Macau (澳门)

This weekend I took a day trip to Macau, an interesting island and former Portuguese colony best known for its high-rolling, flashy casinos, but which also has lots of history and sites to see. The island is a bit disconcerting at first, as many of the buildings in the older part of town look very European, and signs are posted in Chinese, English and Portuguese (still!), a language that’s quite unexpected in Asia. See all my photos from this trip to Macau (but they haven’t yet been captioned).

Street signs are posted in Chinese, Portuguese and (usually) English

Macau is only about a one-hour ferry ride from Hong Kong, so getting there is very simple. Ferry tickets cost about 150 Hong Kong dollars each way (about $20), and there are several trips made throughout the day, so getting aboard is easy.

Me, in front of some cool, spiral-shaped incense cones at one of the temples

I went with some co-workers and friends because one person needed to get his Hong Kong visa activated (which requires exiting Hong Kong, and a trip to Macau counts). It was kind of a last-minute trip. We didn’t arrive till mid-afternoon, and we didn’t do anything official or planned out but rather simply wandered around a bit taking pictures and such, so this is by no means to be considered a comprehensive photo compilation of Macau — it’s only scratching the surface. I’m sure I’ll go back again sometime to explore a bit more.

The food is still largely influenced by Portuguese traditions, and we had lunch at one of the most famous Portuguese restaurants in town called A Lorcha. The food was actually quite similar to American food, and our meal consisted of beef croquettes, pig’s ear salad (in which I of course did not partake), cod fritters, African spicy chicken, blackened fried pork, rice, mashed potatoes, bread and sangria. We also stopped afterward at a bakery for some egg tarts, the island’s most famous delicacy (and which are also very popular in Hong Kong).

 

Portuguese food

Afterward we wandered a bit and stumbled upon a famous writer (surnamed Zheng)’s old family home, a large — and more traditional Chinese-looking — set of rooms, doorways, gardens and courtyards, an old church and some traditional European-looking homes and buildings

 

The writer’s former traditional Chinese home

These homes do not look Chinese at all!

A traditional Catholic church in Macau (I didn’t catch its name)

Though Macau is most famously known for its casinos, we didn’t actually spend much time in them because we a) were running low on time, and b) don’t much care for throwing money away gambling. But we did go into the Grand Lisboa for a little while, and I managed to lose 10 HKD (about $1.20) playing slots (although I also won about 4 HKD!). Perhaps the next time I return, I’ll visit more casinos. They have here an MGM Grand, a Wynn, a Sands Macau, and a Venetian.

 

The Grand Lisboa casino/hotel in Macau