Macau Musings

Kung hei fat choi everyone! I write to you from the bottom floor of a two-story Deluxe Suite at Metropole Hotel in Macau. Don’t worry – I’m not breaking the bank (1280 HKD / 9 people, convert to USD: $17 USD!), but I just lost some big bucks gambling. A nine sq mile pre-Hong Kong Portuguese colony, Macau advertises itself as “The Las Vegas of the Far East.” After a long night of partying, I traveled with eight other HKUSTers by ferry to the small island, and our visit has been quite memorable. Highlights:

• A 1.5 hour ferry ride into Macau harbor, where the rumors were confirmed: This island boasts a manmade volcano! This is a weird place that, like much of China, is like a seventh grade girl (It can’t figure itself out), resulting in a pseudo-European, pseudo-Chinese, and pseudo-Las Vegas style.
• The realization that staying at a legitimate hotel is prohibitively expensive ($458 USD at the Wynn!), and the subsequent discovery of “affordable living” at Metropole Hotel
• A brief winning streak at slots, followed by a long losing streak. Judging from my gambling peers, I have a lot in common with Chinese grandmothers.

Unfortunately, I’ve been feeling pretty terrible for the past six hours (fever, sore throat, ineffective gambling), so I’m leaving the island early in about an hour.

The past two weeks have been incredible. Living and studying in Hong Kong is an exercise in controlled chaos. Everywhere I go, tens of thousands of Chinese pour in and out of subway stations, elevators, food stalls, bars, and bizarre street markets. In the past two weeks alone, I’ve:

• Partied at Lan Kwai Fong and Wan Chai with scores of other students and locals
• Visited Stanley Market on the Pacific side of Hong Kong Island
• Snapped a photo at Victoria Peak
• Witnessed infinity at Mong Kok and the Ladies’ Market
• Bet (and won!) on horse races at Happy Valley Racetrack in Causeway Bay
• Made tons of friends from various schools around the US and Europe
• Traveled to Sai Kung, where I saw more fish crammed into sidewalk tanks than I thought possible, and saw a group of seven year olds smoking cigarettes and fishing

If any of you feel restless, come to Hong Kong: it will beat the crap out of you.

Please leave comments and send emails, or G-Chat me! I have many travel stories that I couldn’t include in this post, for the sake of brevity and my public image. I’ll try to write more frequently, and look forward to future travels.

Sincerely,
Alex Rosenberg