After having breakfast, we took a coach ride to Zhuhai. Along the way, we stopped
at the statue of the Zhuhai Fisher Girl. More...
You can read about the legend of the fisher girl here
. Not long after visiting her, we arrived at a ferry station on the Chinese side of a river/inlet. The ferry ride was short.
It brought us to the (once Portuguese) municipality of Macau. We waited briefly for Roger and Kathy who missed the first ferry
then we went on a city tour. First stop: Fortaleza do Monte (or Fort De Za Dormant). We walked past the remnants of an old
cathedral then took an escalator up to the Macau Museum entrance. Another escalator ride took us up to the top of the fort
where there were lookout nooks with old cannons situated in them. We actually wondered at how the cannons were aimed. To us, they
seemed more aimed at Macau than at possible intruders but it's hard to tell what the landscape used to be like so many years ago.
After exploring above, we returned to the cathedral ruins - the ruins of Sao Paulo or Saint Paul's. There were sure some
interesting carvings and statues on that building face! Very close to that was Na Tcha Temple. A quick walk down the busy
street (and market) of Rui da Ressurreicao led us to Beco da Palha and St. Dominic's Church. Alma and I used our 15 minutes of
free time to grab an ice cream at the MacDonalds. We walked to Largo de Senado from there and then to lunch. I suppose the ice
cream ruined the Portuguese lunch a bit but what the heck. We then rode back to our hotel... the Sheraton Macao Cotai... by
passing lots of interesting buildings and adornments as well as going over a massive bridge to Tapai where the hotel was
located. We could have had a terrific view of the strip (of hotels & casinos) from our hotel bedroom but instead we faced a
sadly neglected field which looked like it may be the future home of another casino hotel.
Back at the hotel, Alma & I helped Roberta set up a surprise meeting between Bill and Lana and Bill's cousins, Jackie
and her husband. They'd been invited to join our group on the 28 day trip but had been impossible for them.
Instead, they arranged a shorter trip of about 2 weeks where they'd end up at the same place as us (end of trip) and surprise
Bill. I "scouted" on the bus by trying to find out what they had planned when they got back to the hotel. I played up the idea of
them meeting a small group of us in the lobby at a certain time (when we knew the cousins would arrive) but that didn't
QUITE work out. Bill was tired and only Lana came down. Roberta ended up giving the surprise away to Lana so she could get
Bill down to the lobby. Lana was still stunned by the news and thrilled to see Jackie and her husband. Her hardest mission was
to think of a way to encourage Bill to come downstairs. She finally got him to (reluctantly) come down "ONLY FOR A FEW MINUTES!!".
We got him right up to where Jackie was standing and he was facing her but not seeing her for the LONGEST time. When he realized
she was standing there, he was dumbfounded... it was hilarious!
After leaving all the cousins to talk to one another, Roberta, Otto, Roger, Kathy, Alma, and I went to explore the area around
our hotel. We walked down the street to "City of Dreams" and went to see a 3D presentation in "The Bubble" - a tale of dragons,
it was very colourful and made good use of its spheric theatre. From there we walked a bit (not really knowing what direction
we were headed. Turns out we ended up in the lobby of the hotel housing the Hard Rock Cafe. I went outside to get back to the
main drag. The rest retraced their steps THROUGH the shopping mall and past the Bubble. Once we were rejoined, we crossed
over to the Venetian Hotel. Part of the hotel was a mock-up of the Doge's Palace which is in St. Mark's Square in Venice.
Would the Bridge of Sighs be around the corner? It was! The inside of the Venetian consisted of a HUGE lobby area. We got
lost just trying to find out how to go UP to the shopping area. What a shopping area it was!! Complete with Venetian buildings
and a canal system where you could take a gondola ride if you so wished. The stores were pretty upscale. We stopped through a
couple of electronic ones as I was looking for something of that nature to take home as a souvenir/thank you. The central
area of the shopping mall led down to the gambling floor and on the far side was a food court. We were pretty excited to see
DIFFERENT food for sale... hamburgers, sandwiches... but for me, PIZZA!!!! After dinner, we all went back separately. Alma
wanted to go back to the Sheraton to gamble. Roberta, Otto, Roger and Kathy went ahead of me because I still wanted to
check out a couple of stores. On my solo trip back on the pedestrian overpass, I saw Yao Ming's jersey and shoes from a
charity basketball game in China to raise money for a children's association. I also had a opportunity to take a couple
of night shots of the beautifully lit up hotels as darkness had descended.
