5.24-25.01

I arrive at Philly airport around 8AM and get my eticket with my dad at the United Airlines check-in counter. No problems. I check in one piece of luggagounced e and get my ticket to take me to Chicago/O'Hare where I catch a connecting flight to Hong Kong at 1:30 PM. I My dad goes with me to the terminal where we waited until they called my flight. Looking around, I saw some people, Asians, who possibly could have been flying to HK like me. I see two people, a young, college-aged girl and and older woman. I board the plane after an uneventful wait and take my seat. Since I had been up until 4AM the previous night working on the webpage, I was dead tired and decided to sleep. A little bit later, I'm awaken by the sounds of the plane intercom by a sweet voice saying, "I'm sorry, the plane is experiencing technical problems. Will all passengers please head back to the check-in counter to be reseated on another flight." The time was 10:15, 45 minutes after the departure time. So, I headed back to the checkin counter and stood in an enormous and fast growing line. The younger girl who potentially was headed to Hong Kong was also standing in line. I asked her where she was headed and surely, she said she was headed for Hong Kong via the same itinerary as me. Yay! A fellow victim. So, we stood in line for 45 minutes. About 15 minutes into the line, a check-in worker announced that the plane was fixed and that all passengers could head back to the plane to to go Chicago. However, there were no connecting flights on the plane. Figuring I was one of the people could not take a connecting flight, I stayed in the line. Meanwhile, while chatting with the other victim, I learned that she went to UPenn and was going home for the summer to see family and eventually to work in Hong Kong! (^_^). Her name is Anthea and she's a rising Junior in Wharton. Cool. So, I had someone to talked with to pass the time. Once at the counter, we learned that we could have taken the Chicago flight that was re-opened to catch our flight to HK....the person who announced that there weren't any connecting flights was wrong. huh. So, we made a big fuss (or my fellow victim did) and we able to schedule a flight to Chicago at 11:30AM (Philly time) to catch a flight to Tokyo/Narita at 1:30PM (Chicago time) to catch a flight to HK at 6:55 (Tokyo time) and finally arriving at 10:35PM (HK time). Seeing the time, 11:20, we ran to the terminal in Phily and just caught the flight to Chicago via United Airlines. That flight was uneventful thankfully. Box lunch, the first meal of many that day/night Once in Chicago, we had to hike underground to the international terminal. The time was 1:30PM! Running to concourse C with our carry-ons like penguins, we learned that the flight to Tokyo was delayed by 2 hours! Crazy. Thank God. We wondered what the check-in dude at Philly was thinking since he must have realized that the United Airlines flight arrived at Chicago the same time our connecting flight left!.... So, we got our boarding passes and made sure our luggage arrived with us. We also, changed our seats to a window seat and I moved my seat next to Anthea's to keep her company. We found out though that we would miss our connecting flight in Toyko to HK because this flight was delayed two hours!! agh! Fortunately, the ticket lady booked us onto a Northwest Airlines flight to HK from Tokyo. heh...whew! :P Once on the plane, we found that our row was empty! yay! so much free room. So we settled in a took-off for Toyko. 15 hours is a long flight, but we were fed twice, watched 4 different movies, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (^_^), Finding Forrester, The Wedding Planner, and another recent movie. It was sad... Crouching..Dragon was the only movie with clear sounds...all of the other movies had fuzzy reception through the earphones. No biggie. I tried to sleep for a while, but I spent most of the time chilling and chatting with Anthea which was cool. We were fed thrice more...interesting, too-salty Asian food, but otherwise, a smooth flight.

So, once in Tokyo, tired and dirty, I wanted to brush my teeth and wash my face and use the bathroom, but we had 10 minutes to get our connecting flight to HK!! The Chicago-Toyko flight was late arriving.....but, the service in Tokyo is amazing! A Northwest Airline woman met us at the United Airlines terminal and walked us over to the Northwest terminal where she processed our boarding passes and luggage and took us to the airplane via bus. Amazing. Anthea said the service in Asia was better...far better than the USA...no doubt. (^_^) So, another 6 hour flight to HK from Tokyo (I think). That leg was smooth too. We were fed for the fourth time that day/evening...I didn't sleep much.

