This past weekend I had it all planned out. I'd go to Macau on Saturday, relax by the pool at the Hotel on Sunday, get a good night sleep and then get back to work for my final week in Hong Kong. Not surprisingly none of that really worked out the way I expected. Just goes to show that I need Lisa around when I am really going to do something that requires a little prior planning.
Friday night was really the catalyst that started everything off on the wrong, but exciting foot. The main manager at the office I'm working in took the team (15 of us including him) to a dinner at a pretty nice Chinese Restaurant called "Peking Garden" where we had a nice meal that was highlighted by two full Peking Ducks. The food was good and the wait staff very efficient. A cool bonus was this guy who came out and made pasta in front of us by hand. It was neat to watch. He would split the long piece of dough in two, stretch it, fold it, cut one end off, then split the 4 pieces into 8, stretch fold, cut, repeat until the pasta, which started as thick as bread, ended up as thin as spaghetti.
After dinner we all headed to Lan Kwai Fong - party spot of Hong Kong - for drinks and socializing. I started off with the plan to just hang out then leave in about 30 minutes and head to bed. Instead I was invited to participate in a contest called CityChase. It was a promotional event for the actual CityChase that takes place on the 15th of Sept. In this event contestants are invited to complete one challenge - the winner of the challenge gets a prize. So this guy Padman, who is here for the company from London for two weeks, and I decided to participate. The challenge involved figuring out some obscure clues about Lan Kwai Fong and then finding a specific bar and finally getting someone to buy you a shot. Great - just what I didn't need an excuse to go talking to women in a bar. But, it was too late. I had accepted the challenge and there was no way I was going to let this British guy beat me. So, using my slightly more extensive experience in Lan Kwai Fong to my advantage I took off for the bar (the only Irish bar in the area). Unfortunately, when I arrived there were already other people there competing in a similar challenge. I was also clueless about figuring out how to get some strange woman (or man I suppose) to buy me a shot. I tried being straight forward with a couple people but they weren't buying. Then Padman showed up and he tried to be very direct with a couple ladies but they thought he was full of shit and just judged him as a loser. He tried again and almost succeeded with one but she finally told him to go away. It seemed neither of us were going to win. So I offered to just buy his drink so we could find out the prize. He liked the idea but we both decided that we would prefer to complete the challenge. Finally a new group of people came in. Two huge guys and two really attractive women. I moved in for the kill. I figured I'd either get the drink or one of the huge guys would kill me. I explained the situation and one of the girls in the group agreed to buy my shot. Woo woo. So I won. I got my hand stamped by the bar and moved back to the finish line to claim my prize with a dejected Padman in tow. The girl who gave us the challenge card awarded me my prize - a free entry to the official CityChase. Dammit. I am, of course, not going to be here for that so I basically just won piece of paper. However, the experience was fun so that was cool.
Padman and I then headed back to Stormies to meet up with the rest of the crew but, because we were so bad at getting someone to buy us a shot, they had all given up on us and left. So Padman and I decided to hang out. He is actually pretty cool and we had a good time just chilling. He is single though so I decided to take him somewhere he would have a chance to meet some hot single ladies so I took him to Dragon-I. While there are probably better bars (for the price) I don't know where any are so Dragon-I is the best place I could take him. There are plenty of attractive ladies hanging out since they get in and drink for free so I figured Padman would be pleased and he was. The only problem was I stayed until about 3am so I didn't get back to my room till about 3:30. This pretty much put a serious dent on my getting up early to head for Macau.
So at about 1pm I woke up and still needed to go to Tsim Sha Tsui (TST) to talk to the tailor. I showered, got dressed, and loaded up for the tailor then headed downtown. Eventually I arrived at the tailors, I tried on the shirts for him, and he identified what needed to be fixed and I headed out for the Ferry station to get to Macau. I got there at about 3 and decided to try and get the 3:30 ferry but then started debating the 3:30 helicopter ride which, while much more expensive, would be a cool experience. I talked to the ferry people and suddenly realized I would need my passport which was back at the hotel. So, I ran out, down the street, up the escallator, up the road, down Robinson road and into my hotel where I grabbed my room key and headed up the elevator to my room. It was 3:30. Damn. No getting back in time for that ride. So I showered, changed clothes, and grabbed my safe deposit box key and headed back downstairs to get my passport. Finally I hailed a cab and rode back to the ferry depot. The next ferry wasn't leaving until five and neither was the next helicopter. If I took the ferry I would get there at 6pm or if i took the helicopter 5:15. I decided to take the helicopter and start my time in Macau off like a high roller even if I couldn't afford to act like one when I got there.
The Helicopter ride was cool. We flew pretty low the whole way and I got to see the area from a neat perspective. Then, when we arrived at Macau we got expedited treatment through customs as we got to go through the "Diplomatic" line. That was sweet as the line from the "ferry people" who were just arriving from the 4 o'clock ferry was pretty long. Once through customs I headed outside and hopped on the free shuttle for the new Venetian Macau.
