The sea was angry that day, my friends. Like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli, the calm trip I had to Hong Kong on the hydrofoil was a bit rough on the way back. In my nauseous state though, I realized this trip is the first time I've entered another country by boat. I'm not sure how many more modes of transportation I have left. Bicycle? Helicopter is going to be a hard one.

After arriving in Macau, I was pretty green in the gills. But I decided to eat anyway to calm my stomach. It worked well, and I started the day off with pork chop noodles and a coffee. Seemed like the perfect "East meets West" sort of meal. After getting my bearings, I was off to the old town. This is where most of Macau lives, and is where 90% of the tourist attractions are that don't involve gambling. Also, Macau is the most densely populated country on Earth (seriously, look it up), so I was looking forward to getting around by foot. I had 32 waypoints on my map for the peninsula, and actually managed to hit every one. Although Monday is apparently a public holiday, so a handful were closed. Anyway, on with the non-exhaustive list:

• Macau Racing and Wine Museum - Strange pairing, but really cool small museums that were free.

• Guia Lighthouse - I took an elevator to the top of the mountain, which made me feel super fancy. Nice view.

• Sao Miguel Church - Small walled church in the middle of tall buildings. Very unique, and had the most densely packed graveyard I've ever seen.

• Ruins of St. Paul's - The super famous landmark of Macau. Got my picture, but there's not too much to see. Below is a small museum with a crypt and some religious dealies that survived.

• St Dominic's Church - Crammed into a small street near Senado Square. Not overly impressive but neat location.

• Senado Square - Very cool pedestrian area full of tiny shops. I loved it here.

• St Augustine's Church - Slightly more impressive, very quiet square in front of it. I hid from the rain in here for a bit.

• Mandarin House - Chinese style mansion from a family that used to live in Macau. Very quiet, interesting sort of place.

• Chapel of Our Lady of Penha - On a hill overlooking the bay and Macau Tower. Amazing view, and the locals agree - there were many couples getting wedding photos here.

• Maritime Museum - Apparently HK and Macau really like boats? Pretty large museum, I thought the models they had were pretty impressive.

• A-Ma Temple - What the Macau folk used to worship before the Portugese showed up. Typical Chinese style.

Whew! But ya know, I really like Macau. For starters, it's cheaper than Hong Kong. My lunch was 18 Pattacas, or MOP. Pattacas are pegged to the Hong Kong Dollar at 1.03 MOP = 1 HKD, so they're virtually the same. But I also saw plenty of mom and pop places that had food in the teens. There we go! And it was goooood. The egg tarts so ubiquitous at KFC and bakeries all around Asia started here, and the real stuff is really delicious. But in general, Macau just looks nice. The city is like a small town in Europe, with narrow alleyways full of interesting coffee shops that make you feel like you're the first person to discover them. Along with the Portuguese architecture and hilly, cobblestone roads, it looks completely unlike the rest of Asia. Other unique quirks I've found is that they're really big on recycling, and brazenly walk out in front of cars knowing they'll stop. I'm definitely accustomed to Bangkok traffic, because I look both ways before stepping out, even on a one-way road. And if there's less than a kilometer between me and another car.. eh I'll wait. I probably looked quite odd in Macau.

Right so, after the old town I wanted to visit a village on the south side near the ocean, before coming back up to the strip and airport. Macau is divided into 4 regions. In the north, the populated area is connected to mainland China. This is where all the old ruins and sites of note are. Moving south, there's a large bay spanned by 3 massive bridges, which end in Taipa. Originally an island, this is where the airport is and more people live. Next is Cotai. This is all landfill, and where the glitzy casinos are. Finally, Coloane in the far south. Also originally an island, it's quite mountainous. It also has the beaches with a few small villages. I was going to the main village of Coloane, simply called Coloane Village.

Unfortunately, Coloane Village is really sad. It has all the markings of what should be a quaint seaside town, except people don't care. There was a walking trail to take you around town to see the sights, and although I got there after it had pretty much all closed, it could take 1-2 hours to do. Except, it was just empty. No people, just misty fog with churches and graveyards. I think you get what I'm saying - this place was damn creepy. But aside from that, it just looks like the residents sort of just gave up on their town. There was trash everywhere, stray dogs, and half finished lots overgrown with weeds. A shame, because if they took some time to clear up their image it would be really nice.

