Under the weather

If I've been oddly silent over the last couple days, it's in part because i've spent most of the last 48 hours in bed :( It's your typical bronchitis/flu type deal, and the worst part is my incredibly sore throat, which makes coughing just agonizing. Thankfully, again, I am able to buy throat lozenges and NSAIDS/decongestants at the wonderful grocery store across the street. Yesterday was also hard because my last roommate left and I didn't get another one; it's difficult to be sick half way around the world from home. But I am feeling much better, if not quite 100%, this morning.

So as a result, I haven't gotten to see nearly as much in hong kong as i would have liked. I think the last time I wrote, I was about to visit the night market, which unfortunately was a huge disappointment. All the stalls sold the same items, which basically amounted to cheap chinese crap. if you wanted to buy plastic figurines, this was your place. but i didn't.

Tuesday i took the tram over to the ferry terminal in order to catch the high speed ferry to macau. macau has a somewhat similar history to hong kong, in that the portugese maintained control of this peninsula off mainland china for almost 400 years, before relinquishing it in 1999. Macau is a land of casinos, generating more revenue than all of las vegas!! if you're not into gambling, Macau is unfortunately not all that interesting. there are some pretty churches and other remnants of colonial architecture, but otherwise many of the same chain stores from hong kong have bases here as well. i guess one other unique aspect would be the portugese-inspired cuisine. unfortunately, i have almost no sense of taste or smell right now, and i think this has turned me off of chinese food for the rest of this trip, if not for life. sigh.