Day 176: Macau

Originally I had planned to go to Macau later this week, but a guy in my room was heading back over yesterday to bungee jump off the Macau Tower, and I decided to tag along for the company. Getting there was pretty straight forward. We took the metro to the ferry terminal and took the ferry over. Unlike his previous visit, this ferry went to Taipa island south of the main part of Macau, but with a little effort we crossed over the bridge to the tower so he could do his jump.

The Macau Tower has the highest bungee jump in the world, as well as activities for walking around the top of the tower like they do at the CN Tower now, and an outdoor climb to the very top mast of the tower. I was tempted to do the bungee jump as well, but it was expensive ($350 CDN) and after realizing the appeal was more to say I had done it than the actual experience, I just couldn't justify spending the money.

We went on a walk from the tower, getting some lunch and admiring the casions (for those not familiar, Macau is the Las Vegas of China). One of the random pamphlets in the ferry terminal had a blurb about a traditional Chinese pawn shop museum, which sounded like something a bit different, so we tried to find that. The museum was pretty terrible - it was just architectural layout of the pawn shop, but with none of the actual items (which is the part I thought would be cool) and very little information. Luckily there were lots of other neat things in the area, so heading over to that area wasn't a waste.

We popped into a casino to play a bit, and it some really nice carvings on display in the central lobby. Annoyingly, Macau slot machines won't accept Macau currency, only Hong Kong currency, so I couldn't use the money I took out to gamble to actually do half the things.

After the casino we decided to head back to the first island, where we'd have to sail home from, and check it out. There were fewer casinos here, but the ones that were there were huge, sprawling complexes with entertainment, hotels, shopping malls, etc. It was dark by now, so we got to enjoy all the lights as we wandered around and popped into random places to check things out.

In the end, we didn't get back to our hostel until around 4am. What happened in all that time? Well... you know what they say: What happens in Macau, stays in Macau.