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| April 20-22 |
| 04.22.04 (5:56 am) [edit] |
April 20
Very hot, very humid, sweaty shirt in five minutes or less.
Today, Mr. Slattery went to Macau, Hong Kong’s poorer cousin. He rode on the turbojet, a hydrofoil that runs every half hour between the two cities. Once in Macau, he navigated his way through immigration, and found himself inside the main terminal, competing with about a thousand mainland Chinese who were in large, raucous, groups. A bit daunted, he visited the tourist office and spent a few minutes figuring out that he had no real idea of what he’d like to see in Macau, or where the hell he was, exactly, in relation to Macau.
Instead of formulating a plan, he walked out of the terminal, and followed the masses of people, the thinking being that not all of them could be wrong. As it turned out, none of the people were—only Mr. Slattery—as they knew exactly where to find the specially commissioned tour buses.
Mr. Slattery so then made his way back to the terminal and then spied a pedestrian path that led away from the seaport… .he walked and by some kind of special luck, made his way into the city center and up to the old Jesuit fort. Much of this luck came from the fact that Macau is a tiny place that is pretty much impossible to get lost in, considering that all one has to do is walk for half an hour in any given direction and they will hit water.
Having worked up a good sweat, Mr. Slattery was forced to rehydrate; while doing so, he considered the nice view among the ramparts and iron canons. The Macau museum for something was now housed atop the fort, but Mr. Slattery had had enough of those institutions, and decided he’d rather remain sane, albeit ignorant.
Walking around the fort in a circular path, he made his way down among treed gradations that led him to the former St-Paul’s Cathedral, pretty much Macau’s greatest tourist feature. Burned down completely in the late nineteeth century, the only remaining piece of the once “opulent” structure is its impressive façade and number of roosting pigeons. He then proceeded down into the city center from there, where the streets were at first cobblestoned, then tiled in a wavy pattern, alternating white and black. The buildings in this area were all very much europeen in style, the outer walls recessed beneath roofs held up by slender columns. Many tourists abounded, and a spectacular market was found, that featured only baby clothing and ladies’ underwear. Mr. Slattery was fascinated.
He recouped some fluids at a small noodle shop, then walked some more, only to be defeated by the heat and sweat, so he went back to the terminal, but not before finding a cemetery that caught his attention.
April 21
Hot, humid.
Today, Mr. Slattery went for afternoon tea at the Peninsula hotel with his aunt and COR. It was opulent, high in cholesterol, and elegant. While Mr. Slattery is himself a sort of elegant, high in cholesterol kind of guy, he had a good time. He then was taken to the planetarium, where he watched an imax film on the Australian outback. It was informative, especially if he ever found himself stranded in the desert interior, where he could survive on the carcasses of pelicans.
Because he had worked out before tea (incorporating a new exercise into his routine: read the paper for 45 minutes with the old men on the weight machines), he had time to burn in the afternoon. So he went to Hong Kong side to walk around, but was distracted by an Irish pub, which he entered, and did not leave for some time. Later, he made his way out, and made his way to the appointed dinner spot somewhere else in Central (still on HK island). This dinner was at a private club where his uncle and aunt meet their old academic friends once a month for a non-commital wine and Cantonese food sit-down.
So Mr. Slattery slaughtered the meal, drank the wine, and enjoyed the good humour of the table, despite Cantonese being the lingua franca.
April 22, 2004
Clearest day yet, 26-30.7C, 68-88% humidity.
Very little done on this day—Mr. Slattery had buffet lunch at the old-school Hong Kong Club, a white man’s affair that only let in the Chinese when all the white folks left for England, back in the day. He met a top oncologist, a young lawyer who was articling, and ate a surprising amount of meat. Ham, beef tenderloin, foie gras, chicken curry, scallops, smoked salmon, cow tongue, spotted dick, and other meaty delights he could not even identify. Seeing that the conversation was mostly in Cantonese, and that the young lawyer suspected Mr. Slattery’s aunt of attempting to set her up with Mr. Slattery, lunch was consequently a solitary affair for Mr. Slattery, who munched his way through time and smiled at all the Cantonese jokes regarding medical malpractice suits.
He worked out afterwards, trying desperately to get his full money’s worth from his pre-purchased coupon book, and then went home, to reflect upon his inability to speak any Cantonese.
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