Day trip to Macau

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Yesterday mom and I did a day trip by boat to Macau. We felt honor-bound to undertake this adventure as my dad grew up there and well, he did pay for this trip. The place now belongs to China but is a special economic zone with relative autonomy over itself other than national security and foreign relation policies. This place is relatively unexciting if you don't feel the need to go to one of the many casinos. I found that the lights were just as glittery in Macau as Las Vegas but not as exciting. Las Vegas casino hotels had certain attractions to captivate the tourists. Here, you just came to gamble... no delicious dinner buffets or circus shows. This place used to be a portuguese colony and had a bunch of churches. The most famous one, which we saw, St. Paul's was burned down sometime in the 1800s but the facade still remains. People flock here to take pictures. Macau seems to also be famous for egg pastry rolls and peanut nougat candy. It seemed as though many of the hong kong day trippers came here especially to stock up on these snacks.
Final thoughts before leaving Hong Kong... this place has given me a better understanding of why chinese people are the way they are. When I was young, my father always told me to take extra napkins from McDonalds. I always thought this was silly as I'd have this wad of paper in my bag but being here in Hong Kong there are often no napkins in sight at a restaurant. Magazines will give free tissues as an incentive to buy their glossy. Apparently public restrooms used to never provide TP but after SARS, its made an appearance.
HK is a great place to eat, and therefore get fat, but not a fantastic place to live; small 2 bedroom apartments may cost you $3000 cdn a month in a relatively decent area (and it doesn't have an oceanfront view either). When walking along Victoria harbour, you could barely see the Hong Kong side from Kowloon. I wondered if this was due to seasonal fog or smog. Its the latter.

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