Hong Kong (Part 1)

I finally have some time right now! Well first off, just wanted to let everyone know that I'm feeling a lot better. I don't think I'm sick any more. whew! And today's audition DID go well. We are now just waiting for them to make calls. So I'll know within the week. :) Fingers crossed!

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So Hong Kong! On Wednesday Jan 28, I was scheduled to take a 10:20pm flight out of Los Angeles International Airport. But because my flight had so few passengers, they merged my flight with the 12 midnight flight out to Hong Kong. Which meant I had to wait wait and wait until all the passengers from the midnight flight had arrived. BLAH. So I arrived in Hong Kong an hour and 30 minutes late. And when I got there, I had to navigate my way over to the Hong Kong-Macao Ferry Port, buy my own ticket for the ferry, and cross customs. And damn that customs line! It was SOOO long for for the Visitors line! Macao is a small city along the Southeast China coast, an hour's boat ride away from Hong Kong. It has recently become a HUGE gambling city, with Las Vegas sized casinos. The Wynn and The Venetian are both there already!

Anyway, I finally arrived in Macao. My mom and aunt were waiting for me at the terminal. We dropped off my luggage at the house, where my dad greeted me, and we all immediately went out to get some food to eat! We went to my dad's favorite place to get coffee because they have really good pork sandwiches and ox tail soup. hehe, yes, oxtail soup. Unfortunately, I did not get a picture of this delicacy because I didn't think about taking pictures of food yet, but I assure you that the food was YUMMY.

Then we headed to the Macao Immigration Services office to take care of what I went to Macao and Hong Kong for. As I had explained before, since my mom and dad were born in Macao, I am eligible for a Permanent Residents card in Macao that allows me to stay in Macao indefinitely and to get a job there if I so choose. ALSO, it allows me to stand in the "Macao Residents" line at customs, thus bypassing that HORRIBLY LONG Visitors line that I had to endure through just a few hours prior. So I took my picture, did the fingerprints, and filled out the paperwork. Then they told me that I'd receive the card in a few weeks - and my aunt (who reisdes in Macao) will pick it up for me.

After taking care of that, my mom and aunt and I went to go shopping for cheap clothes. ;) I bought authentic American Eagle and Abercrombie sweaters for only about $80 Macao, which is about $10 US! SCORE! And then, because I'm a fatty, I was already hungry again, so we stepped outside the store and decided to eat some "Hot Pot" from a little side-of-the-street vendor. YUMMY! I had some fish balls and cow intenstines. yes, cow intestines. :P

Look at all the yummy food!

After having my little snack, we took the scenic route back to the house. Lots of people in the city because it was still within the festivities for Chinese New Year. And plus, it's such a small city that it's crowded everywhere you go. We met back up with my dad there, and then my aunt drove us out to a smaller island neighboring Macao called Coloane, where we sat down in a restaurant called Lord Stowe's Bakery and had the famous Portuguese Egg Tarts. The difference between normal egg tarts and Portuguese egg tarts is that they caramelize and slightly burn some sugar on top. Man, SOOO Yummy!

We finished our snack and then drove back to Macao. My aunt dropped my mom, dad, and I at The Venetian Hotel and Casino. We stayed there for about an hour to just check it out and to play the slots a bit. My mom loaned me $100 to play (which is equivalent to only about $15 US), but I lost it all pretty quickly. I don't have very good luck with slots, I guess. My mom, however, kept winning and winning! She ended up making $180. NICE!

Then, we made our way to our other aunt's house and had some home cooked Chinese food there. But, of course, over there, we just call it "food." :P Oh and, by the way, my mom had 7 brothers and sisters. So you're going to see me talk about several aunts and uncles. lol. So we ate, and then watched TV for a few hours. But because I'm a fatty, I agreed to have dessert at this new neighborhood hangout. We drove out to the shop and we ordered some Black Sesame Soup and a Mango/Tapioca dessert.


So, if you've been counting, I've already eaten 5 times in one day. And that's not even counting the meals I had on the plane. LOL. I definitely gained some weight on this trip. However, I didn't gain TOO much weight because I did have to walk a lot. Thank goodness! And also, you may have noticed that I didn't really take a nap or anything this whole first day. That was my plan. I didn't want to sleep at all until it was actually nighttime and a proper sleeping time. This is my secret for being jetlag. I slept right away when it was time, slept through the whole night, and woke up super refreshed. ;) No jetlag whatsoever!

Well, more about the rest of my Hong Kong trip coming up. I'll talk about straddling a big cannon and my encounter with a lion! (How's that for a cliffhanger? lol) I'll leave you all with the view of nighttime Macao from our house.