half-post of june 6, Saturday

Dad woke me up at freaking 5:30am to go jogging with him around the hotel's neighborhood. Uh, hello, I'm on vacation!!! Two hours later, I'm up and ready to sitesee, but by then it was flaming hot outside. Mind you, it is 10x's hotter in Macau than it is in Taiwan! The area around our hotel has a couple 17th century temples and churches. The neighborhood is very hilly, and my thighs burned as we walked up those steep hills ...hyperventilate...catch my breath...gulp down coconut popsicle..ah, relief. We arrive at the A-ma temple, which in the brochure that our hotel gave us does not note when it was built but it seemed pretty old anyway. The temple is beautiful with vibrantly colored details along the roof. There are a lot of people here, praying to the gods, leaving their footsteps in this possibly 2+ century old temple. Ah, more steep steps. I am about to give up, but I give in because my dad snarls, and well I push myself to go up one more flight--the last thank god--as a punishment for not waking up at 5:30am when it's not 80% humid. From the top is a view of the bay. There are huge incense sticks, that are maybe four feet tall and six inches thick. [CLICK TO VIEW DETAIL, I resized them to be bigger than what I usually size them to]

We check out by 1pm (extension) and take the shuttle to downtown Macau. And again, today we have no idea where we're staying, although I suggested that we stay at Metropark--another 5-star hotel that seemed pretty popular...when we waited for the Riviera shuttle bus at the Macau ferry terminal, I saw the Metropark shuttle bus coming back and forth every 10 minutes with a full bus.

Downtown is so cool. There are modern skyscrapers next to old Portuguese banks that are bright coral. At this time, we are still lugging our belongings around, and we get odd stares from people as if we were homeless. Good god, there is a huge Epcot center like building in front of my eyes. It belongs to a $2 billion casino/deluxe hotel called Grand Lisboa. The old hotel and casino are directly across the street from the new one. Can you be wasting anymore money?? I find it sad that Macau is reigned by casinos. Basically, these casinos and tourism are their only sources of a somewhat steady economy. Macau is a beautiful nation with a lot of ancient (okay, more like a couple centuries-old) ruins--most of which are churches, and Portuguese culture. Anyway, Dad has to go to the bank so we go inside one of the casinos. There is a line wrapping around the small bank because it is a Saturday, and this is one of the few banks still open at this time. I'm standing in line, and there are these girls wearing super tight minidresses and stilettos walking back and forth. The old geezers in front of me can't keep their eyes off them. I kinda can't too, not because I'm checking them out, but because I'm confused a little. They continue to walk back and forth, striding from one end of the hall to the other. Is this some kind of runway show? Then I realize that they are hookers, as Dad confirms. Aha. At this time of the day, it's only noontime? I guess they have nothing better to do anyway. We get out of the line because it'd probably be an hour til we get to the teller, and a guy in front of me just pulled out a cig to smoke in my face. Yes, people in Macau smoke everywhere you can imagine. There is no such existence of non-smoking zones here.

Okay, time to sleep, tomorrow is Monday and I have to wake up at 6:26am--will be updating the rest tomorrow, including more for June 6...!