From workaholic to world traveler

I planned this Asia trip pretty hastily, and in order to get a tourist visa to China, I would have needed to give up my passport for almost 2 weeks. I didn’t have that time, so after some thought, I decided to go to Hong Kong, which is technically part of China, but doesn’t require any visa. Until 1997, Hong Kong was just a colony of the UK, but it has since been handed over to the Chinese. While the Chinese appoint the leader of Hong Kong, it operates like a sovereign country with its own currency and immigration regulations. What particularly drew me to Hong Kong was the fact that it is a multicultural, major city with tons of things to do and things to eat.

I only had 2 full days for this leg of the trip, so I wanted to get as much in as possible. For this trip I stayed in the Renaissance Hotel, a beautiful hotel with tons of amenities like a club lounge, pool and tennis courts. Unlike Seoul, when checking in, I learned from my mistake and I lied, saying that the account holder was coming in on a later flight, so I was able to enjoy the perks that come with platinum status.

For day 1, I planned on heading out to Macau, which is pretty much the Las Vegas of Asia. The only difference is that their primary game is baccarat, which I have no idea how to play. Even though it’s only about an hour by boat away, Macau is considered a separate country and I needed to bring my passport to get in. I took a pretty cool jetboat to Macau, and while in transit, I got a notification from AT&T that my ‘international pass’ didn’t cover Macau, so I knew that I couldn’t use my phone over there without seeing huge roaming fees. Thankfully, I was able to buy a 24hr SIM card for dirt cheap upon arrival. I’d intended on checking out Macau on my own, but a hard-selling tour guide brought down his price by 75% and I bit the proverbial bullet. He took me to a bunch of historical places, which were nice, but not really my thing. Almost all of the shops were hawking Portuguese egg tarts and various types of jerky.

I always feel somewhat obligated to check out the historical sites, but in actuality, I really don’t care all that much. I was there for the gambling and for the food. Considering the number of high rollers that come into Macau, they have some pretty cool casinos and great, Michelin starred restaurants. The first place that my guide insisted that I go to was a show in the lobby of the Wynn casino. I know the Wynn as a top casino in Vegas. It had also been in the news lately because its Chairman had to step down last year amid sexual harassment claims. Quick side note, but if it turned out that any casino moguls *were not* sexual predators, I’d be shocked. After all, they are some of the highest-order predators known to man, taking advantage of our stupider instincts and making sure that droves of stupid people leave their casinos poorer than when we came in. But I digress….At 12:30PM every day, the casino has a cool show where the ground and roof open up revealing a golden tree and an outrageous chandelier. It was actually really cool and it felt almost equivalent to the Bellagio fountains. Here are some pics, but video would likely do it more justice.

After I finished seeing the sights, I asked my tour guide to drop me off by the casinos. I pulled up my trusty Michelin app and found a nearby restaurant called Jade Dragon that looked awesome and had a relatively inexpensive pre-fix lunch deal. It was in the City of Dreams casino, which was pretty cool too.

It took some time to find the restaurant, but when I did, they claimed to be fully booked up. This could have been true, but I suspect that I was ‘dress coded’ because I was wearing a T-Shirt and jeans, and this place was a classy joint. They didn’t want my sort of riffraff around.

I next went to the Venetian, a hotel casino that I’m very familiar with in Vegas. This was the casino where a certain shithead threw out the world’s most unique t-shirt. This saboteur will remain nameless, however an unflattering, blurry photo of him is below.

My apologies for the tangent – the loss of this legendary shirts still stings to this day. Back to the story- so I found a different Michelin starred restaurant at the Venetian, called Canton, which serves Cantonese food. I was able to snag a table without reservation and have an amazing meal for under $50. It started out with a braised beef shank and went on to their signature fried chicken, both of which were sublime.

Satiated, I was ready to hit the tables. For those of you who have gambled with me, you know that I generally start any gambling session with what I call the ‘Shovelface Method’. It’s pretty sophomoric, but this method requires the player to attempt to find a disturbing looking Roulette dealer that appears to have been hit in the face with a shovel, and bet $100 on red. It’s stupid, it’s offensive, but don’t judge me. If you find this offensive, you will be happy to know that I lost my shovelface bet. The loss didn’t deter me, so I continued to gamble for a little while and ultimately left with around $800 in winnings. All of my stupider instincts told me to keep riding the hot streak, but I wanted to leave in the black, and I had plans in Hong Kong that evening, so I decided to head back. My winnings felt like found money, and I was considering taking a helicopter back, but the jetboat was about to leave, so I just booked a first class ticket on the jet boat. Was pretty nice and not significantly more expensive than economy.

My plan for that night was to this special horse racing event that is exclusively held on Wednesdays. It was actually really cool. Entry was less than $2, and you got to hang out right next to the action, with the whole area filled with booze carts and such. The place was packed with expats and tourists, none of whom knew or cared any more about horse racing than I did. I ended up having a few drinks and making 4 bets on 2 races. Dropped $50, but a good time was had by all.

Day 2 was designated for some touristy crap in Hong Kong, and a little bit of R&R. I ate breakfast at the hotel’s club room and hung out by the pool for a bit.

Afterwards I visited a famous street market called Ladies Market. They had a ton of stalls selling cheap souvenirs, but for me, my favorite part was negotiating price with the vendors. I bought a bunch of stuff including 2 oil paintings, a really nice set of chopsticks, a scarf and a fake overnight bag for a friend. The whole lot cost less than $60, because I threatened to leave each stall until I got the rock bottom price that I wanted. I’m such a stereotype, but I don’t care. It’s in my blood.

After killing it in the market, I headed off to an organized foodie tour. My tour consisted of a former Mormon preacher and a couple from Australia. We stopped off at a few places to eat pork, dim sum and a bunch of other wacky stuff, like a ‘thousand year old egg’, turtle broth and others. I really enjoyed it, but I doubt that any of the places would survive a visit from a health inspector.

On my final day in Hong Kong I had a few hours to burn. A few months back a former staffer told me about ‘blind massages’ in China, and I was totally intrigued. In addition to it being generally nice to give work to the blind, I’m told that the blind have to compensate for their lack of vision and that their other senses are heightened, particularly their tactile senses. I would be the judge of that.

I arrived a few minutes early to my massage. It was one of those joints that they try and get you to change into their uniform, which I always hate because I’m practically Godzilla comparatively to their typical customers, and there was no way that I was going to fit comfortably into their garb. I decided to just stick to my boxer briefs; the masseuse was blind, so who cares what I was wearing as long my clothing wouldn’t obstruct access to the temple that is my body.

In walks a tall, lean dude in a lab coat. He immediately seems to be hacking up some phlegm, which concerns me. He drapes a towel over me, and starts a tactile scan of my body. He pokes and prods for a few minutes to get the lay of the land. I like to imagine that he hadn’t been told how enormous I am, and that he was dumbstruck by his findings, wondering if he was massaging some type of other primate. Once he mapped out the entirety of my skeleton in his head, he began to identify pressure points and expertly started to inflict some of the most excruciating pain that I’ve ever felt using only his elbow and his body weight. It was the least pampering massage that I’d ever had, but by the time that he was done and I walked out of the facility, I felt pretty damn good. For $24, I’d recommend the experience to others, but be forewarned of the pain to come.

All in, I really enjoyed Hong Kong and I probably could have enjoyed it there for another few days. Off to Vietnam!!