Gamblor! Macau!

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I used to work at Sage Bistro on the UBC Vancouver campus.  Okay, maybe I was working there last year at this time, but I feel like I've been away from that place for an eternity.  During holidays, I sometimes hit up River Rock or Grand Villa casinos for some late-night blackjack with my friends.  Most of the time I used my Sage tips.  Lucky for me, I was in the green before I left for China. You know what gamblers say, "You don't have a gambling problem if you're winning."

Well, I got a little glimpse of the high-rollers.  No, not in Vegas.  That place will soon be small beans as compared to where I went...MACAU!!!

Casino Lisboa

Paul at the Ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral

My casino of choice.  Wynn's.  Okay, okay...I lost $60 there. But holy s--t did I go out in style.

Macau preparing for the Lunar New Year celebrations. Would've liked to see what it was like, but I was in Kobe's Chinatown at the time in Japan.

Macau is a pretty cool island. I have to say that it's a place of pretty serious gamblers.  They love their Baccarat here, and I saw Chinese throw down money like it was nothing.  I was actually hard-pressed to find a blackjack table at some casinos. As for the entertainment, well that's a work in progress.  Vegas is still a lot more fun away from the tables, but probably not for much longer after the next string of casinos begin to pop up.  And they will pop up soon.  The construction next to the Venetian Hotel Casino is without compare. The last time I saw that many construction sites was before the 2010 Vancouver Games.

But what Macau does have that Vegas does not is a deep Portuguese colonial history.  Okay, yeah I think that colonialism generally mucks stuff up.  But after you taste Macauan cuisine, you'd be glad that they've had a lasting effect here...at least in the cuisine.  The first dinner I had was HK style fried rice topped with a Portuguese seafood stew.  Words cannot describe how delicious it was.

Walking around Senado Square, vendors hand out samples of snack foods.  Personally, I liked the jerky meats.  I didn't buy any since they give you so much meat, and I didn't want to carry it around.  But I harsh freeloaded off the freebies.

...and not to mention THESE...

...Ah yes, the famed Macau egg tart.  Far superior to the Hong Kong ones IMO (sorry to all my HK friends, but you gotta admit, Macau egg tarts are so flavorful, piping hot, and just a perfect snack)!

After the tables in Wynn's, I went to the bar at the Casino Lisboa to have a double Johnny Walker Blue Label (yes I splurged on my drink...so what?)with a touch of spring water to celebrate my losses. The free burlesque show at the bar was a nice touch.

More on my adventures in Macau soon!

Wo bu shuo Guangdong hua! Part 4

 This week will be busy.  I'm teaching 1 block of Social Studies 10 and 3 blocks of Info Tech 10.  I'm just going to put up some pictures with small descriptions for this edition of Pan Laoshi's Adventures.

Central Hong Kong

A view from Victoria Peak

Went up on the Tram, went down on foot on Old Peak Road.

Came across a nice park with a big fountain and a zoo. Headed to Causeway Bay but my camera battery died.

Central by night from Kowloon.

The next day I wanted to go to the Big Buddha, but met Annetta - a new friend.  Detoured to Disneyland HK, which is puny, especially if you've been to Disneyland in California and Disneyworld in Florida.

Annetta helping me pick out a present for Cathy.

On the way to the Big Buddha.

The Big Buddha

Annetta and I went up the Peak at night to go see Toussaud's Wax Museum.  Fought off some ninjas with my homeboy Bruce Lee.

Central...on the way to have late night wonton noodle soup. The next day I would depart to meet Gamblor in Macau.

Wo bu shuo Guangdong hua! Part 3

Hong Kong!  I love Hong Kong!  When I first went there, I fell in love with the place almost immediately.  There's so much to see! There's so much to do!  Lots of sights, lots of sounds.

李小龍 (Lee Xiao Long).  You know his English name.

Last time, I stayed with my father at a hotel.  This time, however, I stayed at the infamous Chungking Mansions.  My mom emailed me and told me that she stayed there back in the 70s with my grandmother and great-grandmother.  It was a filthy hole-in-the-wall dung heap back then, and to a certain extent it's kept a bit of that.  I was also tipped off that it has been deemed one of the dirtiest and most dangerous place to stay in all Hong Kong, for its reputation of vice is without compare in the city.

