So we have some catching up to do! I'm still getting used to keeping up with the Blog and one of the most important things is to keep on writing. I wanted to make sure it is still in my brain to tell everyone about our wonderful trip out to Macau last week!
There was a beautiful view on the ferry over, where we saw this weird sign :)
There was a beautiful view on the ferry over, where we saw this weird sign :)
We were welcomed into the city by our Air BnB host named Richard who was as awesome as they come. He's from Edmonton, Canada, and showed us around a little bit. We settled into his beautiful home which was inside Old Taipa Village. It felt like we were in Europe with the way the countryside looked. We actually got one heck of a deal for 2 nights. It was about 10 minutes away from the Casino, which was perfect as I was heading there to play in my first Pokerstars tournament!
Jen drops me off at the poker room, and I'm not feeling nervous at all. It's usually a lot more nerve racking when you know you're going up against the possibility of losing big sums of money, but that's why I love tournaments. Once you lose, you're out, or you can make up to 20 times your buy-in. I like the gamble of that :) Jen was super excited to have me participate as I always read about poker, watch poker, talk to her about poker... she knows my passion for the game, so getting the chance to travel to Macau, it was definitely something I've envisioned since we planned our Hong Kong trip.
I was actually 45 minutes late sitting down as we had to get settled into our place. Right when I sat down at the table, I got a really big hand. The guy I was playing against thought I was probably just bluffing so immediately I won a lot of chips. It helped me feel comfortable. People weren't talking at the table, and that's something I don't enjoy. I like to make jokes and have fun with people as we're playing a game! There was one older gentleman who was just having the time of his life. He was trying to get the table to open up, so I started laughing about all the effort he was putting in and how everyone was still completely silent. As everyone realized that fun was to be had, that's when we started having some good times. People started showing hands, getting excited about the game. At one point, I ended up pushing all of my chips in against him, and he thought for literally 5 minutes. Someone else ended up calling the clock on him because he was taking so long. He ended up folding, telling me that I was not giving anything away with how I was acting. He was also an amateur player like me, but I still took the compliment well :D After he busted out, he kept coming around to check up on me saying I should win the whole tournament so that he has a better story.
I ended up playing for a lot longer, from 7pm to 130 in the morning. Jen was so patient sitting in the casino's Hard Rock Cafe, making friends with all the waitstaff that treated her like she was the most exciting guest they had ever had. They kept coming to sit with her, asking about life, comparing tattoos, and just about everything in between. She was an absolute trooper as the game wouldn't end until there was only one final table left. I made a friend at the table and we were down to such a low amount of chips, but at least it was together! We got moved over to where 2 Japanese girls were sitting. One of the girls had a floor woman approach her and give her a note that another player wanted her to have. It said that he had lots of fun playing with her, and wanted to be in contact cause he wanted to spend more time with her. It was like we were in grade school again as she giggled and we made fun of how red she was getting, like she drank a whole bottle of Asahi! So I ended up pushing my chips all into the middle against this girl and my friend folded his hand, but she calls me. I ended up getting busted by that same girl when I tried to bluff her! She gave me the funniest moment of my poker tournament, and the worst all in quick fashion. Just like most women, am I right guys!? (editor's note: Girls are awesome.)
So I'm out of the tournament, and Jen's waiting for me now reading at the Mcdonalds, so she's happy to see me, but also unhappy that I ended up losing. I really didn't feel like I lost though, as I got down to 32 out of 191 people. Not too bad! I also got to get alot of experience, and I'll be much stronger next time. Jen told me she had found a roulette machine and doubled up her money on the first roll! But the whole machine was in cantonese, so she had to flag the floor staff down to help her find the cash out button. That was enough gambling for her! All in all, a successful evening.
That's one of the reasons why I love poker. It's about calling yourself out on the things that you can improve on, having discussions about it, and figuring out how to make sure you do better next time. That's how I always want to be in my everyday life. Having Jen with me is the best for this, as she gets my overanalysing brain, and helps me understand why some things come out negative, finding which positives to bring forward with me for next time.
