Well, I now have less than a week left of my time here in Macao. I decided to spend my last weekend going to all the sights I have yet to visit and making up for the pictures I have not been taking. Saturday morning started off with a trip to A-Ma Temple, which is the oldest temple in Macao, built during the 1400's. The Buddhist temple actually played a roll in the naming of Macao. About 400 years ago when the Portugese landed
on Macao
the temple, they asked the natives the name of the land. Thinking they were asking about the temple, the natives replied "Ma Ge," which how they pronounced the name ofthe temple. The Portuguese translated it into Macau and began using Macau when referring to the land, and so Macao had been named. (You may have noticed I ended Macao with both an o and a u...well the u is how the Portuguese spelled it and the o is how the Chinese spelled it. You can find it spelled both ways, using the u is the more common spelling and I am naturally inclined to use the us as well, however the Institute for Tourism Studies (where I have my internship) spells it with the o, so I have been trying to use the o as often as possible.) The temple was small but beautiful, many of the large boulders leading up the paths had been inscribed with Chinese writing. The characters had been intricatly inscribed with hammer and chisle then painted. A beautiful sight it was. At the bottom there was a little shop I was checking out, when a couple girls next to me asked where I was from. I told them America and found out they visiting from Taiwan. We continued to talk and I found out that they were couch surfing in Macao, with a guy whom I had met earlier that week...such a small World! Since we were both sight seeing around Macao, we ended up hanging out for the rest fo the day together.
We went to Lim Lou Leoc Gardens, which was This was not as exciting as I had anticipated after reading about it in the guidebook. If I were a local, this would be a nice place to come for some R&R, but there were better things to be seen, so left after only 10 minutes or so.
From there we headed to the Guila Lighthouse. We traveled to the top of Guia Hill via a wonderful little two minute cable car ride. From there it was a short walk to Guia Fortress on top of which was the
Guia Lighthouse. (We also walked on the Guia path, saw some Guia trees and adored the Guia flowers...Guia,Guia, Guia) The fortress and lighthouse are the highest natural point on Macao, which offered an awesome view. As we headed up the lighthouse, we came accross the room where they stored the typhoon signals. Each shape represents a level of the typhoon warning system. (Speaking of which, we are currenlty at Typhoon 1 right now, it will probably be upgraded to a T3 tonight and possibly a T8 by Thursday. There is
no numerical progression, it actually goes 1,3,8,9,10. 3 means there could be some big gusts, 8 means stay in doors and all/most businesses close down for the day. The center of the typhoon is currently forecast to pass about 100km to the West of us.) And I digress, the lighthouse was cool though, got some great pictures!
From there, it was just a random evening of dodging the rain, eating some thai food and watching a movie back at my apartment. What a fun day. IT was going to be a fun day either way, but rather than spending it exploring Macao alone taking photos, I got to spend it with two wonderful Taiwanese girls. I love random!
My highlight of Sunday and the entire trip was dinner with my friend Carmen and her family. They invited me over for a traditional Chinese dinner and I was honored to have such a wonderful opportunity, as Sunday dinner is usually the biggest meal of the week. I purchased a bottle of wine to bring with as a gift for their hospitality and was on my way. They said dinner would begin around 8:30, so that would be a good time to
arrive. Carmen met me at the street and escorted me up to her Aunt's apartment where we were having dinner. We hung around and chatted for a while, then started in on dinner around 9pm. What a spread it was. They had preparred a ton of food. Soup which had been made with fish stomach's and black chicken, baked fish, broiled fish, barbecue pork, chicken, garlic stuffed prawns, Taiwanese sausage, bamboo shoots, watermelon and a small citrus like grape sized fruit. While Carmen's parents spoke little english, we still had great conversation with Carmen translating. My favorite part of the evening was when we sang songs for eachother, so much fun. I sang Friend's in Low Places by the Garth Brooke's and they sang a number of Chinese songs for me. They would usually only get through a few words before they began to giggle and laugh, it was great fun. After dinner Carmen and I went down the street to have some Chinese sweet soup for dinner. I had a mixture of greenbeans and redbeans, it was really good. By the time I got home it was 1:30, but totally worth. The Lio's are a wonderfula nd generous family. I thank them so much for the hospitality they have shown me during my stay here in Macao.
So I actually did the bungee jump one month ago, but have been waiting until I got the pictures to tell y'all about it. Maria Lobo, an exchange student from Portugal, and I had been talking about wanting to do the bungee...I mean we had to, it's the World's tallest bungee, why not?! We finally decided to do it and I spent my lunch break (and about an extra hour, ha!) experiencing the World's tallest bungee!! 233 meters/764 feet and approximately 5 seconds of free fall.
Leading up to the jump I was super excited, I look tired as hell and should probably sleep more, but I didn't come to Macao to sleep. I kinda had some butterflys but not really, just excited. Roger helped me get strapped, cool guy from Indiana actually. We were just have some good convo, prio to takeoff!
When it was time to jump, I still wasn't scared. Not even stepping onto the platform, then he said "Okay, walk you toes to the edge of the platform." ...excuse, me what, ok... now I'm scared. I'm looking straight doen 764 feet to the ground, a million thoughts went through my head. Luckily the camera guy talked to me taking my mind off it for a second, the it was back to thinking... (thoughts in 5 seconds) Holy crap what am I doing I can't do this I'm crazy this is going to be nuts I can't do it I won't go when they count down they'll have to unhook me it's going to be so emarassing is that a bird cool I can't do this are there actually butterflys in my stomach this is so high "5..4..3..2..1" Oh shoot I'm actually going no coming back now! Whooooo!
It was so cool, free falling for five seconds. I won't even try to describe it. Great day!
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