Since Macau used to be a Portuguese colony, all signs are now in Chinese & Portuguese, plus English for anything tourists need.
From the ferry port, I caught a bus into the center of the downtown area to walk around and sightsee.
Here’s the Santa Maria church.
And the remains of St. Paul’s church.
From here, I walked up to the old fort.
Whilst there, I practiced my swear words in numerous languages, trying to convey to mainland Chinese families to get their kids off the ruins. Parents were telling their kids to climb all over everything for good photo ops. It was unbelievable. I almost went hoarse, screaming and trying to convey the idea that they’re eroding historical artifacts. Idiots.
Back down into the small streets of the old city/downtown area, I saw some great signs with bad English and a “wide path of Jesus” street.
I turned off the main street onto some smaller streets and saw a lot of former-Portuguese influence.
The strong tea shop.
What’s Up Cafe. Interesting names here.
Preparing for Halloween.
And more walking down little streets to find all sorts of interesting things.
From here, I wound up back at the main area and caught a taxi to the other island of Macau, where all of the fancy casinos are.
I stopped at the Hard Rock Cafe, Hotel & Casino. Large sections of this massive complex said “no photography,” but imagine the biggest, most mind-boggling expanse of glitter & glam imaginable.
I was going to game $5-10, just for kicks, but the process of finding a booth to change it to chips for such a small amount became burdensome, so I wound up not playing at all.
After walking around with my mouth open, jaw on the floor, possibly drooling, I finally left and remembered a tip I’d gotten that a lot of the major casinos have free shuttles to the ferry, just to make it that much easier for you to come there and lose your money. I hunted that down and caught the free shuttle back to the ferry port.
Macau seems interesting, but most of what people do there is gamble. If you’re not doing that, you can run out of things to do pretty quickly. I felt like I’d run out, so I bought a ticket for the next ferry back to Hong Kong and decided to return to my dinner spot near the hostel.
Macau was interesting, and I saw it because I was in the area/had never been before. I definitely wouldn’t go out of my way to get there, but it’s cool for a day, if you’re nearby in southeast China or in Hong Kong.
Next post: the incredible journey – from Hong Kong to Brasil.
