Hong Kong & Macau | Day 3 + 4

Recently, my mom (!) approached me about the chronological order of my travel posts. While she certainly appreciated my latest stateside trip's summary, she reminded me I haven't yet finished my Asia series from last (!) year. Which I should really wrap up soon as I'll be going again this year. Same time. Different places. But still, d'oh. Remember I went from Tokyo to Okinawa to Taipei to Cebu to Boracay to Hong Kong? That's where I'll resume my witty travel journal.

The next day I visited a couple more must-see touristy places such as the Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple, which was uber crowded, but really beautiful. Also checked out Mong Kok at night, which was by far the most crowded place I've ever been to in my life and I didn't like it at all and left right away, or rather had me carried away by the stream of people because there literally was no space to walk, so I had them gently push me towards any metro exit.

Almost everyone who comes to Hong Kong catches a ferry to nearby island and so-called 'Vegas of the East' Macau. So did I. Not sure why I wanted to go there in the first place because I've never gambled before and didn't feel like doing it for the first time in Macau of all places. It should and will be an authentic Vegas experience one day for sure. But Macau is a rather tiny island with some interesting colonial sites, so I wanted to check out that. There are a ton of different ferry companies to choose from, I believe I took a TurboJet from Hong Kong island's Sheung Wan Station. Surprisingly, the ferry itself was clean and the ride was smooth, they even had wi-fi onboard. Unfortunately, the weather got worse the closer we got to Macau. Eventually it started pouring down, which is why I decided to hop on one of the many free shuttle buses to the casinos and decided on The Venetian since I've always wanted to check out one of the many Venetian hotels around the globe. Again: not for the gambling, but for the rather fantastic shopping.

I've already noticed it upon departing from Boracay, but by the time I got to Hong Kong, I was incredibly sick, we're talking no voice, random nosebleeding, migraine, achy limbs - I couldn't facetime with anyone for a week straight and had a hard time getting around in Hong Kong by sign language, but I was the sickest I've ever been in my entire life and seriously worried about my health condition. I blame the aircon, definitely. As much as I appreciate aircon, it's a pain to deal with when you go to Asia. So anyways, upon reaching the hotel my nose started bleeding like crazy and I freaked out not knowing how to interpret it, so I sat down inside Starbucks for a while and prayed to the coffee gods no security guard would see me trying to fix my nose because Asians take sick tourists super seriously, which I guess makes a lot of sense, but I didn't wanna draw any additional attention to myself. After 'recovering', I walked around the Venetian, then took a shuttle bus to San Malo to check out the historic sites as the sky ripped apart and emptied humongous buckets of cold nasty water on our heads. I waited for 20 minutes. 30 minutes. 60 minutes. The rain was neverending and I decided to just get on the next ferry back to Hong Kong and left Macau mostly undiscovered.

I was on a tight schedule anyways as I had a dinner engagement with the lovely Jenni and her boyfriend. They took me for my first ever dim sum to a place right by my apartment (Kung Fu Dim Sum; 功夫點心). When it comes to Chinese food I'm not as brave, I need locals to explain everything to me and I believe I asked what kind of sauces we had for about like ten times, ha ha, but they were so patient with me. I was delirious that night, considering how sick I was you could've called me kinda sane, though. The food was freaking fantastic and I had such a great time, they're total sweethearts. Afterwards, we went to 晶晶甜品, a dessert place, coincidentally right by my apartment also. Jenni recommended trying some kind of sweet, brown broth with a hard-boiled egg in it, as it's said to cure colds/flus. I must admit I was super disgusted by the thought of drinking broth with a Chinese egg in it, but it was surprisingly yummy. The poor cute couple had to go late-night grocery shopping with me, as I badly needed my local sweets souvenirs and acquired a great bunch of stuff, ha ha. That night also shaped my love for Asian instant milk tea, Jenni has been sending me packets over packets ever since. Out of respect for the couple's privacy, I will not share any pictures of us, but I have this cute little polaroid of us up on my wall ♥