What a week this has been, less exploring and more hanging out. Enjoyed an evening out with local students, had a great time with many of the exchange students on their last nights in Macao, celebrated Tuen Ng Jit, happened across a brothel of sorts(no I did not go in) and I need to cook a pound cake. Preparing for the weekend, looks to be an eventful trip to Hong Kong. Currently listening to Game 7 of the Playoffs as I type this up. Love the Internet and streaming radio!

Work this week has been pretty much the same finalizing some publications for the two programmes I have been working on. I have also been preparing materials for our recruitment trip to Guangzou. Had the opportunity to stay late and assist with an information session for two new evening programs IFT is offering. This is a new program for IFT, in which they are offering their Hotel Management and Tourism Event Management degree programs in in evening courses taught in Cantonese. The focus is to reach out to non-traditional students who will work during the day and attend courses in the evening. Expecting these pilot programs to be successful, they hope to expand the evening programs to to offer their full five bachelor degrees.

Last night we had an information session for those interested in the program. My role was to greet people at the entrance of the main building, and to direct them to the classroom. I then went and sat in on the presentation...which was completely in Cantonese, so I tried to follow. When there were slides to go along with the info, I could kind of figure out what they were talking, but they didn't help too much. Either way, it was fun to try to make up what he was talking about.

Monday evening I went to a karaoke with with Carmen and a bunch of her friends from IFT, this was a fun experience. It was a welcome back party for Carmen, who spent the last semester at the University of South Carolina The Chinese drink of choice when going out, at least to karaokes, is green tea and Johnnie Walker Black Label Whisky. Sounded interesting and it didn't taste too bad either. It wasn't your traditional Chinese green tea, it was more like the super sweetened Lipton green tea you can get in the states.

The karaoke was fun, they had a number of songs in English. I sang We Will Rock You and some Backstreet Boys Song. I also picked We are the World, the 1985 USA for Africa version by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie. We all sang this and it was pretty cool. I love that song, we truly are the world and should embrace all cultures as one great global family. I also sang Sorry Sorry by Super Junior, a Korean pop group. IT was really fast but fun and funny. You can watch the video by clicking on the link above, it's pretty catchy. Finally it came time to karaoke a popular American party song, which I was very much looking forward too. Much to my dismay however, they did not have Friends in Low Places by Garth Brooks...WHAT! ARE YOU SERIOUS, you cannot have a karaoke without Garth, I am writing my legislators, the US must take action, this is a crime against all human kind. Oh they had Carey Underwood and Taylor Swift, but that was about it for the country selections. Great disappointment. Even though they did not have Garth, I can forgive them. It was a great evening partying Chinese style.

The following night was the last night for many of the exchange students, not to mention World Cup games (Go USA!) were on, so it was going to be a long night. The World Cup airs here in Macao at 7:30pm, 10pm and 2:30pm of course most of the games I want to watch are the 10 or 2:30 games. Some of the exchange students were from Portugal and Korea so we made sure to be watching both of those games. We started out at the Thai restaurant at 10 to watch the Portugal vs. Ivory Coast game, which really turned out to be disappointing. After that we headed to the Sands Casino, where they usually have good live music. They had a pretty good band, but the fun part came when they called our group out. We had a large group of about 20 people, and they asked what we were doing tonight. Well...Alex, a dude from Portugal proceeded to tell them it was my birthday, and of course they believed it. I was serenaded and pulled up on the stage to dance multiple times. I can't really complain the band was a bunch of cute girls from Taiwan. Others in our group came up to dance as well. Good times.

We then headed to another bar to watch the Korea game This one turned out to be much better, sorry to you Brazilian fans, but I was really hoping Korea would pull this one out. It was a great game, but Korea just didn't have the endurance to keep up. Man that Brazilian team is fast and quick! After that we were hungry, so we headed to eat at the Lisboa. I had some really good handmade Cantonese noodles. The chef basically had a block of dough (or whatever you call noodle dough) and with this special noodle cutting tool, he sliced off thin strips to form the noodles. I liked them.

Upon walking out of the hotel it was light outside..WHAT! I checked the time and it was 7am! Wow, I can honestly say I have never done that in my life. You may be saying, didn't Brent have to work at 9? Usually yes, but today was a public holiday, so IFT was closed. That is why I knew I could go big. However I had not intended to go that big. While I don't want to discount the fun I had that evening, I really do not like staying out until 7am. I hate wasting a day just sleeping. Luckily I am young (sometimes I definitely feel old) and was able to re energize in four hours, ready to head out and enjoy Tuen Ng Jit, or the Dragon Boat Festival.