I was actually 45 minutes late sitting down as we had to get settled into our place. Right when I sat down at the table, I got a really big hand. The guy I was playing against thought I was probably just bluffing so immediately I won a lot of chips. It helped me feel comfortable. People weren't talking at the table, and that's something I don't enjoy. I like to make jokes and have fun with people as we're playing a game! There was one older gentleman who was just having the time of his life. He was trying to get the table to open up, so I started laughing about all the effort he was putting in and how everyone was still completely silent. As everyone realized that fun was to be had, that's when we started having some good times. People started showing hands, getting excited about the game. At one point, I ended up pushing all of my chips in against him, and he thought for literally 5 minutes. Someone else ended up calling the clock on him because he was taking so long. He ended up folding, telling me that I was not giving anything away with how I was acting. He was also an amateur player like me, but I still took the compliment well :D After he busted out, he kept coming around to check up on me saying I should win the whole tournament so that he has a better story.
I ended up playing for a lot longer, from 7pm to 130 in the morning. Jen was so patient sitting in the casino's Hard Rock Cafe, making friends with all the waitstaff that treated her like she was the most exciting guest they had ever had. They kept coming to sit with her, asking about life, comparing tattoos, and just about everything in between. She was an absolute trooper as the game wouldn't end until there was only one final table left. I made a friend at the table and we were down to such a low amount of chips, but at least it was together! We got moved over to where 2 Japanese girls were sitting. One of the girls had a floor woman approach her and give her a note that another player wanted her to have. It said that he had lots of fun playing with her, and wanted to be in contact cause he wanted to spend more time with her. It was like we were in grade school again as she giggled and we made fun of how red she was getting, like she drank a whole bottle of Asahi! So I ended up pushing my chips all into the middle against this girl and my friend folded his hand, but she calls me. I ended up getting busted by that same girl when I tried to bluff her! She gave me the funniest moment of my poker tournament, and the worst all in quick fashion. Just like most women, am I right guys!? (editor's note: Girls are awesome.)
So I'm out of the tournament, and Jen's waiting for me now reading at the Mcdonalds, so she's happy to see me, but also unhappy that I ended up losing. I really didn't feel like I lost though, as I got down to 32 out of 191 people. Not too bad! I also got to get alot of experience, and I'll be much stronger next time. Jen told me she had found a roulette machine and doubled up her money on the first roll! But the whole machine was in cantonese, so she had to flag the floor staff down to help her find the cash out button. That was enough gambling for her! All in all, a successful evening.
That's one of the reasons why I love poker. It's about calling yourself out on the things that you can improve on, having discussions about it, and figuring out how to make sure you do better next time. That's how I always want to be in my everyday life. Having Jen with me is the best for this, as she gets my overanalysing brain, and helps me understand why some things come out negative, finding which positives to bring forward with me for next time.
This is the trophy that went to the entire season's poker champion. You have to win many tournaments, accumulating points, and of course win lots of money! A little blurry cause they told us not to take pictures in the Casino, but ya know I like to make sure you guys get an inside glimpse :)
After the poker was finished, we were searching for some late-night food. We visited a couple restaurants to look at their menus, as we always do, since Jen is Gluten-Free and vegetarian. Most of the time it's Indian or Thai, mostly curries, so if we want to dine out, I'm expecting to write it in my Diarrhea hahaha (she's totally gonna make me delete this:P)
She told me to just eat something at one of the other restaurants because she didn't think we would find anything... until we found a gem. I don't even remember the name of the restaurant as it was written in Chinese, that's how authentic it was. It was inside the Casino, so we were worried that the prices would not be reasonable. Then I realized that they want us to eat here, so we stay and gamble more, giving us cheaper food prices! Perfect for us, cause we were done playing, we just wanted something to fill our hungry bellies. They had rice rolls that they fried up all crispy with Hoisin and peanut sauce, vegetable fried rice, sui long bau and I even took a picture of the special Malay curry ramen noodles with chunky beef. I know my dad and buddy Kajan would love to eat this sometime. I'll definately bring my pops here when he comes to visit in February!
