Flat and trips

It's hard to believe that we've only been in town for 3 weeks - it feels like we've been here for ages. 

We've looked at countless flats, been gazumped on one and now signed up for one.  We have the keys and most of our stuff should be delivered tomorrow.  It contains the odd curiosity - high on the list is the fact that there are three showers and two bathrooms.  The flat is split over two floors and an advertising hoarding covers one side of the top floor - a feature!  There's also no oven, but almost nowhere we've seen has one - Chinese cooking doesn't often require it. 

We've had a couple of nice little trips.  We popped up to the New Territories a week after we'd arrived and visited a lovely little island called Chap Muen Chau - although I'm not entirely sure how the wild herd of cows got there.  Last weekend we took a trip to Macau - Vegas on Sea which is about an hour by ferry.  A mate from A&O comes from Macau and was visiting his folks and laid on a fun-filled 24 hours.  From Super Class on the ferry (I think Macau would regard calling it Business Class as too understated) to a cracking hotel room (in the Grand Lisboa: http://www.grandlisboa.com/en/home/index.html) which was bigger than most of the flats we had seen.  The TV set in the toilet room wall was a highlight.  Gambling is what Macau is famous for - gambling tourism makes up about 50% of the economy.  Gaming revenue is apparently about USD20bn a year - which makes Vegas and its USD10bn look like a seaside amusement town.  I actually thought the non-Casino bits of Macau were really nice - some nice old Portuguese Colonial bits.  We were told the Portuguese are not that fondly remembered because they let things slide a little towards the end and people were being shot in the street in gangland warfare - they also didn't involve the locals that heavily in government.