Finally arrived in HK at 11PM and made a run for the bathroom. I went through immigration smoothly and there departed with Anthea since her parents were waiting outside. I then proceeded to the luggage carousel?eing the last personal through customs..only to find that my luggage wasn? revolving around th carousel. Huh. Go figure. So, I talked to the luggage people to find that my luggage was not even in the computer system and was probably anywhere between Philly, Chicago, Tokyo, but definitely not Hong Kong. I gave them a contact number at CUHK and then proceeded to call my taxi to take me the University. A man answered and told me that the taxi had left about 15 minutes ago because he had been waiting for an hour...so it would be at least another 15 minutes for him to come back to the airport to pick me up. I went to McDonalds where I was told to meet him and had a McFlurry that was the size of a small soda but cost as much as a large in the US..and Smarties don't taste the same as M&M's. He came half an hour later and drove me to CUHK. I finally arrived to the New Postgraduate Hall around 12AM where I picked up my keys and misunderstood something in Cantonese about a number on my envelope. The taxi driver was kind enough to drive me to my dorm, University Residence 9, which is out in the boonies of campus on top of the hill that the campus sits upon, and dropped me off. At the door, I proceeded to unlock the front door, only to find that none of the four keys I got worked on the door...huh. I tried paging people on the various floors through the intercom, but no one answered. I even walked around the building yelling, Hello?! Can someone let me in? Remember I had just finished almost 20 hours of flying and 1 hr of sleep the night before... So, I headed back to the main road hoping to find someone to help me out. An older woman came down the hill in her car and I waved to get her attention..but she drove on. Not thinking anything of it, I went back the the dorm where a kind soul finally answered my loud yelling...I felt bad...he was in his PJ's and it was past 12:30PM. I still hadn't called my parents since Chicago almost 10 hours before, so after dropping off my two bags, I went to look for a phone since my room didn't come with one....I guess I expected a phone to be available somewhere in my flat. So, I headed back outside hoping to find a public phone or a buillding with a phone. I started walking the way I came toward the New Postgraduate Hall...not remembering that it was a 5 minute car ride up some very steep hills. I made it as far as 5 minutes when I came across a security guard. I walked up to his car window and asked him if there was a phone nearby. He looked at me, said something in his walkie-talkie and then told me to wait.... ok... He then asked me what I was doing, and I replied that I was looking for a phone to call home. He looked at me again and then told to me to wait with him a few minutes...the security chief was coming down to question me. huh? he then asked me who I was, so I answered that I was a student from the US studying Canto at the Chinese Langauge Center. After a few minutes, he began to understand my situation when the 6 other security guards pulled up in party vans... uhoh.. the chief came out and asked me the same questions about who I was and what I was doing on campus....after some honest and I guess naive explanation, he explained to me that a woman had called half an hr earlier about a young man in shorts and with a shaved head who waved to her by the University Residences..thinking that I was a potential escaped convict or something….. It was a good thing that he spoke English, otherwise, I really would have had an even more exciting evening. I guess I proved my innocence when I let him into the dorm room using the new keycode I just learned and showed him my acceptance letters and room keys. No problem. He was kind enough though to show me to a public phone where I called my parents to their great relief and then drive me back to the dorms afterwards. After that, a flat-mate woke up and welcomed me, Patrick, a cool dude, and then we went to sleep around 2AM.

