Invasion of the Bad Boots

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So, Sunday wasn't the best day to visit very catholic Macau (most of the little shops are closed), but oh well, we still made a day of it and hit all the major sights except for the casinos, which aren't our scene.  Walking the streets in the touristy area, we saw the same bag over and over again, so when we got to the shop, we got our peanut candy like every single other person coming over from Hong Kong, so I guess we did the 'must-do'.

After a 1-hour hydrofoil ferry ride over in the morning (during which we were treated to a Chinese TV talent show where people did some really strange and hilarious things) we had some transportational confusion but managed to find our way onto a bus and then walk to a nice Portugese restaurant for lunch.  We were happy for the break from Chinese food, which is starting to wear on us a little.  After this, we ambled around the city, passing a city park where they have a couple dozen little motorized cars for the kiddies to drive around a little paved area with streets painted on it.  Needless to say, it consisted mostly of grinning two-year olds banging into each other, and their parents trying to ease the chaos.

80s fashion seems to have reinfected women in Hong Kong

Happy Max and Mommy
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Macau is older than Hong Kong, and it shows.  The side streets are very windy and widen and narrow seemingly at random, with the sidewalks doing the same and entirely disappearing in quite a few spots, leaving you to dodge the cars and scooters until you get further along to a wider bit.  Whereas Hong Kong has very few personal autos on the roads, Macau is absolutely packed with scooters and quite a few cars as well.  We figure this is because of the MTR in Hong Kong, which keeps all but the richest off the roads, so you only see Mercedes, taxis, buses and delivery trucks there.  Macau is also a fair bit dirtier than Hong Kong, but this likely just comes with the age.  It reminded D of Barcelona, with all the narrow streets with laundry hung below all of the windows.  The street signs here are in Portugese and Chinese, and occasionally English as well, and are on the buildings like in Europe, rather than on posts.

Kiddie chaos
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You could pick out the HK visitors by not only the bags of peanut candy, but also the 'bad boots' on the women.  80s fashion seems to have reinfected women in Hong Kong, and there are all manner of bad boots to be found, with fur, pom-poms and slouched leather all featuring prominently.  We started taking random portraits, just because a really good example of 'bad boots' was in the background!

T found some cute Hello-Kitty-ish PJs, and D just got a kick out of all the spelling mistakes in the random English on the fabrics.  With English being so widely spoken in HK, it's still baffling to us how all this stuff gets made!

The ferry ride home was very pitchy and rolly, and we were all pretty green and miserable when we arrived, so a dinner of peanut butter sandwiches and early(er) bed was in order.

Oh, but the weirdest thing about this day was that we saw the same guy that we sat across from on the MTR going to Lan Tau the day before, walking on the street near our hotel.  We remembered because he looked exactly like a Chinese version of Ed Norton, the resemblance was remarkable.  What are the odds though, of seeing the same guy twice in two days on completely opposite sides of the city!  Weird... if we saw him a third time we were going to have to stop him and ask him why Ed Norton's double was following us.

Tomorrow is our last day, we're off to a robot show up in the New Territories. Cheers, T&D&m