Day 349: Livre em Macau

Hong Kong – Macau, China

I woke up to find a message from my cousin in Taiwan, Christina, inquiring me about my planned visit to our ancestors’ village in Guangdong Xinhui. Upon learning that I would be there by the weekend, Christina did an impulsive decision to take 2 days off work for next week and booked a flight ticket to meet me up in Macau. It’s brilliant!

I took the most part of the day trying to catch up on the blog then took late afternoon ferry ride from Hong Kong to Macau. The ride only required an hour and cost HKD150 (USD 21). Yuyu, the boyfriend of my Taiwanese friend Sharon, hooked me up with a place to crash at in his apartment right in the city center. An expat in Macau, Yuyu has an interesting group of friends in Macau: a bunch of funny basketball loving middle school kids. We had dinner with these kids at KFC and boy, these kids made me feel old. They’re hardly half my age.

I had not much clue of what Macau was like except that it used to be colonized by the Portuguese and that it’s now a gambling town. It’s definitely a “sin city” alright, and it’s also stunning. Macau at night is alive! Lights are everywhere, both outdoor and indoors. The amount of money that these casino make is unimaginable; it’s the money with which they in turn spend on building wonderfully fancy buildings and buying extravagantly expensive art pieces to decorate them with. To understand how ridiculously loaded these casino moguls are, one only has to know that they build their own landfill expanding the coastal lines of Macau for their new structures. ‘Nuff said.

Besides the casinos and resorts and the expensive retail stores, Macau’s streets are also lined up with pawn shops . Furthermore, prostitution is legal here. The ladies’ business cards are scattered all around the floors and in some casinos walkways, the ladies even struts to and fro non-stop until somebody stops them and asks to spend sexy time with them :] Now, all Macau need is to legalize marijuana. Its tourism will at least double, I say.

But what I found enticing for me in Macau was the amount of free stuffs to do. First of, getting into Macau at the ferry port terminal, one can hop on any of the free casino/hotel shuttle buses to get to different parts of town. Outside the terminal, pretty ladies are handing out disposable fans for the hot weather. Once dropped off in front of the casino, free luggage storage is most of the time complimentary. Take a walk into the casino ground (you don’t need to be dressed up) and grab yourself free water, coffee, tea, juice of sodas from the waiters and waitresses roaming about in there. For free food, head out to the road leading up the Ruins of St. Paul. On both sides of the street are tourist shops offering free samples of local delicacies such as pork and beef jerky and many varieties of sweet desserts. Walking up then back down the road will sort you out for your lunch or dinner Nothing like entertainment after a meal, yeah? All casinos have a permanent centerpiece that automatically played out at certain times as well as temporary exhibitions; all of which are stunning. Casino moguls are great patron of arts I have to admit.

Anyway, I had asked my cousin Christina to again guest-write while traveling with me and here’s what she has to say:

Chit-chat at Shida Night Market
Last time I (Christina) and my family met with Elys at Taipei, Shida Night Market. Elys told us that she wanted to go to the village with surname Muda 容in China (“Wow, is incredible! We are grow up at Indonesia, actually our grandfather and great grandfather grew up in Indonesia, but the ancestor were actually from China. The place that I didn’t know exist. And would like to find out more about.)

Elys showed us the paper which her daddy wrote down; on how to go to that place, and who to connect with once there.

July 20,2012 Fri
On the skype, we connected on the Friday morning, ask to Elys, when will be go to the village? She said  it would be this weekend and asked me if I wanted join and could take days off from work. Directly, I asked to my supervisor if it’s possible for me to take 2 days off . My supervisor was generous enough and kindly said ,”Yeah , you can take day off. Actually lately the workload is not so heavy”. So I started booking roundtrip ticket flight to Hongkong and asked travel agent about visa to China .

Taiwan passport holder can acquire direct visa for China, in Hongkong Airport or Macau Airport, prior to entering. At Hong Kong Airport, you should go counter no.25 , for processing the visa to China, cost about RMB 100. It is a quick process.