Back to the city with an amazing chocolate croissant from the only store open in town, I went onto the strip. I think I must have visited in low season. The strip was totally empty of people, and the construction of a new casino and elevated metro made it look not so nice, and again, creepy. But the casinos... it's hard to put into words how grandiose these buildings are. They. Are. Huge. GTFO huge. Not just tall, but wide and standalone. They're really quite menacing, looking more like an evil headquarters than a casino. It was just a intimidating to be near them, like a giant laser on the roof was going to zap me. And I also thought how many billions of dollars have been put into these buildings, and all the other more useful things we could have done with that money. After taking my pics, I didn't feel like going inside. For one I looked like a bum - I hadn't showered for a few days, and had muddy shoes as well. And the entrances were really godamn far. They're clearly made to be approached by car, or more likely luxury limo. Anyway, maybe one day when I look more presentable, or win the lottery.

I planned on walking to the airport and sleeping there, as my flight was at 7am tomorrow morning. I suppose I could have gotten a hotel, but then what... wake up at 3, 4am? Plus hotels in Macau are crazy expensive. There are only two budget hostels I could find, and they're not really for backpackers - individual rooms and all that. So, needless to say I had some time to kill. Taipa is probably where all the casino workers live, as it was a more modern series of apartment blocks with not really anything interesting. Pretty generic, it could be any city in the world and you wouldn't notice. There was a small old section with some upscale bars and restaurants, and a small night market. Everything looked quite nice, but for me, not much to do except blow your retirement at overpriced bars. Instead I went to a 7-11 to get some beer and pass out in a park, because I'm classy like that. There were tall cans of beer for... 5 patacas? Oh my god. How is beer this cheap? Anyway, after getting a good buzz, I started walking before realizing the one road I was planning to take was closed to pedestrian traffic. I felt it was too dangerous to walk on the street, so I saw another smaller road. I turned the corner, and literally what I saw was a small, 1 car wide path going up into a foggy mountain, with no lights and, I kid you not, bordered by a graveyard on both sides. NOPE. NOT HAPPENING. Instead I walked back to the town, and reluctantly paid 4 patacas for the bus. I'm glad I did in retrospect, I was getting really tired. At the airport, I found a Chinese tour group had sort of claimed a corner of the airport for their own sleeping purposes, so I figured, safety in numbers in all that. I passed out almost immediately on some stairs leading up to a "Welcome to Macau" display, along with about 5 other people. There were no flights arriving tonight, but if there were I could imagine that would give people an interesting first impression of the country.

So, although my time in Macau was short, I really enjoyed it. It reminds me a lot of Laos - I absolutely loved it there, it just doesn't have very much to do. Macau is a day trip, or if you really, really want to stretch it, 2 or 3 days tops. Which, considering that aside from the bay, you could walk across the entire country in an afternoon is pretty impressive. I can see why the Hong Kong folk like to pop over for weekends, because it has this unique sort of charm unlike anywhere else I've seen in the world. It's the ultimate definition of east meets west. You can stroll along a cobblestone pedestrian square in front of a church, with signs in Portugese, eating boazi, with everyone speaking in Cantonese. It's a sort of, "I can't believe this actually exists" kind of situation. But of course it does, and I definitely hope I will be back one day.

The final day in Hong Kong was a trip to the north, near China. It involved 3 transfers from my hostel, eventually onto the regional rail line. Fortunately, everything is interconnected with the MTR, and it was no problem to get around. The regional rail is pretty interesting. They have a First Class Car (whatever that is), and a "Quiet Car", which was standing room only, chock full of old people reading newspapers. Also interesting was an announcement that the train stops at special station on horse racing days, about 500m from the normal station. "That's interesting.", I thought. "I guess horse racing is popular here." And apparently Sunday is a racing day, because it diverted to that station. And oh my god... the once quiet car suddenly came to life. Never have I seen old people move that fast. I felt like a plastic bag in a typhoon, as the entire train was going to go through that exit door. And they would beat my ass if I was in the way. After the mass exodus of old men off the train, it was pretty much empty. This other foreigner and I, pretty much the only people left, shared a look like, "wtf just happened?" Hong Kong dudes dig their horses.

The goal for today was to see a few sights and suck up some rural Hong Kong life. So despite it being about 1km from my destination, I hopped off at Tai Po Market Station to see, well, the market. At first I was a bit disappointed by the market. From the outside, it looks like a modern mall without anything of interest. Inside however, is a different story. More zoo and aquarium than market, if you want fresh food, I don't think you could top this. A fish literally jumped out of a tank, and there were prawns large enough to feed a family. Plus a whole pig, split it half, passed by me on a cart. Mmm!

