Well, hello from the Hotel Royal (Or Royal Hotel...) in Macau!

I am unsure of which version of the hotel name is correct, so I wrote both!

WE MADE IT TO MACAU!!!

They tried to not allow me to check in for my flight from LAX to Taipei because I had a one way ticket. At 200am, in at least one of the time zones I've been through in the past couple days, that is NOT funny, may I tell you that? Instead, I had to use father's credit card to buy a $330 ticket out of Macau. To Taipei. I was supposed to be allowed 45 days in the city without penalty. May I just tell you, after further inquiry, that I am the only person that has happened to? Of course I am. Typical.

But we are here. I have shown my face at HQ (what I'm referring to Dragone's offices as) and recieved my passport, which was sort of kidnapped yesterday to get my chop.

What's that you ask? What's a chop? Well, readers, thanks for asking. I can inform you what that is, actually. A "chop" is a stamp that the visa office puts on your passport to say "yes, this person has applied for a blue card/work visa on the island, and yes, we are processing it." I will be fingerprinted by the government on July 19th (SCARY), and after that I don't know what happens.

So today our goal was to get an apartment, a cell phone, and a bank account. I was denied a bank account (even though the office told me I was all set to go) because I don't have a slip of paper from the gov't saying my blue card has been approved. The chop was clearly not good enough for them. The cell phone place was scary scary so we left. The apartments were also scary scary and the riggers I met today advised me of three things when apartment hunting: check for mold behind the curtains {it's a problem in lots of apartments because of the constant humidity that lesser people are unused to : ) }, roaches {unless Emily and I care for a pet, which we don't...}, and see LOTS of apartments. My agent had two. So we are working on getting a new real estate agent. And as a result, NOTHING but frustration got accomplished.

But that is OK, because tomorrow is a new day in this crazy, foreign city that I now call a semi-permanent residence. But never home.

Silver lining: there IS a great restaurant across the street from the hotel. Not the side of the street that has the giant courtyard where the locals practice Tai Chi and line dance (yes, seriously, line dance-there were like 12 people line dancing as a semi-organized group) at 7am. The side of the street with the Chinese 7-11. This place the people speak broken English, but everything we've had so far has been delicious. Fried beef and peppers, wonton soup, honey milk tea, watermelon ices... All delicious. Fried rice is even better actually IN China, well, at least in this SAR or Special Administrative Region of China. And if the fried rice keeps being excellent, I plan on not starving to death after all!

This post has been very educational. I hope ya'll learned something. Because when we stop learning, we stop living. Or something inspirational like that.

So for now, I would say good bye in Cantonese. If I knew how... But since there's lots of Portugese on this island, let's say "Hasta luego," or "See you later," as seven years of Spanish prove most helpful in attempting to translate the Portugese signs here. Honestly, it's about time those Spanish lesson paid off!

XOXOX

PS. I attempted to shave today to be presentable and got razor burn up my calves. You didn't NEED to know that, but I felt like it should be shared for some reason. Back to no shaving. (You people miss me, don't ya'll???)