Saturday in Hong Kong and Macau

Link to Pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/John.Purcell.3rd/MacauAndHongKongSaturday

Saturday was a free day, which I started by going to Macau with Dave, John, Chris, and Lenny from Fellows. I was a little tired that morning, and uttered a classic line. We thought we were going to be on a hydrofoil, which floats above water, but we ended up on a boat. Part of the way in, it happened…I asked no one in particular, “aren’t we supposed to be on a boat that floats?”

Lenny was right on it with his answer, a deadpan, “John, most boats float. That’s why they’re boats.” We got a kick out of that all day.

Macau was hot and we started out by going straight to the Venetian, the largest casino in the world. One of the group gambled a bit and won 1200 HK $. We walked around a bit and were generally unimpressed. Then, we went to the Sands and checked that out. It was another casino, nothing special.

I had signed up to run in a race, and boy, it was some race. I had tried to get others in the group to do it, but no one went for it. Andy was smart, he’s a detail guy, and pointed out that there was a significant hill. I didn’t notice that, and thought it couldn’t be so bad. It was a monster mountain/hill, and going up was a lot better than coming back, which scared the crap out of me and was the slower part of my race. LOL!

It was in Discovery Bay, which is a neat community out on Lantau Island. They allow no cars that I saw, and you get there by subway and bus. They had plenty of bikes there, and the people looked to be largely expats. I’m sure there were cars somewhere, but I saw none, unless you count the golf carts and a delivery truck.

Returning to HK after the race, I came out of the wrong exit from the subway, and ended up walking down a street called Hanoi, and glancing into a restaurant, I saw my friends and classmates eating in a noodle shop. Amazingly, Eric, who is very picky, was eating there, too. What a change! It’s a great example of how we all grew and changed during this trip. Coming in, Eric was kind of antsy about the food thing. By the last day, he was eating in a hole-in-the-wall noodle shop in the middle of Hong Kong. I was happy to see that.

Later that night, a bunch of us hung out at the bar outside the back of the hotel. While we sat there, I smoked a cigar, John H. created a cheese and fruit plate by asking the waitress to combine elements of 90 different menus (small exaggeration), and people from the tv show amazing race went by…. Andy came out and introduced us to his friend Tony, who’s with the US government in HK. Nice guy. I went up at 11ish, and others stayed much later.