Having felt as though I'd missed out on a lot of the things I wanted to see and do in Macau, I decided to take another trip over the Gambling islands. My intentions were to visit the same attractions that I had planned to the previous week, without rushing or missing any. So, the first step was to get up earlier and leaver earlier then before, last time I was on a ferry at 10:30, this time at 08:30. As is a great custom of mine, I slept on the ferry, an hours trip is perfect for a little recovery nap. [View Full Entry]

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After a day of being lazy again - which followed a day of mountain climbing - I decided I would get up and head to Macau for the day. I left the house around 09:00 and headed to Shueng Wan - not sure if that's the right spelling - but the Macau Ferry port anyway. I arrived a little before 10:00, and purchased my ticket for the 10:30 boat, and then waited for a little while to see if the German guys from the mountain would show up. After about 10 - 15 minutes they hadn't so I went to get [View Full Entry]

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Hello!!! I'm in Macau! Guilin was a nice place, and about 30 degrees, it's good to be warm, I find. I'd taken a soft sleeper, and it was lovely, I bunkered down for the full 30 hour journey with my noodles and oranges and slept for a good 20 of those hours. I think the Chinese people in my cabin thought I was ill, and so brought me hot water every now and again. Train down there arrived four hours late, so I drank some beers, didn't get bit by any mosquitoes (who, if I haven't mentioned, have been voraciously feasting [View Full Entry]

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Armed with only our "Wikitravel" knowledge of Macau and Zhuhai, Hubby and I went ahead with our "semi" backpacker journey to these 2 places. Good thing he has a few days off from work due to the National Day celebration in China and also due to the Mooncake Festival. Day 1: We hired a private car to take us to Zhuhai which is a city in the mainland that borders with Macau to the south. Our specific target destination in Zhuhai is the Gongbei District because this is where the Macau border crossing is located. The driver picked us up at [View Full Entry]

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Aloha Earthlings, I have sat down to write this blog entry three times now. I really hope I get through it this time... I’m not sure what to write anymore. The ‘strangeness’ of my life isn’t strange anymore. I have to think about is interesting, when it used to be painfully obvious. Life as I know it involves eating pig spine, dealing with typhoons, flirting in Cantonese, and putting on long sleeve shirts in 70 degree weather (SO COLD!). Okay... that does sound weird. They tell me the seasons are changing but I don’t believe it. We have gone from really [View Full Entry]

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I checked the weather reports last night, and it seems that a Typhoon warning is in effect - We've already seen results of it, and it is only getting worse. Since that is the case, I decided to see Macau a few days early. I think that if it were not for the weather warning, I wouldn't have chosen to go on a Sunday. Too busy. There were many families with suitcases on their way to Macau - sort of like going to the cottage in reverse. I would have definitely chosen mid week. I went to the Hong Kong-Macau ferry [View Full Entry]

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Ferry from Hong Kong Island to Macau Arrived Macau: Visited Casinos Saw ruins of St Paul's Saw Mount Fortaleza Won $2000 HKD in Grand Lisboa Flight from Macau to Ho Chi Minh Flight from Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi Arrived Hanoi: Saw Lake Wandered round the markets Night bus from Hanoi to Sa Pa [View Full Entry]

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In October of 2008, Jeanine & I went to Singapore to visit Jeanine's former colleague, Jazz while she was on an expat assignment. After we toured singapore for several days, we all went to Hong Kong together. From Hong Kong, we took a ferry to Macau. It was a lovely trip with some notable hiccups. For example, We had to fly in a day late and we spent the first night in Japan due to a typhoon in Hong Kong, where we were to have a layover. I frantically called American Express to see if there were any other flights to [View Full Entry]

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Only forty kilometres from Hong Kong, Angela and I decided a day trip to Macau would be an interesting diversion, and so we made our way to the dock to catch a high speed ferry. First established as a trading post in the sixteenth century, Macau, or Ultra Marino as it was then called, became a colony of Portugal in 1887, remaining so until 1999 when it was finally handed back to China. Our journey there took one hour and as we sped along, I began to watch the in-sail-entertainment. It was a Japanese television program which pitted man against bear. [View Full Entry]

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The Kitschiest Place on Earth If Walt Disney is the happiest place on earth, then Macau is the kitschiest place on earth. We took the one hour Turbo Jet ferry to Macau, the east’s version of Las Vegas. It was a Portuguese settlement, and it apparently is a unique intersection of European and Chinese culture - hopefully more so that Malaca in Malaysia. I heard we could get Sangria, so that was enough for me. When we arrived at the ferry terminal, many of the casinos offered a free shuttle directly to their door, so we picked one on the [View Full Entry]

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