Thursday November 13 Last Day in Macau

First of all, I want to thank all of you who have taken time to read my posts and follow this trip. It has definately been an experience I will keep in my heart for ever.

The past two days I have been trying not only to finish up my work at the Center, but also take in the "Must sees" of Macau. Yesterday morning another teacher and I went to the lighthouse on the top of the mountain. We rode the gondola to the top and walked all around the lighthouse and park. It was very cool, and what a magnificent view of Macau!!! Macau is really not very big, but because it is built in circles, you need to know where you are going or you may end up walking a long ways out of your way. From the lighthouse, we could see how close together many of the places really are that seem like they are quite a hike apart. We hiked down, which was more challenging than I thought it would be. We came out right next to my little park where I read the paper in the morning. It was fun to come upon some place where I was 100% familiar and could tell the other teacher exactly which way we needed to go to get to the center without looking at the city map.

In the late afternoon I went by myself by bus down to Macau tower. The observation deck is on the 57th floor, and many of you know I am not big on heights. I got a cup of coffee and determined that I would stay and look at least as long as my coffee lasted. I never braved the outside rim of the observation deck (even though it was enclosed) and when the officer asked if I wanted to go the 61st floor to the outside deck and bungie jump I said, "Noooooo, I don't think so. Does the elevator go down?" Across the street from the Macau Tower there is a food festival going on, so I went over and walked around and finally decided on some food from India. I had a Mango thing and some Indian bread that had pork and rice and curry in it. It was extremely good!

Today I hauled my big suitcase to the Center so that I wouldn't have to bring everything at one time tomorrow, I have 5 flights of stairs to go down if I go out the back door at my apartment, and even though it is neavier now than when I came, I managed to wrestle it to the ground floor, get it up the hill, down the ramp and down the steps to the street. When I got near the center I remembered that I had to cross a very busy street which can only be crossed by taking an escalator 3 flights up, walking across a bridge, and stairs down. I did it!! I am very glad that I am in good health. It lugging that suitcase down all those steps didn't kill me, I am probably in pretty good shape!

I met my friend Sunny at 10:00 this morning at the bus stop and we went to Coloane. That is the first island of Macau. I had planned to go there two weeks ago on a Monday but it rained. It was just as well because going with Sunny was great fun. She was able to tell me what lots of things meant, and I explained to her what a garage sale is. We had a wonderful time. We went to the Ama statue which is really a tourist attraction. It was built in 1998. It is quite impressive as statues go. Sunny is a Christian and she said there are few Chinese who actually see Ama as a goddess these days, but more as a person of cultural significance. Then we went to the South China sea to the beach. We ate lunch at a famous Portugese restaurant called Fernandos which was excellent. We walked on the beach but it didn't look like water I wanted to take a swim in. Sunny said it is pretty polluted. Then it was time for me to come back to the center and for Sunny to get ready for work. I don't know what I will do tonight, but it will be something Macau-ish.

Check out the Macau Grand Prix on Google. It is going on right now. Can you hear the engines? It is louder than the dragstrip ever could be.

I will be leaving for Hong Kong tomorrow and then getting on a plane for Chicago. I leave Hong Kong at 11:40 a.m. and get to Chicago at 11:48. Quick trip, huh? Norma said I would get to live those 14 hours over, and I said that was fine because i would be home.

Signing off.....I will be in touch when I get home.

Lois