Paul Marshall’s Web Site

It has to be said…. I work for a great company! Last night just after 11pm, I received a phone call from my boss, who was hard at work at the London Gaming Show (honest!). He told me that one of my US colleagues was resigning, and that I had to get the 1st flight I possibly could to Carlsbad (its in California), so that I can learn everything he knows before he’s leaves. Normally I would have no objections to this sort of thing (anything to get me out of the office), but I had to point out to him, that on the 5th Feb I was due to fly back to Manchester from Macau for my skiing holiday, and that this little trip would cause massive complications for me.

So after a quick discussion with the powers that be, it was decided that I would fly from Macau to Carlsbad, spend the time before my holiday, learning the stuff I needed to know, and then the company would fly me back to Manchester, where I would then be able to go on my holiday. Obviously after my holiday, I then get to fly back to Macau, on my pre-arranged flight to finish off my final few weeks in Macau.

So basically over the next 26 days, I will do a complere circuit of the world….what fun!

This weekend I visited China for the first time (technically Macau is a seperate country!). Zhu’hai is the province of China that borders Macau, and as soon as you walk across the border between Macau & China, the first thing you immediately come across is a huge underground shopping centre. This place was absolutely massive, selling just everything you could possibly want. In the end I was fairly boring and just bought dvd’s, but my work colleagues who went with me, inisisted on buying armani suits & rolex watches! Obviously this was all high quality merchandise…..honest!

I’ve spent most of my today in the office. Obviously I haven’t been doing any work (at least not for my company anyway!), instead I’ve been busy doing web site stuff!

First off the Alpenstock web site, which I do the coding for, needs another minor update. Now back in the UK, this is actually quite easy, as I have loads of software which makes writing PHP code really easy. Unfortunately out here in Macau, the only tool I have is notepad, which makes writing & testing the code a little bit harder! However I somehow managed to hack together some code, and the miracle of the story is that it actually works!

Finally, I’ve spent a bit of time also updating this site. I’d been putting off updating this site for several months, but now I’ve completed most of the tasks (upgrading WordPress, K2 and several of the plugins I use for this site). All thats really left to do now, is update the Photo Gallery software, and try and figure out why my Google maps aren’t working anymore…. something for next weekend, i think.

Christmas is now well and truly over, and after almost 3 weeks back in the UK, I’ve returned back to Macau. The weather here has been appalling, last week the temperature here dropped below 10 degrees! Fortunately that lasted only a couple of days, and we’re now back closer to 20.

I’ve now reached and gone past the half way mark for my stay in Macau, so its just 3 more months to go! Fortunately the next 3 months should be easier than the previous 3, as I have a nice little break in the middle where I get to go skiing in Austria….which I’m really looking forward to, assuming I don’t break anything!

Normally for me, this isn’t an unusual event, given that I seem to spend my life with Scouts! However in Macau, it definitly seems unusual. I had found out before I came out here, that there are actually Scouts in Macau, but I was still surprised to actually see one in full uniform.

The most notable thing about the uniform, was that the cap they wear, is very similar to the one I used to wear when I was a cub…all those years ago!

This weekend, I finally went walking in Macau. There are over 25 World Heritage sites on the Macau penninsula, and I had been meaning for several weeks to visit a few of them, but for various reasons (mainly being lazy!) I had kept putting it off.

In the end I only managed to visit a handful of these sites, but had quite an enjoyable day out. Towards the end of my day, I was ended up in the slightly dodgy end of town, and ended up becoming locationally challenged! In the end I managed to find a taxi (there aren’t many in that part of town), and ended my day trip with a huge burger at Al’s diner. Photos are available in the gallery.

This weekend we went to watch the final days racing of the Macau Grand Prix. We turned up late, and saw the final 2 races, as well as an exhibition car, doing a few laps.

The 1st race was in rally cars, and was quite exciting when at the 1st difficult turn, nearly half the cars crashed straight out of the race! This race was won by a Brit, and so we got to hear the national anthem being played, which half way through for some reason changed into the German national anthem!

The exhibition laps where done by this really fast car, which admitedly looked really cool, and made a very loud noise! However every lap it tried to do the hairpin bend, it failed and had to pushed back onto the track so it could complete the lap!

The final race of the day was with the proper racing cars, and was again won by a Brit! Photos are available in the gallery

I’ve got a ticket to the Macau Grand Prix on Sunday. Whilst i’m looking forward to this, I’m a bit concerned by the advice on the back of the ticket, which states that “Motor racing is dangerous and all persons attending this Grand Prix meeting do so at their own risk”!

Congratulations, to Alan & Jenny Marshall for the birth of their first child, a baby girl. Chloe was born this morning at about 2am. The phone line was bad when Mum told me the news, but I believe she said that Chloe weighed 8lb. Obviously this now makes me an Uncle, which is quite scary, although not as scary as my little brother now being a father!

I’m now into my 3rd week working in Macau. I’ve taken various photos over the last 2 weeks, and have finally managed to find a USB card reader to transfer all my files from my camera memory card to my pc, after I rather stupidly left my card reader at home, back in the UK!

There are photos of my hotel rooms in Macau, my new flat, a little walk I took this last weekend…. oh yeah, and my egg cup!