The Macau version of the Venetian pretty much looks just like the Vegas version it's just 3 times bigger. It's huge. However, the Grand Canal Shoppes were only about 50% completed and open (if that many) and the Casino, while large, had very few games that interested me. The slot machines are all overly complicated and there were very few blackjack tables. On top of that there were few to no Roulette tables and zero craps tables. I decided to stick to blackjack. I had gotten 1000 Macau Pictas when I arrived (about $100) but the tables at the Venetian only took Hong Kong dollars so I had to go convert my money. That was weird. Finally I had the right money and headed to the $100 HKD table (the cheapest they had which is something like $13.50 US per hand. Way more than I like to play (I like to play $5 hands). While I ended up losing my money (and another $100 US) after that I managed to stay at the table until around 1am until finally both poverty and hunger demanded I head out. The Venetian was fully booked and the guys at the table told me that the ferry didn't run all night so I needed to find a place to stay. The concierge at the Venetian recommend the Wynn and sent me on my way.
After waiting about 10 minutes for a cab I headed to the Wynn (about a ten minute drive) and then tried to check in. All they had available were two suites so I took one (ouch that was expensive). It was an amazing room, here's the floorplan (pdf). Not worth the money considering I was alone and the guy in the room next to me woke me up at 7am yelling on his cell phone. But wow, the accommodations themselves were top notch. A huge living room, an expansive bedroom, a palatial bathroom, and even a private massage room. The TV, a 60+" plasma, even knew my name! It was pretty amazing. Of course I slept like shit just like I always do the first night in a new hotel. However, checkout time wasn't until noon so I took my time leaving unfortunately I had to leave by 11 because I planned on meeting someone in HK for lunch at 1pm.
After checkout I caught the shuttle bus to the ferry and bought a ferry ticket - 1st row in "first class" which was a whopping $30. First class amounted to slightly bigger seats, a smaller cabin (so less crowd noise) and a small lunch served as soon as we disembarked. I passed on the lunch because I wasn't sure how my stomach would handle the ride. It turned out to be pretty smooth sailing and we were even in an old ferry that rode low and heavy. I arrived in Hong Kong at 12:50 - plenty of time to be at lunch on time because it was scheduled at a place near the Western Market. The Western Market sits adjacent to the ferry terminal. I hurried out to the Market and then up to Queens Road Central to look for the Millenium plaza and the Gaia Restaurante. 30 minutes later I was still wandering up and down Queens Road Central between Central and Sheung Wa (west end to me). I couldn't find it. So I started to give up and left Queens road heading back to De Veoux Road where I could do a little work before heading to my room and lo and behold I saw Wing Lok street which, I thought, was supposed to intersect with Queens Road Central at, you guessed it, Millenium Plaza. So I headed up Wing Lok street and found the restaurant. My companion was nearly done eating and had, understandably, assumed I wasn't coming since it was about 30minutes past our arranged meeting time. She was very gracious and accepted my apology and invited me to join her. From there I ate lunch and we chatted for a few hours. I was very surprised at how much time passed.
The lunch was one of those things that came out of the blue. A few days previously Lisa had been in a doctors office talking to one of the Nurses about how I was here in Hong Kong. The Nurses best friend, Judith, it turns out had just moved to Hong Kong that week to take a job with a newspaper. Lisa gave the nurse my email address, the nurse passed it on to Judith, and Judith emailed me. It is funny how, in a small town like Huntington, Lisa managed to find someone for me to have lunch with. It was nice. She was very friendly and it was great having someone to eat with. After five weeks eating out at restaurants alone gets pretty old.
After meeting with Judith I headed up to my hotel, dropped off a small bag of stuff I had bought in Macau, showered and changed then headed back to TST to pick up my shirts. They all seem to fit very well now and the collars are what I wanted so I'm pretty happy. I wandered around TST for a bit afterwards looking at Jade and Gold stuff trying to find something neat for the girls but had no success. They actually have a lot of these neat little hollow gold statues of varying sizes. The gold is shiny in some places and dull, sort of a brushed look, on the rest of the statue. As it is the year of the pig there are a bunch of cute little pig statues that Shannon would get a kick out of. However, I want to find one that Emily can have too and there isn't a monkey to be found. Well, there was one, but it didn't have the same cute motif - it was more of a realistic monkey and very serious looking.
Judith gave me an idea though so sometime this week I'm going to leave work during the middle of the day for a while and head over to Kowloon to visit a jade salesman. I am doubtful the Jade is real but what he does with it sounds like a cool gift for both Shannon and Emily so I don't really care. I won't spoil the gift here until the girls have them in hand. I also have to go to Causeway Bay again and pick up Lisa's birthday present. Her birthday is this Saturday (the day I get home) and she is turning 40! Make sure you wish her a happy birthday!