birthday.trip!

P. and the girls went back to boston a week ago. When i bought my tickets (about, um....four months ago now), they weren't sure of their plans. If i'd know they were heading back early, i probably wouldn't have stayed so much longer. Luckily, they didn't decide this until i was already here, so i ended up with ten days just with a. This past weekend, she took me to macau for my birthday, and it was fantastic. The little that i'd heard/read about macau suggested that it was primarily for gambling, etc. Since i've never been a huge fan of casinos, i probably wouldn't have otherwise gone here. As it turns out, this was one of my favorite places of my entire trip. Because of its portuguese background, it has a very european feel but with some asian mixed in. After dropping our stuff off at the hotel, we grabbed our umbrellas (since it was raining cats and dogs, much like i hear the weather in boston has been) and set out for senado square, the ruins of saint paul's cathedral, and the a-ma temple. 

Senado square- look how amazing the streets are!

Ruins of st. paul's cathedral.

We stopped and ate lunch at (what turned out to be) a well known hand rolled noodle place. I ate something which i now can't remember the name for- a very tasty porridgy type soup. I think it began with a g. Here are our leftovers (my "g" stuff is in the bottom right corner):

Continuing on, we ate samples of two of their well known foods- jerky and almond cookies, and then watched a man making the cookies. (He takes this really crumbly mix, then forces it in moulds before tipping them out for cooking):

After the rain picked up and thoroughly drenched us, we went looking for flip flops (we both had on leather sandals). A. found a pair of giraffe print crocs (ballet style), and my big feet and i had to stay wet (though the people insisted that size 8 was okay for me). While the rain could have been a huge bummer, we just laughed and laughed at the hilariousness of it all, and decided to put off the a-ma temple until the next morning. Instead, we headed back to the hotel, changed, and took a cab to coloane (on the other side of macau) for dinner at fernando's, a great portuguese place. Typically one must wait in this courtyard for about an hour until being seated.

Our timing and the weather helped us out on this front, and we were seated right away. After stuffing ourselves with fish, portuguese salad, bread, prawns, pork ribs, and sangria, we rolled ourselves back to our room and crashed. Here are the leftovers.

The next morning, we woke up early and  worked out in the gym. Then we showered, dressed, and sweated our way down to the a-ma temple (which was super neat and goes way up a hill- not like most temples which are in one building).

Then it was a brief a/c break in a cab back to coloane to check out the a-ma cultural village and the a-ma statue. This was all on one of the highest (or the highest) hill/mountain in macau, and was a very windy drive up- good thing we weren't walking. Luckily, there was a little breeze up there which helped dry our clothes slightly. Both sites were also great. 

After finishing and realizing that we weren't far from fernando's, we voted to return for lunch, having an entirely different meal (except for the sangria, of course- can't pass that up). This time i got the entire experience- waiting in the courtyard, drinking our sangria, and waiting to be seated. After a leisurely lunch (during which time it rained and then stopped), we walked to the "black sand" beach, stuck our feet in, and decided to walk the length of it to a nearby hotel where we grabbed "coke lights." 


With an hour before our 6:30 departure time, we cabbed it back to the hotel, snuck into the gym, and sat in the sauna for 15 mins before showering and heading out. Not only was it another great mini-vacation, but also a great time to get some rare alone time together.