Macau

I was in the area of Macau and decided to go visit since I am not sure I will ever come back to this part of the world and if I do will not have the time to spare. The connections back into China proper seemed to be better from Hong Kong and I also did not feel like lugging my pack around so just made Macau a day trip. On arriving at the ferry terminal was surprised the first ferry with seats was at 12 so bought my ticket and since I had time to waste went to the train station and bought my ticket for the following day to Guanshou.

I arrived in Macau a little bit after 1 and cleared the passport control and got a little bit of local money Pataca or MOPs and proceeded onto the center of town to see some of the sites. The center of town did not appear to be an Asian city at all but had more of a European feel at least the buildings. The people and language still seemed very Asian. Even though Portuguese is one of the official languages of Macau I did not hear anyone speaking any and my Obrigado (Thank you in Portuguese) at passport control got no reaction.

I visited a couple of the churches in the city and the Ruins of the St. Paul’s Church which is sort of a national symbol for Macau.

I also visited the Monte Fort and the Macau museum. The museum had an interesting exhibit comparing some of the difference between Europe and Asia since these cultures met in Macau with the Portuguese.

After the sun went down I decided to walk through what Macau is now famous for and that is Casinos. I only walked through 1 Casino and the big table game here seems to be Baccarat. I also saw 21, Caribbean Poker and roulette but the highlight for me was the stage in the middle of the casino with pole dancers. I figured if I had any money left over the casino would be a good place to get rid of it but to my surprise they were only using Hong Kong Dollars in the casino. I also did not have enough left to play. The minimum on the tables that I saw was $100 HK and some people betting $500 HK a hand. I watched some people play but I spent my MOPs at the ferry terminal on my way back to Hong Kong on water, candy and beer.