I don’t normally get hangovers but this morning I’ve got a whopper.  Waiting for my gf to wake up and let me know where she’s hidden the Panadol.

Yesterday we walked for about three hours, starting off in the Senado square but heading in the opposite direction from St Paul’s, towards the fort and towards the Sun Yat Sen memorial house.  We passed along some amazing buildings on side streets (photos later), some old schools, a collection of buildings in a gated courtyard where there was an exhibition of work by architecture students, another couple doing wedding photos on the street, a huge public square that included the main branch of the library, a cultural center and an art gallery.  Yes, we ran into that same couple from Malaysia again!  I remain stunned by how much of Macau there is to see and explore, how much of it I’ve missed over the years.

Back to the hotel.  We did the buffet lunch – not one of the better buffets I’ve ever had but at $100 per person at least it was a decent enough value.  We slept the rest of the afternoon.

In the evening, we walked back (AGAIN!) to the Senado square – my gf was in shopping mode and wanted to buy a watch she’d spotted earlier and then somehow managed to spend 30 minutes in Bossini.  Some Chinese woman who told us she speaks Tagalog grabbed our palms without asking and told us our fortunes – she said my gf was a good person, I’m bad, and we’d make a better couple if she was the man and I was the woman?  I think that’s what she meant – she may have spoken great Tagalog but I had trouble with her English.  And then as suddenly as she appeared, she waved goodbye and ran off.  Was it something she read?

None of the restaurants along Rua de Felicidade caught our eye but we did stop at a small shop where they were singing Cantonese opera accompanied by 8 musicians – I stood outside taking photos and they invited us to come in, have a seat and enjoy.

Hungry, we walked another 30 minutes until we reached Litoral, a Michelin one-star Portuguese restaurant near A Lorcha.  Started with our now usual plate of grilled chorizo and then went for curry prawns with crabmeat – seemed to me like there ought to have been more prawns in there but no shortage of crabmeat and a definite kick to the curry – also some quail eggs in there and some rice on the side.  And then what was probably the best African chicken I’ve ever had – very rich sauce with a wonderful combination of flavors, served with thick sliced grilled potatoes.  Accompanied by a bottle of, hmmm, Esperao Reserva, I think it was called, very drinkable.  Going to be looking to get more of this wine at the duty free on the way home.

Back to the hotel by 10:30, dropped off the bags, and off to the Lion’s Bar at the MGM Grand.  The Amazonian Filipina hostesses in our hotel told us this was their favorite bar, that it had a good band and they did not lie.  The 7 piece multi-ethnic band would put most of the cover bands in HK to shame and the place also had a world-class sound system.  The bar also charged $70 for a glass of the very average house red wine.  Some of my readers may care to know that after 11, we spotted at least a dozen girls at the bar who appeared to be eager to make friends – both Filipina and Chinese.  By midnight the bar was full, the band was wailing, a nice way to end a good day.

And then, boom!, up this morning, at first just my neck aching but now a full-blown headache.  Must be from that house red.  Check-out here is at noon and we’ll head back to HK at some point after that.

All in all, this trip has been great.  Total relief from stress for a few days, some great food, good long walks in new-to-me areas, lots of photos to process once I get home.

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