After the poker was finished, we were searching for some late-night food. We visited a couple restaurants to look at their menus, as we always do, since Jen is Gluten-Free and vegetarian. Most of the time it's Indian or Thai, mostly curries, so if we want to dine out, I'm expecting to write it in my Diarrhea hahaha (she's totally gonna make me delete this:P)
She told me to just eat something at one of the other restaurants because she didn't think we would find anything... until we found a gem. I don't even remember the name of the restaurant as it was written in Chinese, that's how authentic it was. It was inside the Casino, so we were worried that the prices would not be reasonable. Then I realized that they want us to eat here, so we stay and gamble more, giving us cheaper food prices! Perfect for us, cause we were done playing, we just wanted something to fill our hungry bellies. They had rice rolls that they fried up all crispy with Hoisin and peanut sauce, vegetable fried rice, sui long bau and I even took a picture of the special Malay curry ramen noodles with chunky beef. I know my dad and buddy Kajan would love to eat this sometime. I'll definately bring my pops here when he comes to visit in February!
The next morning we woke up, and Richard had told us that the only Vegetarian/Vegan restaurant in town is right beside us, what are the chances? Jen was able to pick up some pancakes, which was a huuuge treat. It was National Pancake week too, so what a tasty celebration!
The woman who was working there had 2 kids, who didn't speak a word of English, just hanging out in the store with her. She told us of her travels and how she used to work for Just For Laughs comedy festival in Montreal back in the 80's. We exchanged stories, and laughed alot with her kids. They might not have spoken English, but her son did know how to pour water onto the floor, slip on it, then take a wooden plank partition and slam it down over as he falls to the ground. So of course, I pretended to push the plank onto his head, as any good play mate does, attacking the hero of the made-up skit, we battled until he was victorious! Of course, the girls just thought we were weird.
This reminded me of how much I miss working with kids. There's something so special about the energy that children bring to our lives. Their ideas are so fresh where the moment stays in the moment. Over thinking things you end up falling behind and you can't play as well as you can, so you adapt by riding the wave of laughter together. They're all about the improv, and they improve my life force!
This reminded me of how much I miss working with kids. There's something so special about the energy that children bring to our lives. Their ideas are so fresh where the moment stays in the moment. Over thinking things you end up falling behind and you can't play as well as you can, so you adapt by riding the wave of laughter together. They're all about the improv, and they improve my life force!
Onto the next adventure, we walked out of Taipa streets in the area where we were staying. There was lots going on, with busy streets and lots of little shops. We were hoping to end up at the Ruins of St. Paul by the end of the day. Here are some of the sweet things we saw in Taipa!
After walking the streets for about an hour, we ended up being right beside a bus that went over to Macau right when it stopped. We were excited of the convenience and ready to take on downtown Macau! The first thing we walked into was this incredible space of worship.
This temple was just so beautiful. There were so many statues and chiselled structures that really caught our eyes. The flow of the place was excellent too, very welcoming and right out in the open. The owners of the space were selling items, but not for a minute did it feel like that was their objective for being there. It was a place of worship first, shop second. This was definately appreciated. There was even a cute kitty that Jen pet for a good 10 minutes. Definately made her really miss Boo. (if you haven't noticed that already)
One thing that I noticed was that there is a hell of a lot of scooters out here in Macau! HOOOOLYY! And everywhere you went, you were in danger of being smoked by one. It was just the ways of the road. The cars would have 6 or 7 scooters around them every single time they stopped at a light. It must have been SO stressful driving here. We thought Toronto was bad, imagine double the cars, triple the scooters and quadruple the people!
One thing that I noticed was that there is a hell of a lot of scooters out here in Macau! HOOOOLYY! And everywhere you went, you were in danger of being smoked by one. It was just the ways of the road. The cars would have 6 or 7 scooters around them every single time they stopped at a light. It must have been SO stressful driving here. We thought Toronto was bad, imagine double the cars, triple the scooters and quadruple the people!
We were getting pretty warm and still trying to find the Ruins of St. Paul (FOREVER). We got lost multiple times, even following a blue-haired lady who "FOR SURE" knew it was the 17 bus we needed and that she will bring us to. By following, we mean we felt like we were in a video game and if she got too far ahead, we would lose. She had to get back to work, so we were running and dodging locals behind her. She was super wrong by the way. The driver said we better walk it, as it was only 10 minutes from where we were, whereas she told us it was a pretty long bus ride away. I paid my fare already but I just took it as an information tax as I had 20 angry locals staring me down as I extracted as much info in the 30 seconds I got. On our way down the street, we needed some air conditioning ASAP as we were chasing after the blue-haired lady for so long. (what was I thinking trusting the blue-haired lady? of course it was my idea HAHA)
We ended up finding this super cheap arcade where one HKD was a token. And everything was the same price as Canada arcades, so about 3 times cheaper! Jen got super serious on the chinese drums, and we split our Mario Kart adventure one apiece. We also won some tickets, but everything in arcade ticket-buying is insanely expensive. People take it mad serious though, as we saw a mom berating her kid for not shooting the zombies properly, which lost her tickets. She had over a thousand tickets in her hand, but she was screaming at him at the top of her lungs. Super scary Chinese mom moment! We decided to reward a different family with our tickets, which included the young boy we beat at Mario Kart, before we departed back into the humid Macau air.