I actually didn't think it was all that bad.  Okay, a fight broke out between a security guard and a drunk ass foreigner, and the internet place tried to sucker me into paying more than they deserved, the various "businessmen" surrounding the place were so sketchy and pissed me off a number of times, a couple having loud rough sex was making it difficult for me to sleep, and the main floor often smelled like Chinese washroom.  But other than that, it was fine.  The guest house I was at was ran by a Chinese woman and a cleaned by a short Filipina.  She kept the rooms quite clean.

My HK Mansion.

The Chungking Mansions was just a place to rest.  I was in Hong Kong to bask in the glory of my favorite city in East Asia, although I'm really not all that sure if it's my favorite anymore.  Not after Tokyo.

The first thing I did was to meet my friend Stephanie, who works at a school in a different part of China.

 

OMG, soy sauce ready on the table.  You never see this in Wuhan!

 

Of course, the next thing was to get my eat on because HK food is so effin' delicious.  Canto food is a lot more similar to Chinese Canadian.  Bland to Mandarin standards.  But eats in HK reminded me more of home than of the spicy and oily dishes of Central China.

Wonton Noodle Soup, Biatch!

From Kowloon we went to Central via the Star Ferry.  After crossing, we ran into a beer and wine kiosk.  I got myself a stout beer to drink as I walked around town.  Compared to Wuhan, however, it was tai gui le.

Beer Kiosk

Buying HK egg tarts (|Macauan ones are  far superior IMO)

Walked around for a while until we arrived in SoHo, the foreigner's food haven.  Went to a Spanish restaurant and had seafood paella and rioja (my favorite wine).  I think the place was run by Pinoy (Filipinos).

Great first day with a friend and lots of flavorful food in the city that raised the immortal Bruce Lee.

Wo bu shuo Guangdong hua! Part II

 

Started off my third day going to an old Roman Catholic church that the French built. Started late, so when I finished looking around, I tried to get lunch at the local Cantonese sit-down restaurants.  But the Cantonese love Cantonese food, so they were jam packed with people. I was hungry.  I settled for a nice German bar/ restaurant that's popular with the Western expat community.  Had an assortment of sausages and sauerkraut.  Yummy.  Actually, it was probably the best Western-style meal I've had in all of Asia.

Paulaner beer from Munich is delicious, btw.

Wanted to go see some co-co commie stuff, so I started heading over to the PMI, the Peasant Movement Institute.  I wanted to go to the Whampoa Military Academy, where Sun Yat Sen, Zhou Enlai and Chiang Kai Shek all used to work, but that was 40 km out of town, and like I said, I started late.  Also, I wasn't so confident in my ability to make two bus connections in the middle of nowhere in a foreign environment.  Later, in Japan, I would learn that this really was not a problem, but China is very different than Japan, and wo bu shuo Guangdong hua!

So I settled for the PMI.  Mao and Zhou used to lecture peasants at the school on how to bring about peasant-based revolution in rural China.  A lot of the students were from the countryside.  Many of them were killed during the Guomindang's massacre of the reds just before or during the war with Japan.  I also stumbled across a lovely vase exhibit at the Guangzhou Main Library.

Vase exhibit

Peasant Movement Institute

Mao lecturing students in typical propaganda-style painting.  Notice the students listening to him as if he's a god.

A Chinese translation of The Communist Manifesto used at the school.

2010 Guangzhou Asian Games Venue

From there, I went to the more modern areas of Guangzhou.  Went into 2 really posh looking malls, where I bought a copy of The Lonely Planet: Japan from a foreign bookstore.  I also walked around the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games venue.  It was massive, and overlooked Guangzhou's increasingly impressive modern skyline.  I figure in about a decade, Guangzhou will be one of the economic bastions of China alongside HK and Shanghai.

At night, I went to eat dinner on Beijing Lu, the major road for night life and night shopping.  Nice place and pretty clean to Chinese city standards.  Saw a fight between a local vendor and a police officer.

The next day, I would pack up and leave for Hong Kong.

