Macau

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.