The flat is NICE! It's huge! easily bigger than any room in the high rises at Penn. My flat has three singles and a double, two full bathrooms, a huge common room, a kitchen a fully equipped kitchen, laundry room with washbasin...yeah, no machines...(except in the dorm over) and then another bathroom d and study room at the end of the hall. Nice Place. And free airconditioning! that works! a definite comfort. My room is 2.5 times bigger than my former single at UPenn- huge and has a desk, computer desk, wardrobe, shelves...very nice, and a bed frame with a 1 inch pad on it that is my supportive mattress. Reminds me of an ironing board. My window faces the sunrise though which is really nice. This is a nice setup. It's going to be an good summer.

6.15.01 - Friday

Ahh, the day we left for Macau! I don't remember anything particular happening in class or beforehand. But, once class let out, we caught the 4:30PM bus back to our rooms and got our stuff for Macau. We, Pat, Tony, and myself, then caught the 5:15PM lightbus back to the railroad station and headed off to Kowloon Tong where we we met Amy, Rosie, Brian, and Shannon. 7 people total for this trip. We then proceeded to head to the hydrofoil pier. I didn't do the leading, Rosie and Tony did it this time. We got off at the Tsim Sha Tsui MTR stop and walked over to the waterfront pier by the Star Ferry, but we couldn't find the hydrofoil berth... Rosie finally asked where the dock was an we told it was some 15min out westward along the waterfront. Great! we had like 30 left before the hydrofoil left! So, we started walking very very quickly, getting sweaty and hot, heading westward trying to find the pier. We had heard stories of how the hydrofoil workers had turned people away because the passengers didn't arrive 30 minutes before departure time...so we were kind of worried. Eventually, after much walking we found the hydrofoil berth inside a mall, went through the exit immigration counter, and headed out to the boat. We made it with time to spare apparently because more people came onto the boat after we got on then were people already on the boat.

We decided to sit by the windows figuring that we could watch the view from outside the window. That was kind of a mistake...the boat was in fairly choppy I guess because sitting on the side of the boat, the rocking motion of the boat was extremely...noticeable. So, the ride was kind of uncomfortable...plus, the windows were so grimy that we couldn't even see outside! so, we didn't even get that much... the hydrofoil also was really really cold. The ride wasn't really that bad...but I heard a good number of complaints from my neighbors. (^_^)

We eventually got to Macau around 8:30PM. We caught the hotel shuttle bus and headed to the hotel. Now, in order to save the most money and still get a decent room, we decided to buy a package from a tour company to Macau for two people. So, two people got hydrofoil tickets, a double hotel room, and then breakfast in the morning. Aside from those, we just bought 5 hydrofoil tickets and split the costs for everything between the 7 of us. So, at hotel, the Pousada Marina Infante on Taipa Island, Rosie and Pat together went up to the desk to check-in. It was kind of funny pairing the two of them up. We think the hotel people thought they were some couple honeymooning and wanting a King size bed and extra pillows (for Pat's bad back of course...). We eventually all went to the room after the doorman had come back down from dropping them off, and relaxed a little bit. It was a fair sized room and easily fit all seven of us. We only had a problem with towels...we tried to call-up more, but they never came. The Front-desk must of at least wondered why a single couple would want 5 towels...

Before dinner, we tried to go to the casino were the at hotel but we couldn't in because Brian was wearing shorts. The security at the Macau casinos is crazy! You have to check-in bags and walk through metal detectors. Men must wear long pants, short-sleeve or longer shirts (I had a problem with that on Saturday at another hotel...), while the women can wear anything they want... So, Brian, who was the only one who really wanted to gamble couldn't gamble because he didn't bring any long pants with him... Around 9:30PM, we headed out to dinner. Brian had a list of Portuguese restaurants that the teachers back at school recommended, but he left it at home. So, we asked the Taxi drivers where a decent Portuguese restaurant was and they took us to one. The restaurant was nicely decorated and the service was good. But, no one ever came into the restaurant besides us. We were the only ones there for the entire dinner...huh. We ended up ordering food family style and shared a bunch of different dishes. I think the food was a Portuguese-Chinese fusion. It was ok. I wasn't particularly impressed. Most of the flavors tasted like Chinese food. No biggie. The food was kind of pricey too, and we were afraid that we wouldn't be able to eat out fill since we were limited by our budget. By the end though, most of us were full, so no problem.

