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Macau

I get up early to see if I can have some laundry done while I’m spending the day in Macau.  Lucky me, they offer the service, so I cart everything down – probably the last time these clothes will be washed in a while, as I’m not in a huge rush to be wearing the same clothes when I get back to Canada.  It’ll be nice living out of a closet instead of a bag for a while, I think.

Christine joins me in the common room soon enough, checks out, and we head to the ferry terminal to catch the ferry to Macau.  Normally the trip takes 40 minutes or so, but for some reason (which is announced on the loudspeaker, but impossible to comprehend) the trip takes closer to an hour.  Not a big deal.

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Christine is flying out of Macau in a couple of days, and staying in the city, so we
head to her guesthouse, and check her in.  First stop after that is a bakery for a Portuguese custard tart.  Macau is a former Portuguese colony, but the tarts are a little too eggy for my liking.  I’ll have to get one in Canada.

After our dessert, we get some lunch.  The women running the small restaurant suggests we check out a church and a park, so we do.  Not too special, though.  We wander around for a bit, and reach The Ruins of St. Paul’s, which really are quite nice.  Macau is quite European in feel, and St. Paul’s is a nice departure from most of the ruins I’ve seen in Asia.

We check out the Macau museum, which isn’t all that special, then decide to hit the casinos.  Macau is apparently bigger than Vegas now, but the casinos aren’t quite as nice.  Casino Lisboa, Lisboa Grand are two of the older ones in Macau, although they’ve been redone since.

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We have some dim sum at the Wynn casino, which is fantastic fantastic (the dim sum, although the casino is nice too).  I’m tempted to just spend another day in Macau so I can have some for lunch the next day.  At the Venetian, we try to play roulette, but the minimum bet is too much for our liking.

I find some street name fridge magnets in the casino gift shop, but can’t find one with DE ALMEIDA on it, but the women at the shop suggests I try the old town to see if they have it.  We find our way there (eventually, and with much hilarity at the hospital), but all the gift shops are closed.  Bummer.  It’s getting late, so we head back to the Venetian.

We’ve been spending the day using the casino shuttles as free transportation, so we shuttle back to the ferry terminal, and I catch the ferry back to Hong Kong.  If I’ve planned it right, the MRT will still be open, and I’ll be able to get to the guesthouse.

I know one person in Hong Kong, and it’s George (who has arrived from Yangshuo in the morning).  Surprisingly not surprising, he’s who I see when I get on the subway back in Hong Kong.  In a city of millions, the odds have to be low that we’d get on the same subway car at different stops at the same time, but here we are.  We head back to the guesthouse together (he’s staying at the same place, in the same room,of course), chat in the common room with some others for a bit, then get some sleep.

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