You Can (Ma)Cau-nt Me In!

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Hello everyone, in today’s blog, I visit Macau, hence the painfully corny title (no, I seriously winced when I typed that, my hand tried to cramp up in an attempt to stop me – obviously it failed). So last time I outsmarted the Taiwan Visa requirements, I actually got my Taiwan Visa, and realized that Hong Kong isn’t my jam. Thus I decided that maybe a side trip to Macau would be the boost I needed. Let’s continue on this magical journey of magic and adventure, shall we?

Sept 1st:
Rising and shining around 7:15, I packed up my backpack with my guidebook (which doubled as a map), some water, and a sense of adventure (each sold separately), and got on the 7:45 shuttle into town. Got off, ran into 7-11 to grab a quick (and cheap) bite and then headed up to the terminal. Despite the fact that my ticket was for 9:00, they let me on the 8:45 ferry – you know, cause they know how to treat people of boss status, and off we went. I was fortunate enough to have a window seat and was able to see the bay on the way out from the harbor, which was really cool. Sadly the windows had too much water to get any good pictures, but oh well. I can now also say I’ve seen and been on the South China Sea, which is kinda cool, and some of the small islands you see on the way in are just fantastic – highly suggest using the ferry to go to Macau if you aren’t directly flying in.
Ok, back to me now. The ferry docked in Macau, and after all of the fun customs lines (which were quite efficient I must say) I was in Macau – another country off the check list. I went downstairs in an attempt to exchange some currency, and after wandering around the dock building for about 15 minutes, I finally saw a (very small) sign that told me that both HK dollars and Patacas (Macau currency) were used in Macau. In fact, they won’t even exchange HK to Patacas in Macau. Satisfied with my recent findings, I went off to the bus stop to figure out what bus I should take, and the map said the line I wanted to take was down a little ways. I never did find that bus stop, I like to think that there was never really a bus stop in the first place, but instead the magic of Macau enchanting me to explore the island on my own two feet, not stuffed in a crummy bus. But sadly, I’m just stupid and I totally didn’t find the bus stop I was looking for. I ended up walking around for 30 minutes, and got kind of close to the main mountain on the north end of the island (more on that in a few). I eventually found a different bus stop and using my awesome short term memory skills, remembered that I one of the lines I could use to go see Kun Iam Temple ran through this stop. So with the magic of Macau heartbroken, I boarded the bus. Only to realize that I had absolutely no idea what stop I was suppose to get off at, only that it was in 8 main stops. But as busses work, there are a bunch of possible spots where a bus can get quickly flagged down, which totally messed up my count, and furthermore, I wasn’t sure I had counted all the official stops anyway (again, this is why I hate busses). So I decided to say “screw it” and get off at a random stop. Which happened to be the stop for Kun Iam temple – totally planned that. *cough*
So the temple was – well it was another temple. Honestly, you see a few; you’ve more or less seen them all (unless they also hold the tallest bronze Buddha in the world). Though they did have some cool paintings that the others didn’t have – but by paintings I mean three of them. But the temple was also a good starting point, as it was also the furthest north I had planned to go on the island. From there, I walked southeast to the base of Guia Hill.
Guia Hill is one of the two focal points of Macau. Because of its height, it was chosen as the place for the light house. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. So I made it to the entrance of the hill, where the Cable Car was, but the hill is very easily walk-able, so I decided to walk it, which was an awesome idea, as there was a nice park at the bottom part of the walk, and borderline zoo, similar to the one in Hong Kong. So after a scenic and safari-esk hike, I made it to the top, where I stopped briefly at a very small park. I bought some of my favorite drink (Wang Lao Ji, which is almost like sweat tea back home) chilled in the park for a few to enjoy the moment, and the fading mural recognizing the Indoor Asian Games that were hosted in 2007. Afterwards I hiked over to Guia Fort and Lighthouse (still on top of Guia hill) and that’s where I really started to fall in love with Macau. You take a small tour through the fort, which was really more of a oversized watchtower with a few cannons, but even still, they had some original uniforms on a some manikins, which I found rather cool. After walking through the bottom of the fort, you get up to the top of the fort and the view is just stunning. From one side, you see the whole northern half of the city, where I started to get a true understanding of how the Mediterranean architecture comes together in this coastal country on the other side of the world. Another, you look south and see the monster that is the Grand Lisboa Casino – which is quickly becoming the icon of the country with it’s golden flame designed building (seriously, google it – it’s pretty sweet), surrounded by the other flashy high quality casinos that bring in more money that Las Vegas’s casinos. And to the east, there is an amazing shot of the harbor and the South China Sea, which looks endless, even though Hong Kong is only an hour away by boat. And to top it all off, the smooth white design of the fort top/light house just compliments everything. It’s an absolute must go to place, confirmed by the pair of models that were being photographed on top of the fort. (side note, kind of cool to see modeling in action. I’ve never seen that before).
