After 2 days of parent teacher conferences, Jamie and I headed out with friends to Macau. For those who do not know, Macau is actually a peninsula colonized by the Portuguese jutting out into the South China Sea about an hour ferry ride west of Shekou. They have actually reclaimed so much land and built so many fancy casinos that Taipa and Coloanna Islands are actually now connected to Macau via reclaimed land or long bridges, so traveling from from the three places is rather easy. Each place has its own flavor to it. We stayed on Coloanna Island back in November, but decided to stay in Macau this time.
We actually took the wrong ferry over and ended up on the other side of the peninsula. After discovering what we did, we ended up at the Hotel Royal. They upgraded us rooms which included all day drinks in the lobby and appetizers in the evenings for free. Sweet deal! We headed out to see some sites in Macau including the old part of the city with small winding streets full of shopping and local food as well as the ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral (as seen above with Seymore). A scary sidenote is that our friend Tom became extremely ill while we were there and actually had to be helped by some friendly security guards and a nurse. After a scare, he took it easy the rest of the trip.
A quick nap in our hotel and it was back to a Portuguese/Chinese/Africa restaurant where Jamie and I shared some mussels with bacon and cheese and some baked chicken in coconut milk. It was pretty good.
The next day, Jamie and I set out to do some things that I wanted to do. She trucked along with me for Go Kart Racing (the fastest carts I'd ever been on) and to the Jockey Club to see some horse racing. After some tutoring by the locals, I actually bet on a race and WON! My bet was 30 HKD and I won 45.5. A real big gambler I am. Lunch at the Venetian Fatburger was yummy as we ate a good old American cheeseburger and fries.
That night we decided not to go out and we just hung out in the lobby and drank some free wine (the best kind) and enjoyed some appetizers.
Sunday, we enjoyed sleeping in and then headed out to Fisherman's Wharf on the eastern side of Macau. They have really built this place up and it is new with some gimmicky Las Vegas type attractions, games, malls, and restaurants. It looks cool and is worth seeing. A quick lunch overlooking the harbor and then we were going to go to the dog tracks to see some racing but our stupid bus took us in the wrong direction, so we decided against it and instead rested in the hotel lobby until our ferry took us back to Shekou.
Great weekend overall. Not too busy with sightseeing, but we were able to see some things we hadn't before. We had fun with our friends although we hated that Tom didn't feel to well the entire time.
Check out the pictures. Not much to see, but some of them are pretty cool. I've put them in our gallery under Macau March 2009.
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