Macau

On November 8, I went to Macau with a few friends! It was the first time I left Hong Kong since I arrived -- I learned that for the time I'm on a student visa, I can exit and enter through the "Hong Kong Residents" line in immigration -- which means faster lines heheh.

To get to Macau, we took a 1 hour ferry ride from a dock on Hong Kong Island. I fell asleep for most of it, but it was pretty turbulent and I did get a bit seasick...

my friends, at the MTR stop where the ferry dock is

gate to the ferry

ferry schedule

inside the ferry

the ferry seats were pretty similar to that of an airplane

Once we arrived the first thing we saw were lots and lots of casinos...honestly, I had never been so close to one before. It was interesting.

This casino reminds me of the water cube for the Beijing olympics

We then walked through the city to look for food. The entire time we were in Macau, we ended up walking. While there was public transportation in Macau, the crowds of people waiting for it were too large (there were no lines, just crowds of people pushing for the door). Multiple times throughout the day we contemplated taking the bus around, but we were never able to get on any.

walking through the street

posing in Senado Square

streets of Senado square

We walked down this alley to find our lunch

For lunch, we intentionally looked for a place with Portuguese cuisine.

portuguese soda? it was passionfruit flavor, it was Mark's but I tried some and it was my favorite drink from lunch

my lunch dish (it was amazing! I want it again). I forget what it was called, but it had salmon, potatoes? and julienne salad

Emily's dish: duck rice

Mark's dish: steak.

outside the restaurant we chose

After eating, we tried to do some sightseeing. One major site in Macau is the Ruins of St. Paul, which I am guessing is what it sounds like -- the remains of a church that once stood in Macau, but was destroyed.

the Ruins of St. Paul is basically only the front facade of the church

Mark, me, and Emily

the view turning away from the ruins

the view at the top of the stairs, turning away from the ruins

After the ruins, we walked around the city some more and our attention was captured by some of the shiny casinos/hotels, so we decided to enter one of them to see what it was like.

the bottom portion of the casino/hotel

trying to fit the entire casino/hotel in one shot...

inside the hotel lobby

inside the hotel lobby: this was made of mammoth tusk (what.)

After walking around even more, we realized something -- we had been seeing signs of maps of Macau with "you are here" (which was very helpful while we toured the city) as well as lots of sets of bleachers along the side of the street. It turns out all these are in preparation for when the city turns into a racecourse for the grand prix (whaaaaaat). It blew my mind -- they are going to close these public streets...and turn the city into a racecourse? Imagine that happening in Chicago.

bleachers set up with tires stacked at the turn

barricades made of tires (to absorb the shock of crashing, I think)

Finally, we walked along the shore before we tried to catch our 7pm ferry. We had initially planned to catch a bus to get our ferry. When no bus came at 6:30pm, we began to start looking for taxis (none of which stopped for us -- they all went toward the casinos where the customers had more money). We started walking for the ferry dock too, so that at least we'd be getting somewhere...but praise the Lord, we arrived at the ferry terminal at 6:59, somehow got through immigration in a matter of seconds, and got on the ferry before it left a few minutes after its 7:00pm departure time. Thank goodness we didn't have to re-buy a US$20 ticket.

All in all, Macau was a great experience. It's definitely a tourist spot, and it was unfortunate that it was rainy when we went. I wonder what it looks like in sunlight? The casinos were pretty impressive in it's grand scale, but it was sad to see how dilapidated the rest of the city was. Where is all the money going to?