Macau, day 0.5

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Hey there.

After a bit of a late start we made it to Macau today. Not without the traditional mistakes and delays, of course, but made it we did. One small complication we've been having is that there's too many of us to go in a taxi these days, so some of the more simple ideas don't work out as simple as we'd imagined. There's no small amount of dissatisfaction with a system when you're dodging motorbikes on a footpath and avoiding open manholes and crossing at zebra crossings that are purely ornamental, to then be told that it's too dangerous to have an extra person in the taxi.

We did find a dodgy way of getting to where we wanted to go though, so we piled in the cab and he took us to where we thought we should go, which was very much not where we should go, so we had to split up. Kate organised for the taxi I was in to follow the one that had everybody else in it, and then that taxi took off so quickly that we were immediately left behind and I realised I was driving along with a man I couldn't speak to, to a place I didn't know the location (or name) of, without any ID. So having resigned myself to living in Shenzhen for the rest of my life, it was a relief that he took us to the right place and all was good.

So we boarded the ferry and an hour later we arrived at Macau. Then we waited for a half hour for the shuttle bus to take us what turned out to be a 15 minute walk down the road and we arrived at our accommodation!

Macau is different. Like a weird mix of everything. Tacky and beautiful, new and old, eastern and western, all together. This is my deep analysis of a city based on 5 hours, 2 of which were spent in a restaurant. We had the concierge recommend a restaurant to try out but had a suspicion that he was maybe making a bit of money out of it so tried another place that was really great, we had an awesome grilled chicken from an old Portuguese guy and wandered around the city for a bit. It's the Autumn festival coming up through China at the moment so everybody's in transit and Macau is filling up, but it means there's a lot of cool stuff going on, around one corner the street was lit up with lights to celebrate the festival, it looked really cool.

We had a bit of a wander around Senardo Square, saw an old church and tried halfheartedly to find the ruins at the top of the stairs whose name escapes me for the moment but we will find it tomorrow. Had an ice-cream, looked at fountains, what more is there to do in life?

Lots of walking tomorrow I think!

See ya.

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Photos

Ritzy Casino
I mean, there's a thousand of them. This was the classiest looking so that's the picture I took.

Kids + Fountains
= fun

This was the street that was all lit up
It looks a lot tackier it this picture, it was nice!!!

Kids + Ice-cream + Fountains
= Even More Fun

Comments

[Larissa]

Hi!
I’ve nothing interesting to say, but I’m not sure if you know people are reading if we don’t comment ?So here’s a comment to let you know I’m reading your blog! From the pics, it looks like you’re in Vegas not China! Keep the entries coming ?

[HipHipSueRay]

Haha. I was wondering! Thanks Laz!