Macau, Macau
Monday, May 22, 2006
We spent an afternoon in Central Hong Kong, before catching the ferry to The Historic City of Macau. After a month in China, Hong Kong suddenly felt like an incredibly modern, fun, relaxing place to be (especially now that Joanne was feeling better). There is a huge variety of shops, bars, pubs, and restaurants. We could spend months here! But we had to catch the ferry, and see what Macau was all about.
Maccau is only a 1 hour (high speed) ferry ride away from Hong Kong, and the customs experience was very quick and painless. Maccau is similar to Hong Kong in that it’s clean (perhaps cleaner), with some delicious cuisine, and very hot and humid climate at this time of year.
We spent our first full day touring the city/country of Macau by foot. It was drizzling all day, but at least it kept us from overheating too much from the heat and humidity. We walked through the old portugese-style streets, admiring several old churches and other buildings, and ended up at the ruins of St. Paul’s church and then the museum of Macau. We only had 45 minutes in the museum before it closed, but it was so worth the visit. 1 1/2 hours would have been ideal. It was very nicely laid out, with great info on the role of Macau, Hong Kong, and Guanzhou through out China’s trade history. Macau was settled by the Portugese in the mid 16th century (well before the British settled in Hong Kong), and was turned back over to China fairly recently (1980s?). The architeture and cuisine of Macau is consequently an interesting blend of European (Portugese) and Asian (Chinese), with some Indian and African thrown in for spice (due to the influence of other Portugese colonies).
In the evening, we checked out some of the casinos (which Macau is famous for). We were awe struck by the extravegance of the buildings, and shocked by the high cost of gambling there. The “cheap” tables had a minimum bet of $200 HKD (~$26 USD)! Needless to say, we didn’t do much gambling on our meager budget.
On our second (final) day we went for dim sum, which Macau is known for (but which I must say is not any better than many places in California or Canada, but still very yummy). Our visit was very rushed, as we had to catch anther ferry over to Lantau Island, to spend the night before catching our early flight out to Melbourne.
Comments
1999
From billmacau, on May 26, 2007 at 07:36AM
FYI, Macau was turned back to China in 1999.
http://dysfunctionalhead.blogspot.com/i like macau..
From Jack Kaka, on May 14, 2010 at 03:10PM