Wo bu shuo Guangdong hua! Part I

Okay, let me rewind a bit since I'm back in Wuhan.  I didn't get to update my blog as much as I wanted to while I was traveling East Asia.

When: January 21st, 2011
Where: Guangzhou, Guangdong, People's Republic of China
What: First stop on my backpacking trip, old school Bad Religion on my iPod

After I left Jingzhou, I went back to Wuhan and then down to Guangzhou via the fastest train in the world - the Wuhan-Guangzhou Super Express. It goes faster than the Shinkansen in Japan.  And apparently it isn't even a MagLev!

Guangzhou is such a pretty city, especially at night.  Once I got to the HI Hostel, I got an upgraded room for free because they needed my room for a bigger party.  I got the best room in the hostel - it overlooked the Pearl River.  Beautiful, but I was here to explore!  After dropping my bags, I took off to the Tea Market of the South, which is an EPIC tea market.  It spans many major roads and all the side streets and alleyways in between. I was so overwhelmed with how much tea and teaware there was, I forgot to buy something.  Southern China is a hotspot for tea and only now do I regret not getting anything there.

The next day I ran around the city.  I went to...

...the ferry across the Pearl River.

Shamian Island, an old colonial district turned tourist hotspot.  Once upon a time, no dogs and Chinese were allowed on this island.

Liwan Park. Very pretty park where the Cantonese come out of the woodwork to do kung fu, taichi chuan, badminton, and hacky sack. I also went through Antique Street, which was more of a market than an antique street.  I also saw something typical of Chinese markets - indiscriminate slaughtering of animals, including alligators.  Apparently, as the stereotype goes according to Mandarin Chinese, the Cantonese eat everything.

The Chen Clan Ancestral Hall.  A big complex for Chinese arts.

The Museum and Tomb of the Nanyue King

...and Yuexiu Park

Something you need to know about me.  When I travel, I love to move fast and hard.  In between the venues, I even stopped for breakfast, coffee, lunch, and a weird egg/ginger concoction that was strangely refreshing.  

I walked around Yuexiu Park (since there are a lot to things to see there) and the streets around my hostel for the rest of the day.  I saw an AA gun and Guangzhou 2010 Asian Games stuff in the park!

I was considering going to the Chinese Medicine Academy to get a massage, but it was getting late.  Oh well.

Overall, I was very impressed with Guangzhou after just one day of looking around.  Very clean and the traffic was not so bad.  Okay, maybe it was pretty bad, but compared to Wuhan it was tame.

Japan (in a New York Minute)

Well, I`ve been busy having adventures, so I totally forgot to update this thing.  If you`re a regular reader, sorry about that, but at least now I have stuff to talk about.

There`s only 3 more day left on my vacation here in Japan.  I am having a blast.  From Hakata (Fukuoka), I took the Shinkansen North-East to Hiroshima. I traveled to Miyajima, which is famous for it`s floating Torii Gate. I hiked up a mountain and went to my first onsen there as well.

From there, I went to Kansai, which has many (too many) things to see - Kobe, Osaka, and Kyoto.  I also made a side trip to Nara.

Moving north, I traveled to a small town called Takayama that overlooks the Japanese Alps.

Then I went to Japan`s Vancouver: the very pretty city of Yokohama.  When I used to take iaido, my sensei told me Yokohama was an international city with international flair.  It was totally worth my time.

Bypassing Tokyo, I went to see my friend Joyce and her JET Program colleagues.  Joyce and I had a culinary adventure in Sendai.  Good food, and great fun.

And now I am in the big city.  Tokyo.

Guangzhou to HK to Macau to NIHON!

Konnichiwa and Nai ho!

I have about 2 minutes to update this thing before the hostel computer kicks me off.  After Jingzhou I went back to Wuhan for a day.  Saw some colleagues who were still at the school.

From there, I took the Wuhan-Guangzhou bullet train (the fastest train in the world as of now) to Guangzhou.  Fun times were had down there.

From Guangzhou, it was only a hop, skp and a jump to Hong Kong, one of my fav places in all Asia.  Met new friends and my friend Stephanie from Vancity.

Macau. Lost at tables, but in style.

Now I am in Nihon!  Will write more later.

Paul