Macau: Is This Place for Real?

As I mentioned in the last post, immediately after our boat ride on the Duk Ling junk, we headed to the Macau ferry terminal for yet another boat trip--an hour-long ferry ride.

Hong Kong ferry terminal.

Macau used to be a Portuguese colony and is now a special administrative region like Hong Kong, which means it's sort of separate from the mainland (you don't need a visa, and it counts as leaving China) but ultimately still under the thumb of Beijing. We had no idea what to expect, and there's a good reason for that--we never could have dreamed up a place like it. Mix one part southeastern China, one part Portugal, and one part Las Vegas, and there you have it. My first thought when we got off the ferry and saw all the casinos was, "Is this place for real?"

The combination of Portuguese and Chinese in Macau is so surreal.

Our hotel was in the heart of the city, a short walk from all the fabulous Portuguese architecture. We did a walking tour, of which the main points of interest were churches, including St. Dominic's (the church that looks a bit like a wedding cake that I posted a picture of earlier) and the ruins of St. Paul.

We stayed at the San Va Hospedaria (above the meat shop).

All that remains of St. Paul is the facade, which is covered in carvings that tell the story of the Catholic church in Asia; the rest was destroyed in a fire in the 1800s. To me, this actually made it more interesting than if the rest of it were still standing. There's something eerie about the windows and doors opening into nothing.

Ghost cathedral: St. Paul's.

A nice contrast to the European influence was the A-Ma temple, on Macau Bay. A-Ma is the goddess of fishermen and seafarers. When the Portuguese first arrived, locals told them they were in the bay of A-Ma (a-ma-gaw in Cantonese). The sailors' attempts to pronounce her name resulted in the European name for the city: Macau.

Lighting incense at the temple.

Macau is also home to the Macau Formula 3 Grand Prix, which is held each November, so to mix things up a bit we went to the Grand Prix museum. It wasn't too exciting (in my opinion), but I think Joel liked seeing Schumacher's and Coulthard's cars (apparently those are famous F1 racers who got their start in F3). You can even do a driving simulation--yippee!



Joel says the simulation is "for people who've never played a racing game before" (i.e., it's lame).



My favorite part of Macau, though, was the food. We were there for 2 days, and each morning we ate the most delicious croissants with real ham and cheese. We also ate at a great little restaurant with focaccia sandwiches and real tiramisu. If there's one thing I miss in China, it's the baked goods--it's hard to find bread that's even passable. These cafes have real bakeries, better than what you can find in the U.S. After eating a few meals, I didn't know how I could go back to China--I was ready to hop on a plane to Europe and stay there for good!

What's really special about the food, though, is the unique Macanese cuisine, heavily influenced by Portuguese food, Southeast Asian spices, and Cantonese food. It's hard to explain...let's just say I had a steak drenched with some sort of gravy and topped with a sunny-side-up egg, which looked disgusting but tasted superb.

Conclusion: I would go back to Macau in a heartbeat for the food alone. If you ever go to Hong Kong, make sure you take a quick trip to Macau at least for a day. You can't miss it!