Goodbye Macau

With about an hour and a half to get back to the port to catch our ferry back to Hong Kong my cousin and I looked at each other dreading the walk we’d have to make in order to hail a taxi. The moisture in the air sprinkled down gently, the rain clouds moved in closer, grey painted the sky, and a slight breeze began to come through Macau’s favored square, Senado. We need to move fast.

Standing in one of the shops along the square, I looked outside and smelt the rain hitting the ground. “Good thing we have our rain jackets,” as I saw the irritation arise on my cousin’s face. While looking out the glass pane entrance, we slowly zipped up our bright blue jackets and threw our hoods on. “Here we go,” I walked out the door with hesitation and started to run under the canopy covered food stalls to avoid the rain.

“Splish, splash,” stomping on each puddle trying to get around the swarm of people frantically searching for cover. The further into the square we walked, what once was hanging above us keeping us dry vanished. The closer we got to the taxi lines, the harder the rain began to beat against our faces. Our jackets useless at this point. We needed to get out of this rain, at least for a little while. We walked into a store and waited for five minutes.. ten minutes.. twelve.. “I’m going to buy an umbrella,” my cousin said as she looked at her watch.

“We need to go,” as I started to run. “We can’t miss this ferry,” we both thought. Completely soaked from head to toe with a broken umbrella that lost it’s battle with the wind, we finally made it to an intersection with a taxi pickup line. Anxiously, we got into the taxi. “Can you take us to the port please?”

Without having a proper dinner, we searched for food at the port, but first we needed to find where we have to go to board the ferry. Noticing that the desk for our ferry was closed and a departure time was no where to be found on the screen, I started to question if we missed our ferry. We allocated the staff at the terminal for some answers and handed him our tickets. He looked at us, giggled, and said, “You no right port. You go to other port.” “What?!” the confusion grew on our faces, “other port?!” “Yes, you go now. Here wrong port.” Looking at the clock, thirty minutes till departure, we ran to find another taxi to take us to the other side of the island. With the disbelief growing on my cousin’s face, I couldn’t help, but laugh. However, this only annoyed her more.

Traffic stalled us in the rain. Droplets turing into little streams on the windows. Loosing our patience, we tried to remain clam. I peered out to the horizon. Though the rain blocked my view, I could see lights flashing, the casinos sparkling in the darkness of the night sky like stars. “Almost there,” the taxi driver spoke amused by our story. We got to the entrance and ran. Barely making it we went through the terminal doors and boarded the ferry. Desperately finding our seats, we looked at each other and laughed. Who knew there were two ports on such a little island.

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