Air Travel

Left Taipei on the 14th. It was actually pretty sad... the night before, Lim and his roommates pulled a prank on me (the story: the waitress at the place we ate at the day before thought we were flirting with her and had gone crazy and wanted to kill us, so in the morning we would have to go to the police to file a police report and I'd have to delay my flight)... which was followed by a surprise birthday cake. Seriously, those guys were too nice to me. I miss them already!

Got into Hong Kong where I found out shortly that Celina had given me the wrong number (haha), but thank goodness for facebook (sick), because I saw the new message she sent with her new number. Spent a few hours wandering around a small small area of Hong Kong. Our time included walking past the slew of nannies sitting on cardboard boxes on their day off, her slipping on some water in the mall (bahahah), and each of us getting some cheap and ridiculous-looking sunglasses (which I am wearing on my head right now). After a day of running around, she gave me some directions on how to get into Shenzhen. Bye Celi!

How is this for a welcoming party into China? Getting scammed by the cab driver! He tried to charge me 280 RMB to drive me to Rene's place, which I managed to bargain down to 150 RMB which was still a major ripoff. I tried to tell him to turn on the meter but he pretty much ignored me. China and I totally got off the wrong foot.

Flew into Chengdu the next day and my impression hadn't improved very much at all. Coming in, it was a very dreary city full of grey everywhere. I don't know if I was just tired from the nights of sleeplessness but it just looked massive, dull and busy yet uneventful. Fortunately Sim's Cozy Garden Hostel was a completely different atmosphere. Full of green everywhere, you could relax by the pond, at the bar, in the restaurant, upstairs, on the terrace. I couldn't have asked for a better place to stay. Kept it low key that night because by the time I sorted out my train and plane tickets, pretty much everywhere was closed... that's ok though because I pretty much only came for one thing: the pandas.

The next morning we went to the Chengdu Panda Breeding Base (?) to check out the pandas. I was worried because this could be the biggest hit-or-miss thing on the trip, especially since Chengdu was so out of the way. The weather was actually PERFECT for panda-viewing - cool, misty and overcast. As a result, the pandas were able to stay outside the entire time we were there. I took about 200 photos that day (no joke) because you can't get enough pandas. My previous exposures to them were crowded zoos where two or three of them were the main attractions and it was impossible to get a good look at them. This time, the entire base was devoted to them, and although there were crowds, they would come and go and it would be easy to get awesome looks and photos of them as they played (mainly the babies), ate and lied down in laziness.

I HAD to get time with one of them. I knew coming in you could spend time with a baby, which costs an arm and a leg, or an adult. I eventually bit the bullet and went all out - got about 2 minutes of panda cub time. Amazing! That little bundle of joy felt as fluffy as it looked as I cradled it in my arms and on my lap. The staff there did a great job with my camera and got a few dozen photos in that short time. It was expensive, but to me at least, it was definitely worth it. The photo-ops with the adult looked just plain awful in comparison. You had to stand behind it and all you could do was pat it on the head. Anyways, I was pretty much on cloud-nine the rest of the day. Mission accomplished (and with flying colours too)!

I'll finish the recap later (including train ride to Xi'an, etc) because this is already way way way too long!

Last weekend I went down to Macau to visit my friend Alkarim who is teaching high school science at an international school there. It was pretty much on a whim - I booked my flight on Wednesday after finding out a roundtrip would only cost about $180 CDN.

Anyways, I landed in HKG airport around 20:30 and took the ferry across to Macau. I'M ON A BOAT.
First impression of Macau? Shaaaaady. I'm not sure why but I just got that vibe right off the bat. I follow Al's pretty accurate directions and end up walking through his apartment door by around 22:30. At one point, I swore I was in the wrong building because he had a sweeet place. We were both pretty tired so he just took me to the nearby hotel, Altira, where they had a rooftop bar/lounge and we just chatted up there for a couple of hours to round off the night.

The next day Al took me on a walking tour around the main part of town (Central Macau). It's a pretty small place so we covered it pretty quickly. Visited the Grand Lisboa which was disgustingly bling. The hotels are pretty much Vegas are all over again in terms of grandeur and massive massive casino floors (Baccarat seemed very popular for some reason). The smoke smell wasn't as bad as Vegas but it's probably just a matter of time before the fabric soaks up the fumes. Mmmm, tasty. It's strange/depressing seeing the pretty rundown buildings which were literally across the street or just next door. We then walked through some small alleyways and roads. In these parts the Portugese influence really shone through with the cobblestone roads and the architecture of some of the old buildings. He led me to these ruins of a church where literally only one wall is standing. Apparently it had burned down a couple of times so they just gave up trying to save it. Afterwards, we hiked up to a lighthouse which had a pretty sweet view of the entire city, and that pretty much ended the tour haha. Capped it off with some sort of spicy coconut curry noodles which was the spiciest thing I've had in a long time. We were done by 13:00. After some rest he took me to the Venetian which totally trumped the Grand Lisboa in bling and excess. It would be quite the sweet hotel if you weren't so disgusted by how gaudy it was, the cliche indoor canals and the typical brand-name stores inside. I'll admit though, some of the carvings and structures on the outside and inside walls were pretty impressive.

That evening he was planning to go out with some of his teacher friends so I tagged along (more like he told me I was coming but I was OK with that). Went out for Thai food, which was honestly pretty weak in terms of the spice, but maybe I was just comparing it to the ridiculousness of the noodles I had at lunch. We eventually made our way to the MGM Grand Hotel and went to the bar there. Some cover band was playing on and off throughout the night, and for the most part the bar consisted of (in descending order) prostitutes, minors, old straight guys and old queer guys. Again, shaaaaaady.

On Sunday, I had to be ready to leave for my ferry around 15:30 so we just made a quick hop to Coloane to check out the beaches there. We didn't really know where to go because Al hadn't been there before either so we just got off the bus at a random stop and checked out the nearby beach there. Not the cleanest looking place, plus Al wasn't feeling very well (haha), so we just chilled out on the rocks for the afternoon. Felt bad for Al, he didn't get any better as the day went on, and in fact was probably feeling worse when we got back. I left just as he was probably ready to collapse :P

Funny thing was that when I was there it made me miss Taipei - to me, it's friendlier, got more of an authentic culture (instead of an awkward mishmash of asian and gambling) and still cheaper (although Macau is pretty cheap too). Huh, go figure.