Long weekend - Macau and Shenzhen

This past weekend was quite a busy but eventful weekend for me. Friday, July 1st was a public holiday, so I had an extra day to relax and not have to work. This past Friday marks the 8th year after HK was gracefully returned back to China from the British after 99 years of ruling in 1997 - interesting huh? Since we don't get fourth of July off here, this was a good way to make up for my lost public holiday. So on Friday, I took the train with mom and travelled to Shenzhen for the day. We decided to be more adventurous this time and went inside the city - further away from the HK/China border to a place called "East Gate". I must say that area of Shenzhen was quite the hip and happening place. There were tons of shops and restaurants everywhere, not to mention all of the people swarming around. We had lunch at this very cool dim sum place where we waited literally 1.5 hours for a table (yes, it was that crazy). but the food was just okay though. I still think the best dim sum I've ever had was at this one place right next to the border on the China side called "Laurel".

We spent the afternoon doing the usual -- eating, shopping, and getting feet massages. So apparently they have this special feet/leg massage where they apply ginger all over your leg (supposedly its good for your health or what not). Of all these years of getting massages, we have never heard of such a thing. So, of course, we had to try it. In a nutshell, what they do is that they apply grinded ginger paste (kinda like the mushy ginger sauce you get when you buy BBQ duck) ALL OVER your leg!!! Then they wrap your leg with these hot towels. At first I didn't feel anything, but after few minutes into it, it felt as if my legs were on fire! According to the masseuse, apparently your leg doesn't get hot, but its because the ginger seaps into your leg and makes you feel "hot" (as in spicy) -- if that makes any sense. Anyways, its suppose to be good for your leg and for anti-arthritis purpose. It was fun but I think I'll just stick to my regular feet massage next time ;)

On Saturday, we took the fast speed boat and travelled to Macau. It only took us about 1 hour to get there. Macau is a pretty interesting place to visit because of the mix of Chinese and Portugese culture. All of the signs were in Chinese and Portugese which was interesting to say the least. We visited couple of the casinos there since that's what they're known for. Funny thing about their slot machine is that they're totally made for Chinese -- instead of "7-7-7", all their slots were "8-8-8" for good luck and propperity. Then, we joined a local tour in Macau who took us to different tourist must see spots. Basically, we saw lots of interesting artifacts and ate lots of good Macanese food there. Did you know Chiang Kai-Shek was from Macau? I sure didn't.

On Sunday we didn't do much except shopped, ate and got another massage (again). I found a place in the city where they have tons of DVDs...one interesting thing about it is that they were selling the complete first season of Desperate Housewives, and entire second season of OC on DVD. Funny because I never knew these were already released...and sure enough according to amazon, these have not yet been released..so my question is, what the heck were on those those DVD's? ;)

hope you all had a great 4th of July! Some pics from the weekend…