Views of Macau

The lighthouse and the chapel at Guia's fort, the highest point in the Macau peninsula

A lot of Macau's residential buildings look like this. I find it a cross between Hong Kong and 1950's Lisbon outskirts, which kind of makes sense.

The winding bridge in Lou Lim Ioc garden has nine turns (the evil spirits can't turn, so you're safe here) and is surrounded by lotus plants.

A typical street in Macau, away from the downtown area

A view to Sai Van Lake, with the Macau tower on the left and the Taipa bridge to its right

Near A-Ma temple, a bilingual street sign and a wall that would be at home in Lisbon.

A-Ma temple from the outside. Its architecture is similar to Man Mo's in Hong Kong, but different from several other Chinese temples we've seen.

The interior of A-Ma temple. Those cone-shaped incense sticks were everywhere.

Lotus, Incense and More Rain

It wasn’t raining in Macau the next morning, but the skies were depressingly gray. We gave up on the idea of going to the Macau tower to get an overview of the peninsula and the islands of Taipa and Coloane. Instead, we visited another high spot, the Guia fort, with its lighthouse, chapel and underground tunnels. Later, we went for a stroll in the scenic Lou Lim Ioc garden, with its lotus flowers, its collection of funny-shaped rocks, its several cats, and its winding bridge.

Then we took a taxi to the top of Penha hill, overlooking the man-made lake, the Macau Tower and the Taipa Bridge. From there, we walked downhill to A-Ma temple, a very old Chinese temple built around the 16th century. After observing the curious cone-shaped incense sticks and checking out its several stages (or floors), we came back down, just in time for some delicious, as-real-as-it-gets, Portuguese food, at the nearby restaurant “A Lorcha”.

We still had a couple more hours before we had to leave, so we went to the Monte fort, by St. Paul’s ruins. The Macau Museum, which is housed in the fort, is really interesting and very well organized, displaying both the different areas of the city and its unique culture. While we were there, it began to rain, and, by the time we got out it it had become worse. We couldn’t catch a taxi nearby, so we sort of “slid” downhill to the same bakery that had sheltered us from the rain the previous evening. My feet and legs were soaked and cold, but eventually we were able to get a cab, get to the hotel, grab our bags and go to the ferry that would take us to Hong Kong.

Strolling around downtown Macau

The baroque façade of St. Dominic's church

Steve looks happy to see a familiar-looking place... it's the main square, Largo do Senado.

Another view of the main square

Portuguese tile work inside the Leal Senado building

The Senado square, seen from the mayor's office (Leal Senado)

The Travessa de São Domingos (St. Dominic's lane), off Senado square

The so-so egg tart. Worth trying, anyways.

The ruins of St. Paul's church are Macau's symbol.

A closer look at St. Paul's façade

An incense burner belonging to a small temple, behind the ruins of St. Paul's church

A view of the skyline from St. Paul's. That ugly, enormous building under construction is the Grand Lisboa, a new casino. Did they really need to make it that tall?

Yet another view of St. Paul's and the steps that lead to it. Beautiful, isn't it?

The Senado square at night, after the rain, facing the Leal Senado building.

The "pre-Las Vegas" casino and hotel Lisboa is still a Macau landmark.

Baccarat and Egg Tarts

We landed in Macau on a cloudy afternoon. In general, we’ve been pretty lucky with the weather during our Asia travels, but this time a level 8 typhoon was scheduled to hit Hong Kong that same night, and it didn’t take long for the rain to start. However, we had less than two days to see Macau and, since there were no taxis available, because it was raining, we took the bus downtown to Senado Square. This square is the heart of colonial Macau. Its winding sidewalk, made of black and white cobblestones, leads you to the Portuguese institutional buildings such as the Senado itself (the mayor’s office) and the Santa Casa da Misericórdia (Portugal’s solidarity institution.) We had some homemade noodles at a quaint, traditional Chinese restaurant, and made our way to the baroque church of St. Dominic, which houses a very interesting museum of antique religious objects.

On our way to the ruins of St. Paul’s, we stopped for a “Portuguese egg tart”. Now, I’m a big fan of the real thing and was disappointed by the pudding-like consistency and overall eggy-ness of these tarts. Still, I imagine they can be very popular with foreigners who have never tried the original, but I suggest you look somewhere else -- I found a decent egg tart in downtown Kyoto, Japan, of all places. One thing you must absolutely not miss while in Macau is the ruins of St. Paul’s. This magnificent Jesuit church was built in the 17th century and destroyed by a fire about 200 years later. All that remains is the beautifully ornate façade, which is perched on a hill, at the top of a long flight of steps. We had time for some pictures before it started pouring really, really hard. We waited for about 30 minutes under a bakery’s awning and then gave up. Armed with only a flimsy umbrella, we started to descend the cobblestone-paved streets, looking for some decent Portuguese food.

By the time dinner was over it had stopped raining, so we decided to sample the casino entertainment. The casinos are Macau’s biggest tourism draw right now, since a lot of Chinese from the mainland come to the territory strictly to gamble large sums on baccarat. The Wynn is one of the most recent Las Vegas-style casinos in Macau, and only a 10-minute walk away from our hotel. We made our way there and saw a lot of Chinese people playing mostly baccarat and some dice. There were only a couple of roulettes, as well as blackjack tables and slot-machines (not very popular), and a type of poker that I didn’t recognize. The casino was actually a very elegant place -- as opposed to some cheesier, older ones. We gambled a little (and lost) and went to sleep.

China’s SAR’s (no, not the syndrome)

Since Macau and Hong Kong, China’s Special Administrative Regions, are only about an hour away from each other by ferry, we decided to visit them on the same trip. Everybody knows Hong Kong was a British territory from the 19th century to 1997; what you might not know is that Macau was a Portuguese territory from the 16th century to 1999. However, they couldn’t be more different. Hong Kong is a big city that looks a little like New York’s Chinatown, except that it’s perched on a hill and has an enormous harbor, while Macau is a quaint little place that looks like a Portuguese village, except that there is a huge area filled with casinos, some older, some brand new and Las Vegas-style. All in all, they complement each other and are great visited together.