The Dragon Boat Festival is celebration of the life of Chinese Sholar Qu Yuan. In the third century he worked for the King of Chu. He was greatly respected by the King and government, but as time went on he was accused of conspiracy and ejected from his position. his ejection in it's own right is believed to be a conspiracy itself as the government was not agreeing with his progressive ideas and was looking for a way to oust him. Due the false allegations and to act out against the government he committed suicide by drowning himself in a river. Many Chinese citizens respected Chu and went to the river in hopes of finding his body. They never found it, and now the spiritual portion of the Chinese culture comes into play. Someone dreamt that the fish were eating his body, so they began to throw rice into the river to feed the lost hero. Then they were worried that the rice was being eaten by the fish, so they wrapped it in bamboo leaves hoping it would sink to the bottom and get to him. There are many version of this story I have heard through various conversations, but they are all similar to this. They also say the dragon boat race is to symbolize beating the water to keep the fish away.

The Dragon Boat Festival is a brightly colored noisy fun experience. Many of the teams have there own support groups, where people come out with bells and whistles, drums and anything else that can make noise. They sit sit grouped together in the stands, which looked like a bowl of fruity pebbles with all of the groups. (man I miss fruity pebbles!) The warm up area for the teams is down in front of the stands, so when they run laps and do calisthenics the spectators can watch and cheer them on, to pump them up for the race. You could also purchase the Dragon Boat rice dumplings, which back in the day were thrown into the water, but have since became a festival delicacy. They are stuffed with pork, red beans and more. It's rather bland, but my roommate recommended I put sugar on it and it turned out to be pretty good.

The teams have 20 members, 18 paddlers, one drummer to keep the paddlers in sync and one sweeper who steers the boat. The race itself is 500 meter long, and lasts approximately, I am guessing as I did not actually time them, 1 minute. I actually met a high school team from San Francisco. It is actually a club sport at their high school, apparently their are a number of dragon boat teams throughout the country. They came to Macao for a week specifically to participate in the Dragon Boat Festival Race.

This week I went out in search of a yoga studio here in town. I stopped doing yoga during the spring semester and I can really notice the difference. I need to get back into it, for it's health benefits, to release stress and to get more flexible for climbing. I knew what area of Macao it was in and what street it was on, but I did not know exactly where it was. So I took off in search of it, I figured it would be easy to find, just look for the sign with Yoga on it. It wasn't that easy, I went to the concierge at a couple hotels on the street, but they were unaware of a yoga studio. They were able to direct me to the correct building, but in the lobby there were no signs indicating a yoga studio. I did however see a sign for Senado Health Spa, it was in the basement of the building and for good reason I imagine. The large billboard like sign had a young Asian girl laying on a bed in a provocative pose. This is not the kind of health spa you find in the US, maybe you would in Nevada. I really wish I had a camera, because it was a funny billboard. I asked my coworkers about this place and they just laughed. They said it was like a spa or sauna, where you would go in and sit in a hot tub or steam room, but then a line of girls would parade out, at which point the gentleman would make their selection and so on.

Unfortunately prostitution is legal here in Macao, so this can be a common sight if you are in certain areas of the island. Brothels and saunas are commonplace. Many Chinese from the mainland as well as other Asian countries travel here specifically to participate in such activities. I don't think I have seen a prostitute in my naive life, if I have I did not notice. So Macao was my first time to see prostitutes. I was walking into the Venetian late one night to meet some friends at a bar, where at the front entrance there were numerous scantily clad women waiting. Then upon entering the casino, you could see more prostitutes working the floor, usually in pairs. I even saw some bargaining take place as a man approached some and they exchanged some words then walked off. It was something, I have found that if you do not make eye contact with them they do not approach you. If you do, they may say something to you, but when you give them a what the hell, are you serious look they get the point quick and leave you alone. It's not as bad as it seems, the tourists and gamblers outnumber the prostitutes by far, but once you are aware you can point them out.

Also, yesterday at work, someone had brought in some left over pound cake from a meeting and left it in the break room for anyone. When I was asked I joked that I had made it and brought it in. She just laughed at me and I told her I was kidding, she said that if I had made something she would be afraid to eat it. Really...I said and asked her why. Her reasoning was that I am a man and I have not had kids. While this may be true in the Chinese culture and some of the American culture, I do not fit that stereotype and will be blowing her mind with a pound cake that I make. If you have a pound cake recipe that is amazing, send it my way. I may or may not use, as I imagine my grandma has a rockin recipe I will use.

There's the happening of the past week in a nutshell. Now, may the traveling commence. After work today, I will head to the ferry terminal and travel across the bay to Hong Kong. I have a refugee run Saturday morning, will be doing some extreme sporting on Sunday and hope for some high flying excitement on Monday, but you will have to wait to find out more.

Till next time,

Brent