Macau, China: Worth the bungee thrill.

Macau is one of China’s two Special Administrative Regions (SARs). The other is Hong Kong. A bunch of us were in Hong Kong for the Rugby 7s and other fun stuff. Considering Macau is known for some pretty rad food and Portuguese heritage, insane gambling (not my jam, but I dig flashy lights and opulence, and being brought drinks while I cheer for friends or play slots) and “a bungee jump” my friend and I decided to go on a day trip. It’s just a 45 minute ferry ride over there, and yay, another country stamped in the passport. When I did a little research and realized the bungee (some countries spell the word “bungy”, I’m not agreeable to this) was the highest one in the entire world there was no question that I was going regardless of cost or company.The cost was exorbitant (um, 500 large per person just to jump) and the company was impeccable (my friend is as crazy, nah, CRAZIER, than me).

I think my skydiving background came in handy because I felt excitement but no fear. So check out the videos. The first one is is their production that’s ready about 20 minutes after the jump, and the second is a video made from the GoPro strapped to my wrist, which they also had ready within about 20 minutes. Efficiency. I like.

Clearly, I was enthralled with the adventure. Next time I will plummet backwards, and the third time a running start and swan dive.

Time being of the essence, I skipped the Portuguese stuff. I was just in Portugal a few months ago and got a decent fill.

So after we grabbed our little USB cards with our photos and videos, we cabbed to the Venetian on the Cotai strip. For reference, this place is the largest single building hotel in Asia and largest casino in the world.

A little over the top. Just a little.

So we decided to go over the top too, because that’s the sort of thing we’d do. James Bond meets Archer, ya? Finally I get to join the ranks of Denise Richards as a Bond Girl (ew).

All dressed up like we own the place.

People were stopping in their tracks to take our photo. Figuring the highest grossing casino in the WHOLE WORLD might be fancy, and that a Bond film (Skyfall) went down there, I was surprised to see everyone running around in plain clothes, hastily stuffing duty free booty into suitcases and drinking… water. What? They take the gambling so seriously that they don’t even have drinks!

Things got weird when we both felt like we were being followed around. It wouldn’t be shocking based on the attention we drew. We wanted to sit down and play black jack but the place was so huge we couldn’t even find the black jack tables. Time was flying by very quickly so we decided to bolt back to the ferry and head back to Hong Kong.

I wasn’t incredibly comfortable in the satin dress, heels and jewels so I changed and trashed all that crap. Don’t get me wrong, I changed back into the clothes I’d been wearing before, so I wasn’t running around naked. Then, at the ferry station they announced that seas were crazy (my favorite) and the ride back kept getting delayed. I tried to offer to con the ship back to Hong Kong as that is one of my specialties (you know, the whole Navy ship-driver thing). No joy.

It was at this point I thought we might end up staying the night or that there may be a conspiracy towards us because we’d made such a scene looking so damn good and acting so damn strange at the casino.

Worrying that we wouldn’t make it back to Hong Kong while Ben giddily types stuff on his iPad. Probably evil stuff.

Finally we were able to board the ferry, where we sat for another hour+.

And perhaps my favorite photo, after ordering beers and noodles, Ben clearly started to fall to bits and I have no idea if he is laughing or crying.

“What is this Macau money?” Pretty sure this is a pained laugh. Regardless, guy next to us decided to “take another seat”.

So we returned to Hong Kong fully intact and then got lost in Shangri-La.

The moral of the story is this: THE DEGENERACY OVERFLOWETH. It’s good to go do silly things and try something new. I’m glad Ben was my partner in crime. I’m not sure if you heard in the video, but right before I jumped he said, “Punch God in the face on the way down.” Priceless. Oh, and he jumped too. In his tux.