Countdown and updates
hm.... by this time next week, I'll be in Taipei, waiting for my connecting flight to Austria! YES! I'm going to Austria again!! It's been 10 years since my last visit. I'm already confused by some of the new things going on, like, the Westbahnhof is not anymore the bahnhof to go to Linz and Salzburg. The Sudbahnhof has also been upgraded to become the Hauptbahnhof! So. Yeah. I've got a few key locations all marked and saved and then we can just go with the flow.
So today was the "Commemoration walk" for the "Upcoming Inauguration" of the "Macau Bridge". That entire sentence is made of a few jokes LOL. In Macau we used to have to one sole bridge connecting the Macau Peninsula to the Taipa Island. The bridge has an official name (Some Nobre Carvalho or something) but now we just call it the "Old Bridge". Then the second bridge built was called the "Friendship Bridge". I guess it was because it was just before the time of the Handover and so the Portuguese and Chinese were doing a series of "Friendship & Good relations" stuff, therefore it was called "Friendship". For a while the people commonly called it the "New Bridge". However, there is an area of Macau also colloquially known as "new bridge" 新橋 and while people will know what you are talking about (e.g. you won't go to the actual bridge for shopping) some people will tease in jest. And some years later, we got the new "Sai Van Bridge", which is probably because it starts off from the Sai Van area in Macau.
This spiffy new bridge that's going to go in operations on Tuesday, is called "The Macau Bridge" lol. I read somewhere that the name "Macau Bridge" was also submitted for consideration when tender was open for the Sai Van Bridge, but I guess this time it's political, or something. This newest bridge has been joked that: it's been built too quickly, it will collapse. They required people to register to walk this event, and the registration page basically died every step of the way. 1. It didn't go live when it was supposed to go live. 2. When it got resolved, people had to receive an SMS code to verify but people were stuck waiting for the SMS. 3. When it got resolved, people were still not able to registere due to server error. 4. When it got resolved, very soon the quota was full so people couldn't register. So, some actually joked that they needed to limit the number of people as the bridge would collapse. Oh, also, the bridge has disco shiney lights at night, so people call it the "Rainbow Bridge". Ooops.
So to commemorate the opening, we get to walk half way and back, because the area the bridge connects to "New City Zone A" 新城A區 (a reclaimed area intended for building housing) is actually not completed yet LOL. Tuesday is China National Day, so all these wee-waahs and hoo-haas (Horse and pony show?) is really to hype that up.
And have I mentioned the red flags in town LOL. Every single lamp post hangs 2 flags of China. Someone in a "foreigners" chat group I'm in posted a video of him saying "How many red flags does your relationship have?" LOL.
This year is gonna be a couple of big things because it's the 75th year of the PRC and the 25th year of the Macau Handover (Macau SAR Establishment Day).
I got interviewed by the news station, and even in the questions, they had to make it political.
- Why are you here? Well, this is new, and I thought it fun to have a walk over.
- What do you think of the weather today? Well, you can say it's a beautiful day but admittedly it's a little too sunny to be out in the open, but I've got an umprella.
- What do you think about having this commemoration walk 2 days before the actual inaugration? Yeah, it's a fun experience so I'm here.
Yeah, I totally not-answered the third question intentionally haha!
So today was the "Commemoration walk" for the "Upcoming Inauguration" of the "Macau Bridge". That entire sentence is made of a few jokes LOL. In Macau we used to have to one sole bridge connecting the Macau Peninsula to the Taipa Island. The bridge has an official name (Some Nobre Carvalho or something) but now we just call it the "Old Bridge". Then the second bridge built was called the "Friendship Bridge". I guess it was because it was just before the time of the Handover and so the Portuguese and Chinese were doing a series of "Friendship & Good relations" stuff, therefore it was called "Friendship". For a while the people commonly called it the "New Bridge". However, there is an area of Macau also colloquially known as "new bridge" 新橋 and while people will know what you are talking about (e.g. you won't go to the actual bridge for shopping) some people will tease in jest. And some years later, we got the new "Sai Van Bridge", which is probably because it starts off from the Sai Van area in Macau.
This spiffy new bridge that's going to go in operations on Tuesday, is called "The Macau Bridge" lol. I read somewhere that the name "Macau Bridge" was also submitted for consideration when tender was open for the Sai Van Bridge, but I guess this time it's political, or something. This newest bridge has been joked that: it's been built too quickly, it will collapse. They required people to register to walk this event, and the registration page basically died every step of the way. 1. It didn't go live when it was supposed to go live. 2. When it got resolved, people had to receive an SMS code to verify but people were stuck waiting for the SMS. 3. When it got resolved, people were still not able to registere due to server error. 4. When it got resolved, very soon the quota was full so people couldn't register. So, some actually joked that they needed to limit the number of people as the bridge would collapse. Oh, also, the bridge has disco shiney lights at night, so people call it the "Rainbow Bridge". Ooops.
So to commemorate the opening, we get to walk half way and back, because the area the bridge connects to "New City Zone A" 新城A區 (a reclaimed area intended for building housing) is actually not completed yet LOL. Tuesday is China National Day, so all these wee-waahs and hoo-haas (Horse and pony show?) is really to hype that up.
And have I mentioned the red flags in town LOL. Every single lamp post hangs 2 flags of China. Someone in a "foreigners" chat group I'm in posted a video of him saying "How many red flags does your relationship have?" LOL.
This year is gonna be a couple of big things because it's the 75th year of the PRC and the 25th year of the Macau Handover (Macau SAR Establishment Day).
I got interviewed by the news station, and even in the questions, they had to make it political.
- Why are you here? Well, this is new, and I thought it fun to have a walk over.
- What do you think of the weather today? Well, you can say it's a beautiful day but admittedly it's a little too sunny to be out in the open, but I've got an umprella.
- What do you think about having this commemoration walk 2 days before the actual inaugration? Yeah, it's a fun experience so I'm here.
Yeah, I totally not-answered the third question intentionally haha!