Hey guys, right then, macau island. this was a really nice change to what i've been doing recently, coming from beijing to shanghai to hong kong, even those places were great i was just about ready to get out of the big cities so macau was the obvious choice. you come to macau for one of 2 resons, you either come for the history or you come to gamble which the majority of the visitors to the island taking the later option i decided to take the history route. the island is really beautiful with it huge portugese influence it feels like a small part of europe in china. all the road names are portugese, the buildings and side streets all have a strong european feel with plenty of little scooters zooming about with bags of fruit on the front of them. i only spent 2 days in macau but it was great. the first day i just walked around the centre of town taking it all in with the sunday market and the stage showing the local talent in the middle of the centre of town showing anything from singers to acrobatics, and then getting lost in the little back streets lined with shops and then eventually finding the ruines of st. pauls (the picture) and checking out the museum of macau which was probably the best museum i've seen since i've been away. there seems to be such thing as night life in macau so i spent the evenings chilled out in a cafe reading a book drinking ice tea (not quite the same as hong kong, but i was glad of the rest). when i did make it back to my hotel room i had a little visitor, a little rat would come and visit me every so often by running under the gap at the bottom of my door, which could have fit a small cow through it, and then coming to rest under my bed. budget accomadation, i wouldn't have it any other way! the second day i walked the south of the island. being such a small island it only took me about 4-5 hours to walk the whole of the south of the island and i was taking my time. walking around i checked out a few chruch's and the coast line. the church's were beautiful and i got a real feeling of being on holiday in spain just walking around the streets, which if anybody knows me isn't a bad thing atall! again a quiet night with a book and a really crap cup of ice tea from starbucks. next stop chengdu to see some pandas and my mate from hong kong, dan. 44 hours on a train should get me back in the mood for a binge drinking session! cheers everybody, speak to you all soon. smartie pants