Macau Adventures

On our last full day in Hong Kong, we took the ferry over to Macau.  Hong Kong was a former British colony/territory.  Macau was a former Portuguese territory.  And the difference is quite obvious.  First, the signs in Macau are in Portuguese and Chinese.  I found some of the names of the buildings to be entertaining, because they'd read, "Edificio del," followed by Chinese characters.  The style of the buildings in the old town area was also much different - it was like being in the old town area of Cartagena.

Macau is also where gambling is legal.  And the Vegas casinos have certainly made their mark.  We only stayed on the main part of Macau, we didn't go south to the smaller islands where the Venetian and some of the other casinos are located, so all observations are based on the main part of Macau.  There is an area that has a Wynn casino, and a few others clustered together.  And they all have that over-the-top look that also exists in Vegas.  Inside the Wynn, it looked much like the interior of the newer casinos in Vegas, including the high end shopping areas.  The only difference was the instructions on the machines were in Chinese.  Fortunately, the machines are the same the world over!

Lisboa Hotel and Casino.


Statue of Kun Lam on the south side of the island.  We walked from the ferry terminal along the south end towards Macau Tower, then up toward the old town area.


View along the main road along the southern coast area.


Macau Tower.  Apparently you can bungee jump from this building.

Plaza in the old town area. The streets are lined with shops just like any shopping area anywhere else in the world, including Baskin Robbins, McDonalds, Body Shop, etc.


Ruins of St. Paul's.


Old town area street.  The streets are very narrow, and there are balconies along most of them.  So when it started pouring rain, we were able to stay somewhat dry by walking along the buildings.




After wandering through old town, and once the rain began, we started working our way back to the casino area, where we had a great dim sum lunch at Red 8 in the Wynn Casino.  The Shanghainese style dumplings were great!  After that, I won a whole $2 HKD (about $0.25 USD) playing one of the slot machines.  Then it was back to the ferry terminal.  The trip from Hong Kong to Macau via ferry takes about an hour to cover 70 miles.  And if you're like me, and get a bit queasy on boats sometimes, that hour can feel like several hours.