The hotel was very swanky. It was part of the Contai Sands Resort, which was connected to the Venetian, where Shrek was performing. You didn’t need to see sunlight on the ten minute walk through the malls from the hotel to the theatre. The malls were lined with very high end shops and restaurants.
e ended up ordering a lot of room service. After spending so much money in Hong Kong and Thailand on our vacation, I didn’t want to venture out too much.
Our schedule in Macau was pretty easy once we were through the opening and first weekend. Tuesday – Friday evenings, Saturday and Sunday both matinee and evening performances.
We spent our Monday off visiting the Ruins of St Paul and the Historical town. It was nice to walk around, but really hot.
Guangzhou is only a couple of hours from Macau, but you have to pass through Chinese immigration to get there. We had to walk quite a distance from where the bus dropped us for the immigration terminal. Draging large suitcases, kids in tow and the heat, it was really difficult. We waited in the long immigration line and faced another long walk to the next bus once though. The journey took about five hours in total.
Our hotel in Guangzhou was really nice. The check in process was the fastest we had seen yet. The friendly staff were organized with our room keys when we arrived. We were given two rooms, actually suites, in this hotel. They were next to each other, but they didn’t join. The girls loved it. They kept calling me on the phone every couple of minutes. It was so good to watch TV at night once the kids had gone to bed. A luxury I’d lived without for a few months.
Guangzhou was very different from how I imagined it. The third largest city in China, it looked like any other major US city, but without Westerners. I was expecting it to be old and to appear as one big China town.
I would like to have spent a little more time exploring the city, but we were really getting quite homesick knowing that we only had one more week with one more city to go!
Our final city was Xiamen, located on the Southeast coast of China. It’s a popular tourist destination for the Chinese.
We took two trains to Xiamen. The train station was large, modern and clean with exception of the toilets which smelt so bad I almost threw up. I didn’t drink for the rest of the day just so I didn’t have to use a toilet again.
The following morning we went to the local mall where there was a supermarket to stock up on snacks for after the evening performances. I didn’t want to get caught out again. The mall was also really quiet. I’m not sure where all the people were, but it had a couple of nice restaurants and a Pappa John’s. Pizza had never tasted so good!
Our final sightseeing trip of the tour was to the Nanputuo Temple. I really enjoyed walking around this ancient temple, but climbing more steps in heat was really getting to be too much for the girls.
At the Temple we were constantly being stopped and asked for pictures. By this time even Olivia had enough, so we politely declined posing for pictures with anyone.
It was the day before the final performances. Alex, the Stage Manager had arranged for Eliana to play Grumpy in the Matinee performance on the last day, but Eliana didn’t know. She came to our dressing room with Christian (Farquad) and the Grumpy costume to ask Eliana if she would like to go on. Eliana was so excited. I nearly cried. It was the perfect way for this tour to end.