Macau - What kind of birds don't fly?

  Macau, China
Friday, January 23, 2009

Macau

Gary and I decided to take a trip to Macau rather than staying in Hong Kong a few more days. Thursday morning, we took the ferry over from Hong Kong and collected yet another passport stamp.

New Year displays in colonial square

Macau is a strange place. It was colonized by the Portuguese. It has a great mix of Portuguese colonial architecture, modern Chinese buildings, and gaudy casinos. It's much more laid back than Hong Kong, and there's interesting Portuguese-Chinese fusion food. The Portuguese had a lot more fun with their colonies than the English did.

Street Snacks!!!

After checking into the hotel, I went out in search of food. Although a Brazilian I met in Hong Kong told me no one in Macau speaks Portuguese anymore, the first food place I found was a little Brazilian sandwich shop. The Brazilian guy who ran it kept two young Chinese men around to translate into English and Cantonese for him. From there, I set out exploring the historical part of the city. Aside from looking at pretty buildings, the real attraction is the street food. Macaunese street snacks are the best I've ever found. I ate my fill and bought gifts for my Beijing friends.

Grand Lisboa

Gary and I headed out to the casinos at night. We started at the Venetian, which is apparently the largest in the world or something. It's probably too big. The area has a lot of half-finished buildings and half-open casinos. The Venetian was boring and didn't have Texas hold'em, so we went back to the older casinos near the city center. Gary lost his money at poker while I lost mine at blackjack at the Grand Lisboa. After that half-hour bad luck streak we moved on and bounced from one casino to the other people watching and catching random fountain and light shows. Gambling is highly boring when you don't have very much money.

an ordinary street

We walked most of the way home, got lost, and took a cab. Much of the city outside the casino area seemed dilapidated. It was a shame to see beautiful colonial architecture just falling apart, especially when developers spent the last decade creating landfill and giant casinos around the island. One night in Macau was enough, and I left for Beijing in the morning.