With anew vigor, I set out to go explore the rest of the peninsula. I should go ahead and say that Macau has two main parts: the northern peninsula, and the southern island. This whole blog takes place on the northern Peninsula. Right then, so then I headed east toward a huge aqua colored church. I later found out that I stumbled upon the Old Protestant Cemetery. And as creepy as it is to say this, it was really cool. The cemetery was surrounded by a large, aqua colored wall, and then was a grid of expensive tomb stone after expensive and fancy tombstone, with a small aqua (surprise!) church in the center. I went in, and collected my thoughts for a few moments, went out, righted some flowers that were knocked over, and then started to make my way to the museum/ruins.
And then I realized I barely had breakfast and it was almost one, so I found a small little restaurant, with cheap prices (my favorite!) I had problems reading the menu, but I saw something that was very close to beef and egg fried rice and ordered that. Also got complimentary tea – which is a nice touch, and as far as I could tell, a standard at most restaurants. I was given a nice chicken soup as well, and then the waitress spilled coffee on me. Luckily it was iced coffee, and there wasn’t a ton, but that sucker must have come right out of the freezer. But I was in a rather good mood, so I brushed it off as best as I could, and despite the fact I don’t speak Canto or Portuguese (the two official languages of Macau) communication was made, so it was all good. I then got my fried rice, but it was a lot different than normal fried rice. I ended up ordering slippery egg fried rice, so instead of the egg being cooked in the rice, it was more like a batch of partially scrambled eggs was put on top of the rice. It sounds really weird, but the rice absorbs the egg a bit like rice would absorb curry, and it became one of my new favorite Asian dishes. It was cooked to perfection, and I was a very happy (and slightly coffee coated) customer leaving.
But slippery eggs aside, I was still on a mission to see this island, so I set off towards the Monte Fort. After a short walk (and following a lot of street signs) I found my way to Monte Fort, which is also home to the Macau museum and right next to the Ruins of the Church of Saint Paul. I wanted to start with the museum, but it was closed for renovations, which was disappointing, but it is what it is. However, the ruins were absolutely gorgeous. All that is left standing is the wall that would have been the entrance to the church, but the wall was covered with statues of angels, saints, Mary, etc. What was left was all very well done. Furthermore on what would have been the inside of the ruins was a staircase/platform, so I went up to the equivalent of the second floor, and looked out of the windows of the ruins. Then I went down to the crypt, to see some dead bodies and bones, because I’m creepy like that. They also had a small gallery of various artifacts that they were able to save from the museum, and some of the paintings inside were very well done. My guidebook says that the Ruins are a top place to visit in Macau, and even though there isn’t much there, the neo-gothic vibe it gives is cool, and even though it seems totally off from all the Mediterranean architecture most of the city has.
Though this is probably because it’s right next to a huge fortress which also has a slight neo-gothic feel to it, and was my next stop. I walked around the outside of the 30+ foot wall for a little bit before finding the entrance. From there I went up and while there wasn’t much to see in the actual fort (mainly because it has become the museum which was closed – Darn You Reconstruction!) the view is probably the best in the city, and I say that still being blown away by the one at the light house. For starters, walking around I got a full 360-degree view of the peninsula. From the quaintness of the north, to the lighthouse with an ocean backdrop to the east, to the metallic and glowing casinos in the south to seeing Mainland China in the west, the view is just amazing. All from the view of the cannons that still stand on top of Monte Fort.