We finished sometime around 11PM and started walking around, trying to find a place to buy pants for Brian. By then though, everything was closed. We caught some women walking out of a Giordanos just as the metal gate was closing and begged them in Canto to let Brian buy pants, but they wouldn't let him... We walked for a long while, passing by the Lisboa hotel and casino, the square and "yellow-brick road" to the famous cathedral ruins, and then the streets surrounding these two places. Everything was closed, so we headed to the Lisboa to see if we could find some stores inside. I waited with Brian while the others went in to look around. A doorman or something must have figured that Brian needed pants and told him via me that he could go outside to the bicycle sedan chair men and buy pants from them. Interesting...outside of the building was a pickup area for the bus, taxis, and the old-fashion (not running, but) bicycle sedan chairs. Just as we walked out of the casino, and old sedan driver must have seen us and came up to us asking if we wanted to buy pants. We said yes, hoping that he would have some jeans or some slacks to sell. He opened the seat of the sedan chair and brought out some pants in bags. Taking one out, we found that the pants were sweats! Brian stretched the waistband and held them up to the light. The pants were almost see-through and the elastic cracked and didn't go back to it's shape....hmm.... He wanted $100HK originally, but I managed to get him down to $70HK... But, Brian didn't want to spend $9US on such poor-quality pants and decided not to buy them. After that, we all met up and headed back to the hotel to turn in. By now, it was around 1PM. The others who explored the casino said it was dead! the tables were all cordoned-off and only the many VIP rooms were still playing...surprising. Macau doesn't really have a night life. Meanwhile, walking around, we were keeping a constant look-out for the escort services...the mny guidebooks we referred to said that single men would inevitably be approached by women who would say nothing more than, "In Bed" in either Mandarin, Canto, or English. Fortunately, we didn't come across any of them on our convoluted walks. But, we think we saw some people walking off with an escort...I mean, an old man walking next to a very young girl dressed in either loose, flowing satin, or tight, short skirts probably isn't a father taking his daughter out for a walk...sad. Sad that these old men don't respect women. Sad that girls so young (maybe late teens) resort to doing work like this.

Once we got back to the hotel, some of us showered and we relaxed a little. We pulled the mattress off of the boxspring and put it on the floor. The boxspring was actually fairly soft, no harder than the ironing boards we have back at the University. So, we decided that people could sleep on the mattress and boxspsing. Pat lent Brian his jeans and he, Amy, Tony, and I went down to the hotel's casino to gamble a bit. Eh, I didn't want to gamble that much, but I wanted try it out and least say I've done it. So, the casino in the hotel was tiny... I spent $10US on the $0.25Us equivalent slots ($2HK) and lost all of it. I almost got a payout, 3 red 7! but, I only put in one coin (I thought I have played 2) and the red sevens didn't payout for one coin plays, only 2 or 3 coin plays. sigh... so, I gambled. I felt like I could have better spent the money buying myself dinner. By Saturday's end, only Rosie was up after gambling. Tony won a little, but I think he ended up down in the end… Shannon and Pat didn't gamble. Amy and I all lost some small amount of money. And Brian, who wanted to gambled (blackjack), nevers got to because no spots opened up on the few blackjakck tables we found. The casinos in Macau also weren't too exciting. I guess I've been spoiled by Las Vegas with the huge gambling floors and many many slots machines and tables and extravagant settings.

After we had spent all of the money we wanted to lose, we headed back upstairs and cleaned up for bed. We bought a deck of cards and played for a bit since we couldn't play downstairs...(^_^) and then I taught Brian and Tony how to play Rummy 500. The others went to bed.

