Typhoon Signal No. 1

I survived Macau. And for once, I think this is the appropriate statement, rather than the generic joke of "Or maybe Macau survived me."

First off, I'd like to point you towards my photos from Macau. They can be reached here.

Macau was both more and less exciting than Hong Kong. I was finally in a place that spoke little to no English. Instead of English, they had Portugese signs and letters everywhere. Sadly it seems like my Spanish proficiency expired 2 years ago, because I was unable to make sense of most of the signs. Due to the huge language barrier, getting around was quite a pain. Luckily on the second day, we acquired an English/Chinese map, so we could point to our location in English, and have the cab drivers read it in Chinese.

Even though we took many cabs, we still managed to get lost quite a bit. e.g. The first night we arrived, we managed to walk 20 minutes in the wrong direction (I blame the bad English instructions we received from the hotel receptionist). We even stopped at a police station and asked for directions, but the guy spoke neither Spanish nor English, making it useless. Our little expedition allowed us to encounter giant snails and bigass frogs though, which amused me to no end.

The first night we had dinner at a Portugese/Chinese restaurant called Pinnochio (I believe I've mentioned that Asia has an unhealthy obsession with Disney) which was fantastic. The restaurant had been recommended by our travel book, and with seeming good reason.

The next day Jenny and Kim managed to sleep through breakfast, so we had a late start. The other exchange students we had encountered said that Macau was actually really boring with no nightlife to speak of. And now I can see why. The city's rep is all about the gambling and parties, but the casinos are quite different from North American casinos. They have a lot more of them, but they're quieter with fewer machines and whatnot. Plus they seem a lot more strict... We had to walk through metal detectors and have our purses searched.

All in all, if you want to go to Macau, go for the museums and architecture. The city is beautiful (but kind of dirty looking). It was fascinating to see the portugese style buildings amidst generic chinese ones. Plus there was a multitude of catholic churches which was really interesting.

We ended up going to some of the restored Churches, plus the Ruins of St. Paul's. St. Paul's was really interesting - it's an old church but the only part that remains standing is the single wall. You can walk underneath it and see part of a crypt along with the bones of the martyrs buried there. After St. Paul's, we moseyed over to the Museum of Macau which was nifty - I like how I get to learn something about non-European history finally. We also walked around an old fort called Monte Forte. It was pretty, but deadly due to the slippery wet rocks.

Now here comes the fun part. The score? Language Barrier: 1, Dumbass Westerners: 0. On our way back to the hotel on Saturday night, we passed through a beautiful plaza with a bunch of lanterns lit. There was also a stage set up and people were handing out free bottles of water along with glowsticks. We assumed that it was the beginning of the Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations. All the signs were in Chinese. The was a huge party atmosphere because people were cheering, waving flags and glowsticks. A school band played on stage.

In a nutshell, Jenny, Kim and I hung around waiting for whatever festivities were going to happen to begin. We managed to get some more glowsticks and even got some stickers with the number 8 on them. (According to Kim, the #8 is a lucky number to the chinese and thus that must be the reason why everyone's wearing it for the festival.) Some head honcho guys came out to the stage and people began wildly cheering for them. (Did I remember to mention that all the signs are in Chinese?) Well, since we had no idea what was going on, we just did whatever the audience did. If they applauded, we applauded. If they waved their flags, we waved ours.

We were laughing at ourselves for not having a clue as to what was going on when Jenny finally wondered aloud "I wonder what the check mark on the flags is supposed to mean? Vote yes to communism!" ... That joke made us start to wonder... Then to worry... I read the banner on the back of the stage and could make out something in Portugese that looked like it meant "Legislative Assembly."

When you're standing in a huge crowd of people who are enthusiastically waving and cheering for the number "8," you're very careful to subtly remove your #8 stickers... And hide your banner in your purse. We managed to non-chalantly make our way to a main street. Down the block, we managed to find some English speaking people who explained to us that the flag we were waving was for an upcoming election. DOH!

So we managed to break one of the two most important rules while travelling. 1) Never leave your baggage unattended, and 2) Never participate in political demonstrations. Note to self: Learn more Chinese!

Today we went to some temples and the "Black Beach." The Pou Tai Temple was probably my favourite. It wasn't very touristy, and you could see the locals actually going and praying and whatnot. It was very pretty and maze-like. The temple also sold vegetarian meals at lunch time, so we contributed some Putacas (the local currency) by purchasing food.

We then went to the Black Beach. Our original plans had been to go to the beach and go swimming, but all of Saturday had been raining, and Typhoon Signal No. 1 had been hoisted (meaning, "Lookout! There might be a typhoon headed our way!), so we left our bathing suits at the hotel. Which was just as well. The beach was dirty from the waves through garbage up on the sand, and the silt from the pearl delta made the water brown. I don't dig the idea of swimming in water that I can't see through!

We ended up going back to Macau (by mistake - our bus took a different route than expected) and going to the A-Ma Temple (oldest building/temple in Macau which turned out to be really boring) and the Maritime Museum (which turned out to be more interesting than anticipated). By the time we got back to our hotel, it had started to downpour again (the air liquified! my shoes were soaked!).

I used to be afraid of the streets in Hong Kong. I always thought I was going to be run over... Now that I've been to Macau though, Hong Kong seems safe as a sandbox. Seriously, the people in Macau ride lots of scooters, meaning they zip around the cars when they're at a stop sign. Plus, there are few street signs/traffic lights in Macau, and nobody wears seat belts (Only 1 out of 3 cabs had seatbelts either!). I first realized the dangers of the streets when our hotel shuttle bus nearly ran over pedetrians who were walking at a crosswalk. I actually ducked my head because I expected to see red on the hood of our bus. Then today, I came as close to dying as I ever will I hope. I forgot that scooters zipped between stopped cars... And so when I ran from behind a stopped bus, I didn't think to look first - and a scooter had to slam on its brakes and I actually felt the front wheel brush my leg as it passed by me. Gah. I think I lost a year of my life due to fright.

All in all, the trip was very interesting. I think that the two girls and I were getting crabbed out at each other because they didn't want to do anything that wasn't in the travel book, and I wanted to just explore and see what we found at times. Overall though, we managed to compromise and not go for each other's throats.

I didn't get back to my residence until 9pm tonight because I stopped for a late dinner. I then found out from a local student that the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival festivities were only going to happen tonight... There wouldn't be anything tomorrow.

I was exhausted, but I felt guilty about the idea of staying in my room knowing there was a festival going on that I might never get to see again. So I forced myself to go out again and check out Victoria Park.

I'm glad I went, but there wasn't much to see. Basically families go to local parks and light lanterns/candles/everything else flammable and spend time with each other. There were some nifty cultural displays at Causeway Bay, but I only saw 3 of them because it was nearly 11pm by the time I got there.

Anyways, it's 2:40am right now and I think it's time to go to bed. G'night y'all!