady, perfectly non-talkative the entire flight. Movies watched: Dawn of the Planet of the Aprs (yeeeeeeeesh), Billy Madison (to make up for the last one, I watched one I knew I'd like -- t-t-t-today junior!), a 2-part documentary on 1964 (woo American History nerd!) and about 30 minutes of Tammy (couple of lol moments but I fell asleep). Food wise, I found 2/3 of my meals to be great (tofu and rice with no sauce was blargh, but tofu scramble and rice wrap were amazing!). Huge hint: if you ever get hungrier than other people, pre-order the veggie meals, you get it delivered like 10 minutes before everyone else (pretty sure I got some death stares when that happened).

When I arrived, the first thing I went in search of in the HK airport was... A hairbrush. I forgot mine at home and couldn't find one there, so that's part of my mission for today! Took the airport express train into the city and arrived at HK station (HK Island). It was wonderful to see James! Especially since he had a beer and pork bun waiting for me when I arrived!

Yes, you heard that... Pork bun. I am putting my vegetarianism on hold for this trip. I want to experience new foods and new cultures and unfortunately a lot of that involves meat. I will most likely still stay away from the slabs of meat styles, but will be open to trying everything once and stick to veggies when possible.

James, my host with the most!

Speaking of dinner, James and I headed off in the #searchforSzechwan. After deciding the cab line was way too long, we took a more traditional route and hopped on the subway. In Hong Kong, they have a transit card similar to London's Oyster called the Octopus (still haven't figured out the name choice yet).. But unlike London, it also can be used to make purchases at certain stores like 7-11 or Mcdonalds... It's like HK's own debit card! 

We took a very busy rush hour subway to a place near James apartment. We hopped on the #11 minibus to go to a  Szechuan restaurant that James' wife Zoe recommended and was later going to meet us at. Well, turns out we were on the wrong bus after having some passengers yell/explain our mistake to us in Cantonese. We hopped off and switched to a cab.

After finding the restaurant (getting lost is just a part of the adventure), we grabbed some beers and peach tea (very sugary and delicious, reminded me of those ice-tea freezies that we used to love in Grade 8). We ordered an assortment of food covered in spicy Szechuan sauce (super spicy, a little too much for this little white girl!). We had jellyfish (kind of like a crunchy slimy noodle, not my favourite), beef and green beans, chicken hot pot and a noodle dish. Even though I was a bit worried about introducing meat into my system, spicy meat at that, everything seems to be a-ok.

Yummy!

It was pouring by this point so we took a cab back to James hotel (errr, apartment), but seriously this place is gorgeous! Huge swimming pool, gym, billards room, movie theatre (byo-DVDs) and soon to be built spa. James says because they live so far away, they have all these amenities to attract people.  Jet lag had seriously kicked in and after poppin some melatonin, I was out like a light by 9:30. Slept all the way til 6:30 am, so hopefully it won't be too bad! 

James' view from his living room window

Overall, a pretty eventful first 5 hours in Asia. Tried meat, got lost, fell asleep. Well, maybe it's just eventful because I'm halfway across the world! ;)