Macau

Up early Saturday morning for a trip on the Turbo Jet Boat to Macau. AACC had arranged a “mini-fair” at Macau the day before the big event at the hotel in Hong Kong. It takes a little bit over an hour to get to Macau from Hong Kong on the boat. It’s a pretty nice way to get there, however it does sound a bit more cool (turbo jet ride!!) than the reality of the whole deal.

We met with the Principal of the Pui Ching Secondary School for about 30 minutes, and then went to where the fair was to be held to make final table preparations. We also spent some time out in the school yard where middle school students were engaged in physical education classes (I think). They were playing basketball, table tennis, badminton, and other things. Then it was off for a Dim Sum lunch at a nearby restaurant and a few minutes of shopping before returning to the school for the fair. I bought a couple of polo shirts for 39 Hong Kong Dollars each (about $5.50 USA) since it was cheaper to buy new ones than to pay $65HK to have my other shirts laundered at the hotel.

The fair began with a surprisingly large attendance of Macau high school kids and parents. Stephanie was our Macau-native interpreter and we spent a few minutes briefing her before the fair began. After a 30-minute address to the whole group by a representative from Miami-Dade, the students were free to roam from table to table talking to campus reps and picking up materials of interest to them.

Jim, Rita, and I were all at the fair but there was only room for one campus rep and the interpreter so Rita and I excused ourselves after about the first hour and went for a bit more shopping and a quick bus ride to some of the Macau casinos. Macau is making a major push to be the next Las Vegas. It’s definitely not as large or glitzy as Vegas, but they are building new places and apparently their gaming revenues are increasing dramatically. We were at the Sands Casino for a couple of hours and then walked through the fake Roman Coliseum, fake Volcano, and finally the real skywalk back to the pier to catch the 5:45 PM Turbo Jet back to Hong Kong.

After we got back to the hotel, we left with Jim, Anonymous, and Becky for the Peak Tram incline (or funicular) railway to the top of one of the mountains where you have a big view of Hong Kong, Kowloon, and the harbor. It was still sorta hazy (okay, it was very hazy and smoggy) so it wasn’t a great view, but still pretty good. I enjoyed the extreme angle of the ride both up and down the mountain. Then it was off to the Street Carnival which was really quite crazy and fun.

All in all, we had a productive day with our first ever International student recruitment fair, and several slices of fun as well.