The three of us went to bed around 3:30AM. Amy, Pat, and Rosie slept on the mattress on the floor. Shannon, myself, and Tony slept on the boxsping. Although there was room on the "beds", Brian opted to sleep on the floor. There were no extra pillows and as is, Amy and Pat were sharing a pillow and I was using a wet towel. So, Brian got the one sheet from the bed and nothing else to (the mattress people got the comforter, and the boxspring people got the brown blanket that comes between the sheet and the comforter) sleep on... Some of us wanted to get up at reasonable time and get started with our day, but then again, others wanted to sleep in and relax...which didn't make much sense because Shannon and Brian had to catch the 3:00PM hydrofoil back to HK in order to get back and get ready for a show that evening (Miss Saigon).

6.16.01 - Saturday

That night, I didn't sleep extremely well, contrary to the hotel's claim... I was gently awakened by a symphony of nasal harmonies from my sleeping neighbor. I didn't want to move the person, lest the person wake up grouchy... Not to mention that I was sleeping in the middle of the "king-size" boxspring, which was really just two twins put together and created a nice ridge running parallel along my behind and back. So, I just quietly removed myself from the spot, which was warm at least, and settled myself on the floor between the boxspring and the wall. I brought my still-wet towel with me to rest my head on. I was only wearing a cut-up T-shirt and a pair of nylon shorts, so very quickly, it became quite cold. Eventually, I grabbed my jeans and put them on....and then my clean socks for Saturday for good measure. Meanwhile, my body was still cold, so, I covered my body with my nylon shorts that I was wearing...however, they didn't quite cover my body, so I had to assume a mummy-like position, crossing my arms to make my body small enough to fit under my shorts...hehheh maybe if my rear was bigger than it already is, I could have fit my body under my bigger shorts...

I got up around 8AM and cleaned up, figuring there would be a mad rush for the morning bathroom use. Eventually, Rosie awoke and cleaned up. Around 9:15AM, we went downstairs to check-out the hotel breakfast buffet. The people at the front-desk didn't fill in the number of guests Rosie&Pat on the meal-ticket...assuming it was just the two of them staying the room.....SO, we simply wrote in a 7 and everyone suddenly had breakfast... We noticed that breakfast ended at 10AM, so we called the other 5 in the room, woke them up, and told them to come down for breakfast before it closed...after a third call, they came running down, in 10 minutes!! 5 people in 10 minutes! We sat down for, after the receptionist gave us and the 7-person meal ticket a funny look, and ate. It was your typical Chinese continental breakfast...not an American breakfast… After breakfast, we went back to our room and watch Game 5 of the NBA Finals and then checked-out around noon. We took the shuttle back to the Peninsula, where we proceeded to go look for pants for Brian. We ended walking the same walk, "the yellow-brick road" where we walked looking for pants the night before. This time, the stores we open and Brian found a pair of pants without a problem. We then headed back the Lisboa casino since it was a close and big casino so that Brian could "do chihn", literally "pour (heavily) money". We walked around inside, but never found one open seat at a blackjack table...so, Brian never got to gamble.... From there, Shannon and Brian left to head back to Hong Kong for Miss Saigon, and the rest of us went back to the "yellow-brick" road to go walk to the Ruins of St. Paul's cathedral. We walked along the road and found some cool shops along the way. Eventually, hot and sweaty, we made it the cathedral after 20 of walking and looked the ruins and the view. Nice. It's just the front side of a cathedral that was built in 1602 and burnt downed in 1835. Interesting in itself. From there, we went up to Monte Fort on top of the hill, climbing many more steps. The view from the fort was awesome and all-encompassing. We got to look down upon Macau and the ocean in the distance. From the fort, we could see a definite definition between living standards...there was a section of mostly older rundown lo-rise flats and then next to it, by the waterfront were newer buildlings, taller, more extragant. Upper and lower classes of society it seemed, and not much between... It's kind of sad how right next to the poorer-looking sections of the city were scattered casinos. I asked one my companions...where do ALL of these people work? (cause it there looked like a lot of people living down below) She answered the probably work for the casinos...and gamble the money back to them... perhaps true. . . . .

