on our second and last day in macau, line and i woke up late. darn! we were so beat the previous day that i woke up at around 10 a.m. with not much time to lose, i immediately hit the shower and woke up line as soon as i finished.

 quarter to 12, line and i were again ready to explore macau

by this time, we’ve already packed our bags and on our way to check out of the hotel. as we’ve done the previous day, we left our bags at the hotel counter upon check-out. that way, we didn’t have to pay for an extra night [lest you forgot; we're budget travelers, hehe...]

prior to leaving the hotel, we agreed to do the following:

1) find the ruins of st. paul

2) find macau’s grand prix and wine museums

3) call our hostel in hong kong

4) do all these things by 5 o’clock

unfortunately, we were unable to do item 2. we got sidetracked by unexpected errands causing us to lose a few hours. first off was brunch. we didn’t know where to get decent food. by decent, something i recognize and something that looks palatable.  there’s a mc do estab near our hotel but since i swore off mc do, we had to find another place. our search led us to starbucks. blame this on my tendency to patronize things that are familiar, although, i haven’t been to starbucks here in the ph. well, it’s the most familiar among the many places which offer food with labels we could hardly read. then we had to find a hardware store in order to buy a 3-way plug and lock for line’s bag. the 3-way plug is a must since that’s what is used in hk and we need it in order that we can charged our batteries and cameras. as if we’ve enough time in our hands, we got lured by this little shop:

@ kin seng mobilias travessa fortuna

line got so fascinated with the numerous jewel boxes

haha, pabaga mi ug nawong and asked the tindera to take our pic. she happily obliged us since line and i each got a chess set @195 MOP[macau pattacas]. when we left the store, we learned that the tindera was filipina.

the above store is situated on the road leading to the ruins of st. paul. on this stretch, there are numerous souvenir shops selling many interesting trinkets..

a few steps from the store, we could already see the top portion of the ruins. the feeling was total “exhilaration” when we saw the ruins. as in we couldn’t contain the excitement. haha, the ruins of st. paul was both our ultimate goal in coming to macau..

line. on the rare occasion that she would volunteer to be in the pic…hehe, one always has to prod line to pose before the cam..

there were so many tourists when we reached the ruins. it was amazing as the tourists who came were a blend of asians, americans, and europeans..

the ruins up close

the plaque telling a brief history of the ruins

vetlongwalks mark

back of the ruins. further back [the gray horizontal bar??] is the museum of sacred art [left] and the crypt [right]. the museum of sacred art houses silver altar pieces, gilded statues and paintings by 17th century japanese artists .

on the left side of the picture above, there’s a steel ladder which allows people to climb the church’s facade

original stone remnants of the church encased in glass

the crypt

inside the crypt. it was eerily quiet. it was chilling looking at all those dead bones of people

at the sides of the pic above, one can see several rows of dead people’s bones

line in action

view from below

me waiting for line to be finished…

the power of timer

me @ the museu de arte sacra

line and my big shadow separated by a glass enclosure

waiting for line 2. hehe, at this point my cam went low batt on me…

the crowd when we left the ruins [2 hours after]. line got fascinated with the little boys and girls in uniform on a saturday

free taste… but for some reason line and i didn’t sample these cookies

as soon as we left the ruins, we went looking for payphones in order to call our hostel in hong kong. there were payphones near the ruins, but unfortunately we couldn’t connect to the hostel’s number in hong kong. as we would be arriving in hk in the evening, we prioritized securing our accommodation. thus, we decided to forego checking out macau’s grand prix and wine museums…[going to the first museum was my second goal in going to macau, thus was a bit disappointed. yet, another reason to go back to macau]. after our failed attempt, we decided to look for an internet cafe to email our hostel. we went back to senado square and ended up in macau’s tourist business center

here, we were able to use the internet for 30 minutes free of charge. there are only two available computers here. tourists may use the unit free of charge for 30 minutes. first come, first served basis. as there were two other tourists using the pcs when we came in, we had to wait for 45 minutes for our turn. i sent an email message to the address which consistently answered my messages. however, this too failed. i got no response this time.

we left btc around 4 or 5 pm and headed back to our hotel to get our bags. as the hotel had a shuttle service, we waited for a couple of minutes for the shuttle to take us to macau ferry terminal. by this time, line and i no longer have enough pattacas to purchase ferry tickets for hong kong. thus, line used her reliable plastic to get us a ride via turbojet to hong kong.

line and i on board turbojet bound for hong kong

ticket fare costs 176MOP. travel time is roughly 60-75 minutes. turbojet docks at the shun tak center. a bit far from tsim sha tsui [tst].

end of our wonderful macau trip and the beginning of the hellish first night in hong kong

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