Have you met Jack?

After Macau, we hit up Sneaker Street and picked up a pair of shoes. It's known as such for the hundreds of branded sneaker shops that line it, formed as a result of the multiple boys schools in the area - a perfect market. Not far away was a massive souvenir market where we spent way too much money, but picked up a couple of memorable items for ourselves.

The next night, we attack Lan Kwai Fong again, getting there about 9pm (early by night out standards) so we could take care of the friend we left there last time - Jack Daniels. The two of us powered our way through the remaining 4/5ths of the bottle over a couple of hours, but for all the drinking it seemed a little lackluster with just the two of us. Queue crying girl.

She had been at the table next to us for a while, and had seemingly been getting entertained by someone performing magic tricks in the bar, but as time went on we could see she wasnt happy, the odd tear visible despite her attempts to look composed. Enter Shayne the Consoler.

It took a couple attempts, but I convince her to join us and forget her troubles with a couple of handsome kiwis. Turns out she'd just been dumped from a 3yr relationship. Queue alcohol.

We harras Josephine and George to come join us, and we party way longer than we should have, given we all had flights the next day. Josephine has too much and she barfs all over the footpath. Another one we've ruined, bringing the total to 9 now.

John and I are rudely awakened by the cleaning staff at 1pm. We were suppose to check out an hour prior. We'd done a bit of packing the day before, but the room was a mess of bottles, cans and paper. We stuff our things haphazardly into our bags and got the hell out of there before they could see the state of the room.

We're at the aiport as I write this, waiting for boarding to begin. Its been a whirlwind trip through Korea, Hong Kong, and Macau, but seriously...

I'm too old for this shit.

And now, Macau

We met up with George and Josephine in the party district of Hong Kong - Lan Kwai Fong. We were actually about to call it a night after shopping in some very hot weather when they contacted us, but never being one to pass up a party, we headed out to find them.

The area is absolutelty filthy. Filthy for the sweating heat, filthy for the rubbish, and filthy for the sea of international tourists looking for a good night out. We joined them.

We bar hopped a bit and as the night went on, a plan was hatched to go to Macau the next day. Unfortunately for John and I,  that was about 4hrs away.  We crashed at their nearby hostel so we'd have a better chance of getting to the ferry with them. We'd be going in full dress in 30° weather, but we had to do something other than drink while we are here, and this was our chance.

As we rush for the ferry, I'm absolutely starving. My looking around for some food at the terminal has the net result of everyone getting on the ferry but me, where it promptly departs. Well fuck. What's worse is that I have John's return ticket. Good luck with that one, John. Bonvoyage!

Luckily, an attendant helps get me on the next boat 30 mins later. The trip itself takes about an hour and a half, where I reconnect with the group. We hire a tour guide and mini van to take us around Macau, and it really made the trip worthwhile for us. We visit the old fortress and museum, as well as the facade of the ruins of St Paul's church. Being a former Portuguese territory, we sampled some very nice food as well.

Gambling is legal in Macau, and with 18 million tourists every year, its easy to see why there are so many casinos. Macau itself only has half a million inhabitants, but the casinos provide the local governement with so much money that they can keep reclaiming land and building new islands for yet more casinos and hotels. We tried our luck at the Venetian Casino, but none of us come out in the black.

Thinking we have time in hand, we board the casino shuttle to head to the ferry terminal. Our bad luck continues when we find its taken us to the wrong one. Well shit. Whats more is that our tickets are for the last ferry of the night. Double shit. We board a taxi that luckily races us over to the correct terminal, and we make our boat.

We're all craving a good nights sleep by this stage but John and I have a quiet drink in our room before calling lights out.