Blogs from Taipa Island, Macau, Asia
March 1st 2012
We flew in on a rainy morning from Hanoi to Hong Kong. We bypassed immigration and customs in Hong Kong airport by going directly to the high speed ferry to Macau and cleared immigration there. Macau along with Hong Kong, is one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China. It lies on the western side of the Pearl River Delta across from Hong-Kong which is to the east, bordering Guangdong province to the north and facing the South China Sea to the east and south. Macau was a Portuguese colony in 1887, and is both the first and last European colony in China. Portuguese traders first settled in Macau in the 16th century and subsequently administered the region until the handover on 20 December 1999. The Sino-Portuguese Joint Declaration ... read more
November 16th 2011
Jutro sem izkoristila za odkrivanje te cetrti Macaua. Spet povsod pekarnice, McDonalds in nudl-dzinice, butiki so bili se zaprti. Kupila sem nekaj kruhastega za pod zob in se pocila v eno od obljudenih menz, da sem spila se zadnjo kavo na tem delu sveta. Ostali so srebali nudlne, vlekli iz ust kurje kosti in jih oguljene licno zlagali na kup. Ko sem koncala, sem si natocila se kozarec zelenega caja, ki je pocival v vrcu na mizi. Obozujem to navado zastonj caja. In potem spet standardna procedura: nazaj po prtljago, do bus postaje in na bus do trajektnega terminala, kjer bi morala presesti na bus AP1. A hec je v tem, da isti bus vozi tako do letalisca na jugu Macaua kot do meje s Kitajsko na severu, postaja pa je samo ena. Zato sem morala ... read more
November 12th 2011
The weather in Macau has been bad for the two days that I've been there. Rainy, cloudy and windy off and on. The weather has stopped me from seeing the old colonial parts of the country - which was one of the things that I wanted to do. But on the positive side, another excuse to go back to Macau! Lol. Due to the weather, Amanda & I were only able to do and seeing indoor things. We started the day with the Macau Tower Skywalk - even in the rain. The guide was not too happy that our walk didn't get cancelled due to the weather so she really rushed us and tried to kill us by telling us to run on the slippery deck and hang off the ledge! lol..... Thank god I survived ... read more
November 9th 2011
Hello again. I'm back in Hong Kong now, writing this after spending two nights in Macau. My sense of direction has been horrible so far this whole trip, so my journey to Macau was no different! I took a cab from the hotel to the ferry terminal. After I bought my ticket to Macau I realized that the host couple I was staying with lives in Taipa - which is south of Macau and has it's own ferry terminal. I asked if I could have my tickets exchanged/refunded but was yelled at and told, "YOU TAKE SHUTTLE in MACAU! GO NOW!" LOL!! and that was exactly what I did! I got off at the Macau Ferry Terminal and took the hotel shuttle bus to City of Dreams. I remember in an email that she told me ... read more
August 18th 2011
Ååååå... For en by.. ;) Her har du ALT mellom himmel og jord! I det minste så trodde vi det. Vel faktum er at vi skulle avslutte kvelden rolig (Onsdag 17.08), kun med noen drinker/Patron Tequilla på strippeklubb! Men igjen så møter vi på kulturforskjellene her. Fordi strippeklubb, nei det finnes det ikke av her. Her har du valget mellom «Happy Show» som er mennesker som har seg på scenen eller Sauna som de kaller det. Som er profesjonelle bordeller. High class. Faktisk såpass profesjonelle at på de andre casinone (ikke vår), så har de egne etasjer, hvor du blir møtt av 5-10 flotte velkledde (blazer og skjørt) damer som smiler og forteller deg om dagens spesialitet og utvalget. Nesten som om du skulle bestilt deg mat og en god vin på en resturant. Så typ ... read more
July 10th 2011
So today when I went to get breakfast I realized I couldn’t find my meal card. So I ended up just walking in anyways and eating my free meal. Because we were leaving today for Guangzhou we all had to be packed and ready in the lobby by 9am. Today we went to the Macau museum for another lecture on Macau from a cultural perspective. After that I bought another shot glass in the museum souvenir store. And then we proceeded into this very interesting tourist town. This part of Macau that we were in resembled the European style of architecture even down to the tiles they used instead of tar. I found a dairy queen!! So naturally I order a kit-kat blizzard, it was amazing! Then we ate Japanese style in some building and after ... read more
July 9th 2011
We departed Hong Kong today for Macau. It took us about an hour to get to Macau on the ferry. We again had to go through immigration, because Macau is also a special administrative region. It was given back to mainland China, from Portugal, in 1999. Macau is known for its gambling which I experienced first hand today. The students were given a lecture on gambling and culture in Macau at the University of Macau. It is interesting to think that 80% of Macau's revenue comes from gambling, and its 32 casinos. After lecture, I had Portuguese food for dinner. The Portuguese have excellent desserts. I had a vanilla type pudding with crushed cookies. I also sampled some almond cookies. After dinner, I went to two casinos. The Venetian was my favorite, but we also visited ... read more
July 9th 2011
So we entered Macau today. We entered by ferry. It was about an hour long ferry. Once we entered Macau the first thing I noticed was that everything was trilingual. The instructions were in Cantonese, Portuguese, and English. It was so strange to see streets and buildings in Portuguese in Southern china. So we board a bus and head towards a fancy restaurant but meanwhile all you can see are casinos everywhere! And I mean EVERYWHERE. Every other building was a casino! This gaming industry in Macau was definitely no joke! So we eat at this fancy restaurant and after that head to our hotel. After that we had a lecture on gambling and “Macau the sin city”. I’m going to skip the lecture because in all honesty nobody paid much attention. I actually videotaped everyone ... read more
