Miscellaneous Musings

Currently, we are in Macau staying at the Pousada de Mong-Ha, a hotel run by the tourism ministry as a teaching establishment for students training in the hospitality industry. It is small (20+ rooms) and quite lovely. It books up quickly and I understand why. Totally charming.

I thought I'd post some of my musings on miscellaneous topics so far.

Weather - The weather has been generally warm, low to mid 80's. The humidity is probably 50% to 70% so it isn't unbearable. A cool front has moved in and it is in the 70's. However, it has showered as well so the humidity is higher. Fortunately, all of our hotels have been air conditioned so no problem sleeping at night.

Food - We only ate one meal, breakfast, in Hong Kong and that was at the hotel buffet so no comments on HK. In Doumen, we've been pretty tame in what we've done because english is not commonly spoken by the wait staff. We've been having a breakfast buffet at the hotel (a traditional style Chinese) and been eating noodles, vegetable greens and steamed bread items (e.g., hum bow's). Lunch we eat at the boat yard and it is quite good. For dinner, got KFC (yes, the Colonel is here) to go twice and ate in a westernized restaurant once.

The best meal so far was dinner at the teaching restaurant associated with the hotel. It was excellent and the service outstanding (assuming you aren't intimidated at 4 or 5 students watching another student refill your water glass). We'll have dinner here again tonight.

Pollution - Really bad. The sky is perpetually gray. When you rinse your clothing out at the end of the day, the water is dingy.

Hotel Accommodations - The one hotel night in HK was your typical big city business style hotel. Its price was Western as well at about $150/night and that was a good value. The Doumen hotel was perfectly acceptable and even had an Internet connection in the room. It was also inexpensive at about $20/night. As mentioned at the beginning, where we are now is extremely pleasant.