From there I decided to head towards the flashy casino buildings, with plans to then head further south to the Mandarin house. I’ll get back to the casino’s later, but I will say that my level of being impressed between passing the casino’s between the first and second time did not differ. I ended up making my way down south, weaving my way through even more Mediterranean alleyways and architecture (yay!) I ran into another church which I stopped at briefly, and then ran into a wedding couple taking pictures outside of what seemed to be some country club banquet hall place, though the hall itself was empty. I eventually worked my way to the Mandarin house, only to find that it too was being renovated (Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!) But not to be outdone, I decided to keep working my way south, just to see what there was. I eventually found A-ma temple (by accident), which I will admit was a bit cooler than the other temples, because it’s built into a steep hill, so the different parts of the temple were on different tiers, and then at the very top was a small little Buddha shrine, which I thought was kind of funny, seeing as every other tier had some monster Buddha statue. Being pretty happy with everything I saw, and being able to see the TV tower from across an inlet, I decided to walk back. And walk. And walk. I didn’t realize that I managed to get myself to the most southern tip of the peninsula portion of Macau. And I was following the inlet back towards the casinos, which was problematic, seeing as the inlet was cutting in northwest, but the casinos were northeast. However, unless I wanted to swim, I had to suck it up, and enjoy the scenery. Darn my luck. But after a lengthy but pleasant stroll, I made my way back to the casinos.
I then got lost in the underground parking lot (also under reconstruction – apparently September was reconstruction month), which was also used to go under the four lane round-a-bout that the casinos were more or less surrounded around. I eventually got frustrated, managed to find my way back up to where I entered, and then sprinted across the round-a-bout. Because “Danger” is my middle name, not “Road-kill.” So with all the casinos to choose from, and me never having entered a casino before in my life, I decided to go into the fanciest one to see what it was like and to figure out what the minimum bet was. So I entered Grand Lisbon Casino, the one who’s building looks like a torch, and walked around for a little bit. From this I learned two things. One, entering the fanciest casino around means really high minimum bets for even the cheapest tables (duh), and two, Chinese people (cause most casino goers are mainland Chinese on vacation) must really love baccarat, because that’s what almost every table was playing. I had only ever heard of this game once from a TV show (thank you “Archer”), and I wasn’t about to bet my money on a game I didn’t understand. That would be stupid. So I went across the street to Lisbon Casino (which has a weird 60’s/70’s feel) and lost my money at blackjack like a responsible adult. Now so now my mother, grandmother, etc. doesn’t worry – don’t worry. I set a reasonable maxim amount that I could lose before I would quit and I stuck too it. Though I would like to think that I wouldn’t need a maximum if my last six of seven hands weren’t 14’s. WTF casino?! Even the guy to my right was like, “Wow, your luck is awful.” (Well, he said something in Canto, but you could tell what he meant. I should also say he said it sympathetically too, not like the jerk the dealer was being, giving me 14’s, how dare she?!). However, it was fun, and I managed to play for about an hour and a half before losing my 10 minimum bet chips. I do have to say it was fun, probably not worth the money, but you wouldn’t go to Las Vegas and not gamble a little bit, right? Right. The other thing I’d like to mention is that the guy sitting to me dropped so much money I couldn’t even believe it. I think I saw him drop about $4000 Patacas in about 45 minutes before giving up and moving to another table, which is roughly about $500 US dollars. I lost a little over $120 US dollars in double that time, and that made a perfect example to me of why gambling can be so dangerous if you’re not careful.
So after the gambling, I slowly walked my way back toward the ferry station, enjoying the coastline, and taking in the island one last time. Also stopped by the Grand Prix station really quick, just to see it, as the Macau Grand Prix is kind of famous. As night fell, I hopped on my ferry and went back to my hostel to pack up to move to my third hostel in Hong Kong.

Now Macau is so special, I’m going to take an extra paragraph to reflect and ramble on it. I’ve mentioned before that Hong Kong wasn’t really my jam. It doesn’t really feel like British and Hong Kong/Chinese culture merged, but rather it’s just London with Chinese signs and the commoners speak Canto. Also not as much to do in Hong Kong as in London. But Macau, the way the Portuguese and Chinese cultures merged just seemed so much more natural. The coastal Mediterranean architecture merges much better with the Chinese architecture, and finding the local culture is so much easier. The place seems friendlier, and overall is just so much prettier than I will ever view Hong Kong.

Alright, well that’s about it for this blog, some things to think about:
Gambling is fun and all until the casino becomes a jerk.
I don’t remember going to a city that has two amazing views of the city/country ever.
If you are still not convinced that I love Macau (and shame on you for that), I’d like to point out that this one day in Macau has made me write one of my longest blogs to date.
--Robby

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