After that, we hiked back down the fort and hill and back down the yellow-brick road. We were getting hungry (kind-of...we had been snacking on goodies on the way and down from the ruins along the yellow-brick road), so we decided to walk westward to find some place to eat. We walked along for a bit were suddenly confronted by some street vendors selling freshdly-made cookies and Chinese candies and dried flavored meats. They were obviously trying to get a sell, pushing samples of various cookies and meats to us, urging to eat, and calling us, "gohgo" (older brother), "jehje" (older sister), "lengjai" (handsome boy), and "lengneuih" (pretty girl). Amy eventually bought some peanut/coconut candies and Tony and I split a bag of dried, fruit-flavored beef. It was good. While bargaining, I thought he said it was $50HK per bag, so it wasn't so bad a deal, 3 8x6in slices each. But, when we paid, we had to pay $80HK...it was $50HK per pound, not bag as I thought he said...so, we got ripped off. We didn't even bargain...our first mistake... We walked westward some more and then turned down an alley with lots of lights. Immediately, store vendors selling the same type of dried meats came up to us and pushed their meats to us, trying to cut us a free sample...knowing that accepting the sample would mean, getting sucked into buying something, we just walked through as quickly as possible. At one point, one woman grabbed Amy's arm and wouldn't let go, trying to sell her some meat, until Pat came over and grabbed Amy back... It was kind of crazy. This happened for a good three blocks and by the end we were getting kind of weary of the street vendors...eventually, Rosie started saying, "ngoh msihk yuhk, ngoh msihk yuhk la!" (I don't eat meat, I don't eat meat!)...it was kind of funny. Meanwhile, Amy and Tony were trying to tell them that we already bought meats and candies, but the vendor people wouldn't listen... They wanted to make a sale....they really wanted to make the sale....

After that, we walked some more and found ourselves in the middle of Macau...as in the sections of Macau where there are no tourists...were real people live and work. So, we decided to head back to the yellow-brick road to find a place to eat. We're tourists. We have no shame or pride....(^_^) As we were walking back, we passed by a building with a glass-front and looking inside, we saw some 20-30 women sitting there in skimpy clothing...just sitting there. One of the other guys went back and looked again, and he saw the same thing again..... well, I guess that's the first brothel house I've seen. yikes.

We finally made our way back to one street down from Lisboa and found a Japanese restaurant and ate there. By then, we were all very very tired, sweaty, and ready to head back home. We ate a silent, but tasty meal, and then headed over to the Lisboa to kill some time before the catching the hydrofoil back to HK. Tony (and Pat keeping him company) went to Lisboa to gamble some more (I think he said he didn't win anything). Amy, Rosie, and I went out to a closed-down mall by the waterfront (they thought it was open) and then sat by what seemed like a water-race course. From there, we looked over the water at the bridge to Taipa and watched the sunset. Very nice. Very calm. Then went to Lisboa and caught a bus to the hydrofoil. There, we met Pat and Tony and caught the 8:30PM hydrofoil (instead of the 9:30PM departure) since we were there anyways. Customs didn't give us any trouble and we settled down on the hydrofoil. Everyone slept and I read the Word. An uneventful, though not rocky, but cold (of course) ride back.

Once back in Hong Kong, we headed straight back to the dorms, saw Rosie off at Kowloon Tong, caught the minibus at University Station back to the dorms and crashed.

Overall, it was an experience. Macau is Macau. I didn't feel that the scenery was particularly stunning, or the things to do were that fun. Gambling can quickly waste your money. Doesn't sound very inspired...but I have no sentiments for or against it. I'd suggest someone explore Hong Kong more or go to China before Macau. Perhaps I didn't see enough of the island...I did only walk along the yellow-brick road about ten times...(^_^) So, perhaps I shouldn't say anything quite yet. BUT, at least I can say I've been to Macau and seem a glimpse of the place that my dad lived in for a part of his young life