Blogs from Macau, Macau, Asia - page 10

Instead of posting/emailing/messaging everyone that is interested in my poker adventures here in macau, ive decided to do a blog. Thanks for the idea alisha. Its going to start from today since my first day here consisted of sleeping, watching tv and adjusting to the heat by eating lots of icecream. Macau is the asian version of las vegas. There is a casino on every corner but there are ONLY 2 casinos that have poker. Luckily one of them is a $4 cab ride from aaron and zels place. After my day recovery from jet lag and getting use to the heat I was ready to hit up the poker tables. The conversion rate is 7 to 1 so it may seem like im gambling with a ton of $$ but really its not as much ... read more

So I got to Macau for a day...although it is a place that you could easily spend two or three, and that isn't including the time you might spend in the casinos! It is definitely the Las Vegas of the east. Big casinos all over the place. Names like the Sands, the Vienetian are but a few. Outside horse racing in Hong Kong, it is the only place to legally gamble in China and therfore as you can imagine this place gets pretty busy. Of course I couldn't come here without having a gamble so in true backpacker fashion I gamled away my 10 Hong Kong Dollars (1 euro) and spent the rest of the time sauntering around looking at others do the loosing! I met up with Kerry Katie (Bernard's Mary's sister) and we headed ... read more

As we begin the tale of how we ended up here at this particular moment, let us first set the scene for ‘here’ and ‘the moment’. Currently Andrew and Tori are sitting in their hotel room ‘The Salisbury - YMCA of Hong Kong’ in Tsim Sha Tsui (part of Kowloon in Hong Kong) consuming the following products: • Pringles (light) in Original Flavour • Malteasers in Cappuccino flavour • Kit Kat in Black Flavour and • Maxim’s Supreme Butter Loaf which is a fairly standard bun, except for the intriguing dialogue printed on its packaging. Let us hear from the packaging (a direct quote).. “My love is of a birth a rare As ‘tis for object strange and high: It was begotten by De-spair UponImpossibility. Magnanimous Despair alone Could show me so diving a thing, Where ... read more

Finally, after careful...then careless planning...i arrived in Macau. So before I start with this travel blog, I'd better explain the first sentence first... Initially the Macau trip was supposed to be done with my brother Miko, as a late birthday present for him (the Disneyland, Hongkong, which is a side trip) and with my father as a father's day present. So I carefully planned the trip, booked the plane ticket in advance and booked a hotel room for the first day in advance. Unfortunately , my father's passport was not released on time so he has to beg off the trip. So there would be just Miko and me...then came the email from cebu pacific that the direct cebu-macau flight was cancelled and we were supposed to fly via manila...cant dragged a child thru all that ... read more

In Hong Kong we for once had accommodation booked already - to satisfy tighter visa requirements brought on by the proximity of the Beijing Olympics. Cleverly I had written down directions but not the actual address, which was most definitely not sufficient! Having eventually found internet terminals (in the library) to attain the address, we resumed our search but had little more luck. It was, in all, a stressful couple of hours before we finally located our tiny Inn high in a dilapidated building, overlooking the Causeway Bay shopping district. Even then, the Inn turned out to be full and they moved us to an alternative nearby. It was a pity, because the early evening ride from the airport had genuinely filled me with wonder - I've never seen a city like this before. The bizarre ... read more