Macau, our next-to-last stop, looked about as fresh, bright, and peppy as I felt when we arrived there. I had come down with a cold sometime in the middle of our last, and most eventful, overnight train ride.

We were running late when we arrived at the Shanghai train station, where we tried to change our tickets to a more direct route to Macau — we failed, but not before the tickets had been stamped for refund, so we weren't certain, when we arrived at our gate, running flat out with all of our luggage, whether they would let us on the train at all. Then we realized that we had to leave the station and return again through customs to board the train to Hong Kong. With approximately three minutes until departure, we slid through passport control, and onto the train, just under the wire. They let us on, despite our "refund" stamped tickets, but we had hardly found our bunks before being asked to swap seats to another compartment. Flustered, out of breath, and incapable of communicating, it took us a long time to figure out what our compartment-mates wanted and why. In the end, we were happy to change so that the family could sit together, and we found ourselves in the top bunks of a new compartment. We had just gotten settled in, when the group below us spread out a feast... a feast of pickled and preserved meats and vegetables that filled the compartment with an intense odor, soon joined by clouds of cigarette smoke.

I was worried for a little while, but once Greg and I ventured down from our bunks to order some dinner, we quickly found ourselves sharing beers and chicken feet with the friendly group below us. Probably the best chicken feet we had the whole trip, too! Unfortunately, the jollity was eventually subdued when I found myself exhausted, and I woke up in the morning coughing and faintly feverish.

The ensuing trek by subway and ferry was not the most pleasant part of our trip, with both the air and my head full of dense, humid fog. But we managed to find our way to our room at the strange flophouse we had booked, and I spent the rest of the day lying on the grungy bed and staring at the lack of a ceiling. (The rooms were basically low partitions below a high, unfinished roof.)

Greg valiantly ventured out to procure some irresistible Macau egg tarts, which we first tried in Hong Kong back in January and were a big part of our decision to visit Macau on our return trip. The Macau egg tart is very similar to the little custard tarts you might get with a dim sum meal, but with a flaky puff pastry crust and a blistered and caramelized top. They are actually a hybrid of Portuguese and English tarts that was developed in Macau.

Much later, Greg convinced me that we needed to eat dinner, and we decided on a fancy Portuguese restaurant. The knife and fork actually baffled me for a few minutes, but the roast pigeon that the restaurant was purportedly famous for was quite good.

The next morning, feeling mildly better, we walked around the sights of Macau and sampled a few more egg tarts. Macau has several other culinary specialties, including giant flat squares of meat jerky and a variety of nut cookies, all sold at just about every third storefront throughout the city.

So that about sums up our Macau visit, except for one thing: what the heck is "Greek Mythology Service", and why can you get it at the Macau ferry terminal?