We ended up finding this super cheap arcade where one HKD was a token. And everything was the same price as Canada arcades, so about 3 times cheaper! Jen got super serious on the chinese drums, and we split our Mario Kart adventure one apiece. We also won some tickets, but everything in arcade ticket-buying is insanely expensive. People take it mad serious though, as we saw a mom berating her kid for not shooting the zombies properly, which lost her tickets. She had over a thousand tickets in her hand, but she was screaming at him at the top of her lungs. Super scary Chinese mom moment! We decided to reward a different family with our tickets, which included the young boy we beat at Mario Kart, before we departed back into the humid Macau air.
As we left the arcade after the best 20 HKD you can ever spend, we walked right into a park that had some awesome monuments. We also found a music store that had the smallest ukulele we had ever seen! Jen thought this was pretty amazing, it totally made her day. They call it a "pocket" ukulele and it is no bigger than the size of your hand. So awesome! You can click the images below to see them full-size.
We felt like we were going the wrong way, and we NEEDED to get to the Ruins of St. Paul today as that's what our Lonely Planet told us to do. Guide us guidebook, we are clueless in this new space!
WE FINALLY MADE IT! After an entire day of trying to find this, countless stops along the way, it's right in front of us :D It's everything we thought it would be. And by that we mean it was a burnt down school where lots of people were taking pictures at. More importantly it signified it was the final check point! WOOOO! Of course we had to take some pics in front it, and this one is Jen with her arms up saying fiiinalllyyyy we made it and everyone running from her stinky armpits from the long day of sweating. (editor's note: I love her, I'm allowed to make fun of her :D)
WE FINALLY MADE IT! After an entire day of trying to find this, countless stops along the way, it's right in front of us :D It's everything we thought it would be. And by that we mean it was a burnt down school where lots of people were taking pictures at. More importantly it signified it was the final check point! WOOOO! Of course we had to take some pics in front it, and this one is Jen with her arms up saying fiiinalllyyyy we made it and everyone running from her stinky armpits from the long day of sweating. (editor's note: I love her, I'm allowed to make fun of her :D)
And this is Jen headbutting me while I act as one of those lucky cats. (keep scrolling right and you can see the fun action!)
On a more serious note, we actually were able to enjoy the site of this church as there was so much power as you're facing it. In 1835, the entire college burnt down from a fire that started in the kitchen. All that remains is this eerie door, that leads to nothing, and everything at the same time.
The rest of the night we went on an adventure of shopping and Casino visiting where we ended up winning a little bit of money! We were playing on the roulette machines as the table games here in Macau are insanely expensive. The minimum bet of 200HKD! WHAATTT... that's like 30 dollars Canadian. Way too much for us but one day when I win that Pokerstars Asia champion trophy, maybe I'll play a couple hands :P
There were so many eye-catching, bright and entertaining moments, I'll let the pictures show you!
There were so many eye-catching, bright and entertaining moments, I'll let the pictures show you!
We found that there was lots of shopping in Macau kind of like downtown Hong Kong. Taipa resembled alot more of what we thought Macau would look like. This was a great experience as our first trip outside of Hong Kong since we arrived. It was only for 3 days but what a packed 3 days it was. I'm finding one of the best things is to be able to let some of the pictures speak for themselves, as I sometimes talk people's ears off :)
Hope you've enjoyed coming along to Macau with us, and we will be back soon with another update of our wonderful Hong Kong Adventures! Now, time for a nap!
Hope you've enjoyed coming along to Macau with us, and we will be back soon with another update of our wonderful Hong Kong Adventures! Now, time for a nap!