MACAU

Ladies and gents, the first official trip has now been made! :) We went to Macau on saturday with Milka, Juho, Anssi, Lauri, Sami and of course Niina. It was the Finnish invasion although we did get some international reinforcements when we met up with Nicolas, David, Mountain and Olli in Macau. Its really easy to get there, all you need to do is the take the MTR to the ferry pier on HK island, get your ticket and off you go. A return ticket cost $300 (30€).. not too bad but still a bit expensive when you think that its only an hour to get there. Or then Ive just got used to things being so cheap here that I dont want to pay that much for anything anymore. Its gonna so painful to pay for trains and buses when I go back to Finland again...!

Macau itself -again- was quite dissapointing. We had expected it to be all about gambling and glamour but it was just really touristy and crowded with people. There are 14 casinos all together, most of them in posh hotels which were quite nice, have to admit. But as I know absolutely nothing about gambling and am not really that interested either it was all about looking at the pretty lights outside the casinos :D We also had a chance to see some big fireworks as they have the world championships of fireworks (or something like that...) going on at the moment. Great Britain and Korea were competing that saturday but they still have a few more weekends when the other countries are competing too.

The two sides of Macau.. One for the tourists and one for the locals. Dont you just love tourism and how it helps the local communities...?!?! I checked the weather report in the morning when we left and it was supposed to be sunny so for once me and Niina put on loads of sun lotion and guess what, it rained.

The remains of St. Pauls... Macau used to belong to Portugal but since 1999 theyve belonged to China. Its like HK though, theyve got theyre own currency (they also accept HK dollars too, not the $10 coins though) and government and systems. You could see a lot of the Portuguese influence everywhere, everything was written in Chinese and Portuguese, the restaurants served a lot of Portuguese food etc. And thats pretty much everything I know about Macau.... :D

First game... Where are the Finnish people..?

Second game... Where are the Finnish tourists..?

We couldnt escape the 7-11s in Macau either... Drinking with Juho, Sami and Anssi.

Getting some food at about 2.30 am.. They had the basic Chinese dishes like porridge with pigs liver or fish. Yum yum...

So all in all, the day&night spent in Macau was in really good company! Weve sat outside in a park healing the world with a little help from some "tiny" bottles of Tsing Tao and walked around the centre of Macau. Got some lovely blisters on my feet as well which Im really happy about as it hurts like hell to walk now but hey, it was worth it as I got them from Macau ;)

SHENZHEN

On monday (our only day off from school) me and Niina went to mainland China to the city of Shenzhen. It was even easier to go there as all we had to do was take the KCR (local train) from our station and go to the last stop at the border of China. It took about 40minutes and cost $30 (return ticket), much cheaper yay :) It was a bit like going to Russia, you could see the difference right at the border. It was a lot dirtier, it looked quite poor in places and there were loads of people begging for your attention as you walked by. All you could hear was "Missy missy, look missy! Manicure for you, shues for you, clothes for you....". Shopping was really easy and cheap (esp cos you could bargain for everything) - tops for 3-6€ for example. I bought a pair of Birkenstock sandals (real..?! Maybe not but close enough) for 6€.. very nice. We also got loads of DVDs for 1€ each. So for shopping its definitely worth it to go across the border. Well that is if you have the patience to try to get rid of all the people coming up to you every damn place you go...

One of the many malls where you could find amazing bargains.

I was really surprised that there were so few western people there. I only saw a few at the border but no one in the city. Not that I mind but I thought that there would have been loads of them everywhere.. We had lunch in this really nice restaurant where they had chairs and sofas hanging from the sealing (just like hammocks but made of bambu or something) so you could swing while you were eating, how perfect! They also had quite small bottles of beer.. 640ml for 80cents (in euros).. what do you think me and Niina drank....? ;)

You dont see this at every border.... :D