23 Nov 2005
We also visited Ruin of St Paul. The façade was magnificent. It was a strange but beautiful contradiction of the mystery behind this place which is only left with its face. It was a great place for photo taking. We took so many photos there. I heard we could make our way up to the façade but I didn’t. Later, we were also brought to the Crypt. We were told it was a holy place and we were to keep silent throughout our visit.
Next, we were brought to the largo do senado, by walking there. As most of us had already been here ourselves, our tour guide then brought us to a factory/warehouse. There were branded apparels sold at reasonable prices but well, I didn’t caught a fancy of any so I left rather early. My room mate and I went hunting for Portuguese egg tarts. We then decided to take a retreat back in the hotel.
As I entered through the lobby, I caught sight of a vaguely familiar face. As glimpses of the HK movie, Initial D were still fresh in my mind (I caught it on the plane to HK), I thought the man resembled someone on the cast. As I continued staring, I caught sight of the other guy beside him and this confirmed my doubt. They were indeed Hong Kong film stars. I was really excited and quickly informed my room mate. Sadly, she wasn’t one who watched Hong Kong dramas. As much as I wanted to take a picture with them (a rare opportunity!), I didn’t know how to speak Cantonese and don’t want to end up in an awkward scenario. I don’t even know their names! As I reached my room floor, I went to my other friend’s room and knocked on her door. They followed me down the stairs and spotted the stars. Three of us were really excited. As we were frantically recalling their names, I had the idea of taking pictures with them but my two friends were too shy even that they knew Cantonese! Later we found out that they were Zhang Jia Hui and Huang Qiu Sheng.
We had dinner at another hotel and Marian was really kind to treat all of us a Portuguese tart. She must be feeling bad she could not have the time to bring us to the egg tart shop earlier on. It was another Chinese banquet dinner!
After that, we were given an option to visit Lisboa casino. My friends mumbled something about chicken farm which caught some of us in a puzzle. As we made our way to the casino, we were again faced with the lurking cars on the roads and we made a dash for it (as we have learned there by then). We took a group photo with the bright neon lighting of the casino in the background. Nearing the casino, we saw trishaws standing-by with some photos displayed in-front of them. I was rather curious about it and wondered if there were some special businesses going on.
We went into the casino. There were just so many Feng Shui elements about it. I remembered out tour guide telling us about the grand entrance resembling the mouth of a bat – swallowing all those whom entered by that door. We were taken around the gallery to view several feng shui monuments there. There were just plenty! I could vaguely remember seeing jade structures, a Buddha and an intricately woven portrait. We were also brought to the place where the casino is in action. We went through the same security checks. The guide explained something about a snake structure on the ceiling as a feng shui element there. The gambling scene here looked more fearsome than the ones in Sands, maybe because it was already night. Later, we also got the other side of the casino where we caught another part of the casino in action – with ladies strolling down the corridor in revealing tops, etc.
Later, as we were nearing our hotel, my friends and I took some photographs near a man-made waterfall. We got a Caucasian tourist to help us with the picture. Later, we went back to the hotel. After our showers, we went over to our friends rooms. We did silly poses, guessing lame riddles to spend the night!
