FLIGHT

I actually flew Eva deluxe to Seoul, via Taipei, to take care of some business and then flew EVA to Macau, via Taipei, on economy. Deluxe class was phenomenal and the food edible (although still not great) and with ambien, I slept most of the way there. On the Economy seats on EVA, you really need to get an exit row aisle seat or bulkhead seat because the seats are more cramped than in American airlines. If you're persistent, the CSR's will do that for you.

HIGH SPEED FERRY

From Macau, I took the turbojet speed boat to HK.

www.turbojetseaexpress.com.hk

This was actually a cool hydrofoil boat that travels above the water.

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The departures are every 30 minutes from Macau. And the trip took about 1 hour. There are two classes of service, Super and Economy. I believe I paid about 340 HK for Super class, which had a bigger seat and more legroom. Lunch is provided.

MACAU HOTEL

I actually booked my stay at the Royal Macau hotel, which was centrally located and supposedly a 5 start hotel. The cost was $50 US for the weekdays and $80 US for the weekends.

http://www.hotelroyal.com.mo/EN/welcome.htm

It was a good hotel, but I woudn't say it was five stars. The good was that the location was in the Center area, close to the Lisboa Casino (5 minutes shuttle/taxi or 20 minute walk) and about 15 minutes by shuttle to the ferry docks.
The Royal, as did most other hotels, had a free shuttle service to the Lisboa and the ferry docks every 30 minutes or so. In fact, once you get off the Ferry if you're coming from HK, just look for their free shuttles instead of taking the taxis.

Another great thing about this place was that the service was excellent and the staff very accommodating. In fact, the staff spoke decent English and were very helpful in filling out these little cards in Mandarin with instructions to the taxis.

There was a slot machine room, nice lounge area and a decent restaurant on the 2nd floor with all sorts of buffets. There is also a a large pool/weight area on the third floor. The Royal also featured a great business center with 2 computers, faxes, copy machines, etc. The other thing of note was that there was a sauna on the basement with a steamroom jacuzzi, and some real cuties for the fire/ice BBBJs. It's not a huge sauna, nor the best, but hotel guests received 10% discount. And if you wanted to just use the sauna, it was fairly inexpensive to do so.

The bad thing about the Royal is that the rooms were kind of old and small, but so were the rooms elsewhere. There was a slight musty smell, probably because it rains so much during some months.

Another option you may think about is the Holiday Inn, which is walking distance to the Lisboa and has a good night club downstairs called Oscars. As noted, there are a bunch of street walkers behind the hotel. A lot of non-locals on business are there, unlike the Royal which has a lot of tourists. The staff all seemed to speak English fairly well also.

In summary, I wouldn't mind staying at the Royal Macau again insofar as the good outweighed the bad. I may also try the HOliday Inn next time, just to see how it is.

TAXIS AND SHUTTLES

Taxis are relatively inexpensive in Macau, about 1.25 US to $2.50 will get you to most places in town.

HONG KONG HOTEL

In Hong Kong, I missed out in staying at the Salisbury YMCA in Kowloon by reserving at the wrong YMCA. Instead, I stayed at the Charterhouse Hotel in Wan Chai. www.charterhouse.com. This turned out to be a good choice since it was very close to Times Square, a huge shopping complex, and also to various subways exits (Causeway). Again, like everything in HK, the rooms were a bit cramped, but the service was good. No pools, but a business center was downstairs (often busy). I paid about $75.00 per night.

Merlin, you stayed really close to the Wan Chai bars around Fenwick Road, Jaffe Road, and Lockhart Road. Did you check any of those out?

Best time to go is Sunday daytime after two. There were lines to get into places like Neptune 2. Mostly pros work those places, but there are maids and domestic workers to be picked up out of those places on occasion. Friday and Saturday night can also be fun, but the domestic workers really only get one day a week off I think. That may be why Sunday is so good.

Stay away from the places that try to entice you in. Those are ripoff places that will charge you $25 US for talking to a lady for 5 minutes. I read horror stories of people ringing up $100 or $200 bills and not even knowing it and then being "escorted" to the ATM's to settle their bills. No idea if its true, but I stayed away and had a great time in places like Fenwick, New Makati, Boracay, Laguna, and Neptune 2. Fucking drinks are NOT cheap there though.

Xen, I did peek in at Fenwick and Laguna on a weekday, but there weren't too many people, perhaps it was a bit early. Since I only had 2 nights in HK, I focused on hunting down the 141 and 161 girls and the one-up brothels in Mong Kok. Hopefully, you'll fill in some more details about Hong Kong.

Funny how the Wan Chai bars have names like Boracay and New Makati....basically trying to make the Filipina maids/hookers feel at home. It's a crack up how these domestic helpers have no qualms about freelancing on the weekends. I dont think any of these girls were working girls before but Filipino culture always attaches a price to pussy. They probably don't consider themselves prostitutes. They probably say to themsleves, "My husband is in the PI, I am horney(malibog)..so I might as well get paid for it" Business is business I guess. Just seems very odd to me. I bet there are some domestic helpers that would give it up for free as they dont know the game.....Wonder if the domestic helpers' husbands know the score as well...as long as the Western Union remittance comes in...walang problema.

Pic of Royal Macau Hotel roo



Pic of Ferry from Macau.



Pics of HK