Did you know that the peninsula of Macau was first settled by the Portuguese in 1557? Well, neither did I, but I decided to impose my ignorance on them today anyway. I had a muffin and – loath though I am to admit it – the best coffee EVER in a nearby Starbucks. I took a quick run to Hung Hom to get a return ticket from Guangzhou while I still have a guarantee of English being spoken. Then I took myself off to Sheung Wan and purchased a Superior Class ticket on the ferry to Macau, because I'm worth it.

I was with TurboJet, for no particular reason, and we took off almost straight away. With my posh ticket, I was at the very front and centre of the boat, and I even got breakfast on a tray, but sadly, it was just a smelly little croissant and a weird opaque, green jelly with corn in it, so I only drank the orange juice. It took about an hour to get to Macau, and to atone for my splurge on the ferry, I decided to walk to the Macau Tower, since Macau is tiny anyway.

Unfortunately, Macau was not designed for walking. Not around the casinos anyway. Who walks from a ferry to a casino these days?! In my haste to get away from the taxi hawks, I didn't have time to get a map or much currency, and boy did I pay for it – pardon the pun, if that’s what that was. I was walking on bumpy, sandy, deserted footpaths the entire way, being stared at by porters and car drivers (the motorcycles were going too fast to see me) and longing for the good old days of Shanghai. I was generally required to follow the 5 D’s – Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive and ... Dodge. Awful paths. I also got lost in Fishermans Wharf for a while at the start, which didn’t appear in my book at all (and had all these mish-mashed pieces of history and fantasy – Roman Ruins, Potala Palace, a volcano, a robot, Venice, and so on), then I wandered around a few back streets for a while, then I was toasted on both sides when the sun on my left reflected off the MGM on my right, and finally I passed under some bridges and spotted the tower way out in front of me.

I wasn’t going to waste all that walking on pretty views, so after admiring as much as I could, I got the cheapest AJ Hackett adventure on offer, even though it was still about €50. The bungee and mast climb were off today, due to the strong wind (awww...), but the Skywalk and Skyjump were still available. And I wasn’t paying nearly €200 for 14 seconds of controlled falling. :P Just by the by, the bungee and Skyjump are the highest of each in the world. Go Macau. After hanging around for ages with a Filipino family – all of us in harnesses - I got cross with someone and they hurried us out the door.

There’s a two foot wide ledge all around the observation deck, and we were all strapped to a bar overhead, but our guide was actually good fun, and the Filipino boy and the Japanese girls provided endless entertainment with their fear of heights. We sat on the edge, watched the skyjumpers and did a few running jumps of our own, where you ran, jumped (obviously) and swung out 233m above the city and the bay. Wheeee! All my pictures are on CD and I don’t have a CD drive, so unfortunately you’ll have to wait for that pleasure. ;) We were also followed the whole way around by people on the inside who thought this spectacle was simply astonishing.

When all the fun and games were over, I realised that I had no money for a taxi, and that there was no ATM in the tower. So, stomach growling madly, I made my way off in the general direction of Centro. For a while, I was sure I wouldn’t make it; that my legs would just give way, and I’d collapse right there on the brick path, above the smoking teens and the garbage men. Things didn’t progress that far, however, since the road came to an end, and I was forced to take a right turn that led to McDonald's.

That led to Pizza Hut.

Hurray!

I wolfed down a Ham and Cheese regular pan fried pizza and a cream soda, and, no more than the coffee this morning, they were the best of their respective food groups ever. Then I found the main street, then an ATM, then the route to the Ruins of St. Paul's. The streets were narrow, windy, marbled and thoroughly covered in shops. Although I was relieved to be out of the concrete jungle, it was a bit disappointing that they ruined all that lovely charm with pharmacies, Sony shops and Hello Kitty outlets. The ruins themselves were lovely. It’s odd to see such familiar European architecture all the way out here. And of course the models and brides were lounging all over the steps, but I managed to make my way up anyway.

St. Paul’s is just the front of the Jesuit church that was destroyed in a fire after an 1873 typhoon. There’s nothing inside really, but in the crypt, they have a little museum of Christian artefacts of Portuguese and Asian origin. There’s also an actual crypt, but it’s a modern room, built to house the bones that were found below the ruins. It’s a little eerie, especially with the Chinese all posing in front of it.

When I got up from the crypt it was nearly dark, and the security men were about to close up the ruins. The New Lisboa had turned on its gaudy lights, so the horizon was neon. I decided to take a stroll up Hilla des Armamentas (or something to that effect), since it was still quite early, and – now that there were people – I was enjoying the place much more. There were some cannons positioned along a turreted wall, and I’m not sure how much was real or fake, but as I was setting up my camera for a fantastically artsy shot, I heard a bright happy squealing behind me, and was grabbed on both arms simultaneously. It was the Japanese girls from the Skywalk! Ay-ya! We talked and giggled a bit (well, I talked, they giggled), took some pictures for each other, and ambled off in opposite directions.

I walked along some sort of neon strip for a while, but decided to call it a night when my camera battery gave up the ghost. I took a taxi to "Hong Kong fairy?" and watched the TV in the headrest on the journey there. After my atrocious day of walking, I treated myself to another Superior Ticket back (hey, I don’t really see myself going back there... AND I had currency to use up...), where I discovered in a newspaper that yesterday’s gay rally was actually Hong Kong’s Annual Gay Pride Parade.

When I got back to the hostel, the massage chair was finally free, so I hopped in and pummelled my upper back with "roll and tapping" for a while. Andrea has an early flight tomorrow, so she went to bed, but I chatted to the Seattle girl while I was uploading some photos. We were invaded, after a while, by Belfast Boy and Paris Man, and when the talk inevitably turned to religion and tradition (how does it always do that?), Munich girl joined us from the computer. Eventually the two girls went to bed and the talk turned to the much more serious discussion of which Disney princess is the best. I, of course, was Sleeping Beauty, Belfast Boy thinks Mulan and Paris Man thinks “Hercule” (he didn’t really understand what was going on.)

And now it’s high time for this beauty to get to sleep. And hope there's enough room on pages 4 and 5 for the Chinese officials to stamp my passport tomorrow, since it's now all covered in Hong Kong and Macau marks, and no-one wants to turn the page. :( No-one likes Dubai.