Day 5,6 Shekou & Macau China

Hot Shots

Friday Night we took a trip to Shekou. Shekou is an city about 30 mins away from the hotel we are staying at. It’s a city with a lot of western and international influence. There are Irish pubs, western style food, dance and music clubs and a golf driving range, among many other things.

Today’s phrase: Nī ài tiàowŭ ma?

Translation: Do you dance?
The word “ma” with no inflection is a modifier that makes the sentence a question. All questions end in “ma.”

We went to a club called The Terrace. They had a cover band called Prison Break, which was pretty good. They also had western beer. I was finally able to get a Guinness that didn’t taste 50 years old. Seriously, I had an Extra Stout from the hotel and it was flat and tasted like a mix of syrup and cola, in short, terrible. Besides, I think Guinness tastes better from a tap anyway.

It was good to kick back and relax after a long week of learning new things. A lot of the songs the band played were in English too. English songs aren’t uncommon in China, but getting them from this decade is. It’s like the 90’s top 100 around here. There was dancing drinking and merrymaking. Prison Break played some new Chili Peppers, old No Doubt, and some Ricky Martin. Ole! Ole! Ole!

Drink quick before your straw melts!

Saturday morning the group woke and set sail for Macau. We now have the addition of Steve, who will be here for the remainder of our trip and go back with us. Steve works for Pactec with Mike. Together we grab a taxi back to Shekou where we then take a ferry to Macau. It takes about 1.25hrs to make it to Macau over water. Because, the water is considered international, we all bring our passports and even have to go through customs and security as we enter and exit the ferry stations.

We crossed a tiny part of the South China Sea

Macau-the Las Vegas of China

As we enter Macau there are some very interesting things to note. First of all, we all almost died crossing the road because they drive on the opposite side of the road like Great Britain! If that isn’t strange enough, the national languages are Mandarin, and Portuguese! The road signs, menus and everything are all written in these two languages. And the standard currency is Hong Kong Dollars, not RMB, even though they are not part of Hong Kong. However, they also give you change in Patinas, the Portuguese currency. Don’t ask me how…don’t ask me why. They clearly have an interesting history that has caused them to integrate these foreign influences.

Besides gambling, Macau is famous for one other thing…the smell of dried fish…Which by the way, is pretty intense.

Chinese fishsticks mmm

Hungry, Hungry ATM.

We all go to the ATM to take a out some cash for the casinos, and the ATM eats my card. I typed in my pin code wrong because the numbers were in the opposite order…and I know my pin number by the word it spells, not the numbers. So, now what am I going to do? Of course the bank lobby is closed for renovations so I can’t have them get it back.

I have to call them on Monday. Eric talks to the guard in Mandarin and finds out they will probably ship the card back to my Commerce bank in the US on Monday. There’s not much I can do about it, he tells me. Great.

The rest of the guys take out money…at a different machine.

I declare war on China

Eric loans me 500HKD as we enter the Casino. We pass roulette tables, a few blackjack tables (not as popular here) a dice game called Sic Bo (where you have to guess the numbers that will come up on the three dice) and tons of Baccarat tables (apparently very popular here). We didn’t see any poker, but I pretty sure it was there. But I’m not an avid gambler so I’m not interested in any of that…I sit down at a table that has a game more my speed. Chinese War. Do you remember playing the card game, war, as a kid? You just flip your cards and whoever has the higher card wins…then if you tie you have to put three cards down and flip the last one, shouting “ w-a-r, war” or “I de-clare war.” Well guess what, in China this is a legitimate game! They do away with all the shouting and additional flipping. If you get a tie you just flip one card again. Everyone plays against the dealer. You place your bet before your card is flipped and then the dealer flips his. If your card is higher, you double your money, if you have a lower card, dealer gets all. Classic double or nothing. The table had a 100HKD minimum, and I managed to turn my…er…Eric’s 500HKD into 3000. How about that for beginners luck? However, I then proceeded to loose about 1000 of it at the roulette table. But at least I still was able to leave with 1500HKD after I paid Eric back. Next time, no roulette; I’ll just stick to war. Or I’ll try to find a Go-Fish table.