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Published: December 30th 2008
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Day 3 of the trip. Stef and I went to collect another stamp in our passports, we headed off to Macao for the day.
With it being the Christmas vacation, HK was very very busy. I had been advised to book the return ferry to Macao in advance, good job too as the boat was full and the lines were long!! So, we booked our tickets on our first day, HK$300 return for the day trip.
We had an 11am ferry. We got to the terminal for 10:40 and the queues were large. Even tho we had tickets I was positive that we had dudd ones off a douche bag seller that'd run off with our money and we would never see it again. I was wrong. The line was long, but I do not think we queued for longer than 10 minutes and then passed through on to immigration.
The ferry journey over to Macau took about an hour. We had assigned seats. I was sat next to a man who had the scaliest arms ever, he was more like a crocodile than a human. I didn't want him flaking all over me, but then I had
Macau.
So European looking. to pass him an immigration form. I just slid it over rather than getting actual contact with scale man.
Luckily on arrival, Stef had a print out off our friend Andrew telling us exactly what we needed to do when we got there etc. Good job too as as soon as we got off the ferry you had locals saying "taxi" "taxi bike" "tour" ..... We just took 5 minutes out, sat down (avoiding not to sit in spit) and looked over our "notes". "From ferry terminal take the free red shuttle to Wynn casino". Since this print out was our Lonely Planet, we did as it said (Thanks Mackey) and took the free shuttle to the Wynn hotel and casino. Now I am not a fan of gambling at all. I wasn't overly fussed about the thought of spending an hour or so in a casino - but hay, we're in Macau, the Vegas of Asia, it'd be rude not to! So Stef and I became a member and in we went. The Wynn was so grand. Posh decor, plants etc, clean and smelt nice ..... yet we was in Macau. Just in front of the Wynn was
The egg tart!!
A traditional cake from Portugal - in Macau. SO good! a dirty old shabby apartment building, but once inside the casino, you felt you was in the States. Unaware of the time due to the dull lighting, making it possibly seem later than it was.
People kept coming round with free drinks for us .... I ended up with a glass of warm milk???? Not quite a G&T but still free.
Stef decided to gamble. We had HK$100 free bonus credit each to use, so down we sat ..... but couldn't for the life of us use the machines. They wouldn't take the card (since when did casinos go posh and use cards and not actually money in the coin slots???). We must've spent 15 minutes under instruction on how to use the machines!!
But then Stef found her calling : under the name of Pelican Pete. The rate of exchange was about HK$30 to £2:50 (roughly). Stef kept winning. As the amount was displayed in dollars, it always seemed like a lot of winnings and we'd get all excited. "Oooooooooooh claim it claim it, it's a lot to loose" ..... all US$4 of it!! Still it was a lot of fun, and Stef came away about
US$5 up! I didn't gamble, but I still had fun, reading out the winnings slip and changing up the money with the cashiers.
We decided to go and see Macau properly now, well as properly as you could see in 6 hrs. First call lunch tho!! Since we love eating so much. With Macau being an old Portuguese colony, we wanted to try local Portugese style food. We found a classy resturant with a huge menu. I choose a kind of Portuguese Curried mushroom dish and fresh olives. Oh, well what a let down. I got a glass of olives from a jar .... but as for the dinner, well, I got, literally, a plate of schrooms. Nothing but curried schrooms. I was ever so let down. A big part of travel for me is eating the local food. I love to try new things (I ate a Sea Horse in Beijing after all!!) - but a plate of mushrooms .... I think a first year uni student could cook something better than that!! Stef was happy with hers tho ("Where's the sausage???").
After "Lunch" (ha), we went to see the ruins of St Paul. A building that
Our skinny photo shoot.
This took place at the ferry terminal. 2 (skinny) girls / 1 tripod / so much fun and laughter. had been blown up many years ago, but the front of the building still remained in tact. There were people everywhere!! We got some photos etc, but the best part of heading up to the ruins was : TO EAT THE EGG TARTS!!!! Oh boy, now these were GOOD!!! We had read about it being a local delicacy, but they were just so so so good. We had 3 each!! 7 Macao dollars each. So good (a bit like an M&S Egg custard tart, but warm, with flakey pastry on the outside).
Macau was without a doubt the most un Asian country I have been to out of all the 15 Asian countries I have been to so far. The language on the sign posts was mainly Cantonese, Portuguese and English (although we didn't actually hear anyone speaking Portuguese). The buildings were beautiful, just like Europe (am I being biased now??!!). A totally un Asian experience, in Asia.
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