$1,650 Hong Kong dollars (HKD) on the line.  My hands are sweating.  Bobby Lee couldn’t even watch.  He was smart enough to get up from the table and pace – I just sat there, legs shaking, about to pull my fingers off from the stress. By the way, $1,650HKD is about $215US and that was just the beginning.

When I told people that my friend Bobby Lee was coming to town and we were going to Macau; everyone said I should gamble and that I was going to love the food there.  They got half right.

As far as the food, I’ll tell you – it was bad.  At just about every place we went to, we ordered something simple, like chicken and rice but what we got was bones with skin on top.  At one establishment, the food came out from some weird trap door.  We could only imagine where those bones came from.

I have to say, one of the fun things about traveling with Bobby Lee is his openness for adventure. He seeks out the local side of things and has an eye for unexpected.  On our first day, we decided to be tourists.  We went to all the usual places and there are plenty of western establishments to eat at.  However, we ended up at this street café that Bobby Lee had spied earlier.  It was crowded, loud, uncomfortable, but the food actually turned out to be quite tasty.  I really didn’t want to eat there at first because I can be a bit of a baby about things like that.  But he likes to mix it up and well, I want to change certain things about myself, so I grinded it out with the locals and was so happy I did.

Macau is an interesting mix of old European influence within Chinese culture.  What was amazing to both of us was the crush of humanity.  For me, it was awe-inspiring.  The number of people all just trying to see something new, like us, or revisit a favorite location.  All I know is that is was almost crushing – the amount of people in a relatively small space.  But we managed and at some point, we slipped around the crowds, and found a small temple. Then we snuck around a corner and found this little neighborhood. The kind you aren’t even sure if you should be there. We took some photos and it was nice to find a bit of quiet in the throngs of people.

As I’ve said before about China, it’s really in your face.  Well, my friend had never been here before and it was interesting to see what shocked him and what I have become used to.  His reactions to the loud talking, spitting, nose picking and ridiculously loud coughing and burping was hilarious.  Now, do all Chinese do these things?  Of course not.  But enough do to warrant a mention. Welcome to China.

So after being tourists, we ended up gambling.  Well, it turns out that Bobby Lee had a system.  And following suit, I developed a system of my own called WWBD (What Would Bobby Do).  Now as far as his system, I was sworn to secrecy.  I won’t even divulge the game we played. But what I found was that gambling is a serious roller coaster ride. What was even more amazing was how quickly I took ownership of any money I won.  Lightening quick wouldn’t describe it.  The funny thing was, whenever there was a big bet, Bobby Lee would pace and I would sit there and wait for the outcome.  He would look to me and I would either smile and nod yes, or just shake my head no.  We ended up spending more time being gamblers than tourists.

Now I am not going to tell you WBD (What Bobby Did), and I won’t even tell you how that $1,650HKD bet went down.  But what I will tell you is that I bought a first-class ticket back to Shekou and the view was beautiful.

Enjoy the photos below!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.