Also up in this area was the Tai Po Railway Museum. More of a small park, it's a 1 or 2 room museum in an old station, with a few old trains scattered around. If you like trains, maybe worth it. Otherwise, it's nothing special. It was also next to Man Mo Temple. A very small, but very crammed temple, I think it had the most incense I have ever seen concentrated in one area. It was like Beijing on a clear day in there. (ba-dum tsst) Outside was a local market, with some really cheap fruit and veg. Perhaps it is possible to survive here on a budget.

Back to the train station, I started to head towards the city, but there was another village I wanted to see. Sha Tin was past the race course stop, so I got to see a second old man exodus. Something cool I've noticed is that there are a lot of sounds in Hong Kong. All the crosswalks and escalators make clicking sounds. Originally I thought they were just manufactured that way, but here I noticed a little machine attached on the outside that makes those noises. For the blind I suppose. Good on them.

At Sha Tin, I went to see the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery. Because you know what's better than 1 Buddha? 9,999 more. It's actually sort of a creepy place, a series of small buildings on a mountainside full of cremated folks. Yet there are buses of Chinese tourists and souvenir shops, alongside the people who are lighting incense for presumably their dead relatives. It's an odd sort of experience. I wonder how the mourners feel? It was quite pretty up there, though.

The other stop in Sha Tin was The Hong Kong Heritage Museum. A massive place full of different exhibits, I never really got the rhyme or reason for their selection. Like, there was one on Cantonese Opera, and another on, of course, old pottery. Yet there was also one on... I'm not sure. Saying how great Hong Kong was? But it was like someone was presenting the city at some sort of corporate board meeting, as it was full of nonsense words like "synergy" and "integration". Also there were models of different types of chairs. It was weird. I didn't understand it. The one gallery of note was the Bruce Lee Exhibition. They had tons of original stuff, and I was pretty impressed. Like of this iconic outfit, before they scolded me for taking photos. Yeah well, screw you Hong Kong. I really wish Google Glass would become cheap just so I can take stealthy photos everywhere people tell me not to. What are you people, photo nazis? It's like the Streisand Effect, I originally only wanted a photo or two... but now I want to put hundreds on the Internet just to spite you.

Anyway that was a long rant about photos. Now back in the city proper, I hopped off the train at Mong Kok East. Supposedly, a stroll down Shanghai Street and Portland Street lets you see some cool stuff. Well, sort of. There are a lot of restaurants, some with very cheap food. So that's nice. I get the impression it's more of a shopping destination, as it's full of small shops selling cutesy things. That doesn't really appeal to me, for obvious reasons. Still, it was super crowded, practically a sea of people. There were plenty of university students out and about, so it has a draw for some people - just not me. It kind of reminded me of all of Kuala Lumpur - a city full of malls, restaurants and coffee shops geared towards women.

It was around 5 o'clock before I got back to the metro. I was debating going back to Indian Town, but after 4 days of walking I don't think I could handle it. Especially since tomorrow, I'm going to be on my feet for about 20 hours in Macau. That's because I decided just to sleep at the airport since my flight is so early. More details on that in the next entry. But I still had one more destination in Hong Kong before another well deserved shower and beer - The Hong Kong Racing Museum.

Not much larger than an apartment, it talks about all of the history of horse racing in the territory. And it's serious business, ya'll. They had a section devoted to the projects that racing revenue payed for, and it was extensive. Based on my experience that afternoon, I guess so. People really dig horse racing here. Who knew? By now it was pouring down rain, and I was in no mood to look for dinner. I did get that beer and a shower, along with a 711 microwave meal. Roast duck with onions, seriously 711? It was soso, but a microwave duck is definitely a way to end Hong Kong on a high note. It was followed up by a gathering on the roof of drinking and conversation, which just made the night even better.

Overall, I'm not really sure what to think of Hong Kong. It's kind of like Singapore, but more trafficy and dirty. I don't mind that on its own, but it surprised me how much more expensive Hong Kong is than Singapore. Singapore has a, I think undeserved reputation of being expensive. Singapore can be expensive. Hong Kong IS expensive. (minus beer - it really is cheaper than water). I think in general, Hong Kong folk are more hiso than pretty much anywhere else. While there's no shortage of restaurants, they're all a little upscale to what I'm used to. The small, mom and pop noodle shops exist, but they're not nearly as ubiquitous as pretty much anywhere else in Asia. On the flip side though, Hong Kong has a lot to do. While Singapore has some countryside, Hong Kong is like 75% countryside - not to mention all the mountains, islands, and numerous close Chinese cities. So who knows, one day I may end up here. I only had 4 days to explore, and I feel that I hit all the main attractions. But if Ella and are at least 10% as good at finding stuff as we have been, we could probably occupy ourselves here for a long time.