Macau

An hour's ferry ride away from Hong Kong is Macau, China's other Special Administrative Region. Macau is a former Portuguese colony that, like Hong Kong, was a hub for trade with Europe back in the day. After the Opium War of 1841 when Hong Kong became a British territory, most foreign merchants left Macau and it has played second fiddle to Hong Kong ever since. Nowadays it is mostly known for its numerous casinos.

I went to Macau last year and left thinking that it was the most bizarre city I have ever visited. You can walk down a street, and see beautiful old Portuguese buildings, then backstreet Chinese restaurants, and then you turn the corner and you feel like you are in Las Vegas. It is an interesting city, worth seeing, but in my opinion it isn't worth more than a day trip unless you are into gambling or colonial history.

This trip, I went to Macau again to show my friend Tim the sights. It is really easy to get to Macau from Hong Kong, you have to go though immigration but the lines are short and Canadians don't need a visa. The ferry ride is cheap, quick and scenic. And if you are lucky, the ferry is actually a hydrofoil which doesn't make much difference transportation-wise but it is really cool to say you have ridden a hydrofoil.

Our first stop was the Macau Tower. The views from it were great. Macau is so small that you can see pretty much all of it from the 233m observation deck of the tower. As an added bonus you can also see mainland China because only a narrow stretch of water separates the two small islands that make up Macau (Coloane & Taipa) from the mainland. 

Other than the views, the Macau Tower is also popular because it has the highest bungee jump in the world. We saw three people jump while we were there. It was somewhat tempting to try, but seeing as I couldn't even walk over the glass floor without cringing I don't think I could have willingly jumped off the top. 

Senado Square

 After our visit to the tower we wandered to Senado Square which is in the heart of the old Portuguese part of Macau and is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is really strange to know that you are in China but to look around and feel like you are in Europe. We walked the streets around Senado Square, briefly toured St. Dominic’s Church and then saw the Ruins of Sao Paulo.

Ruins of Sao Paulo

Sheet meat

In true Macau fashion, during this historic walk we stumbled upon a road which I dubbed 'sheet meat street'. Sheet meat is just what it sounds like, printer paper sized sheets of meat sold in varying flavours of animal. The street is lined with vendors of said sheet meat, who give out samples to the hoards of people that crowd the road. Tim and I tried some and to our amazement it was actually delicious. It is like a more spiced and less dry beef jerky. 

Venetian canal

Once we had had enough of historic Macau we ventured to Macau's other island (Taipa) so that we could see the Venetian Hotel and Casino. I had heard it was one of the nicer casinos but I definitely wasn't prepared for what we found. The whole place just exudes money and elegance. Inside is a huge mall that is made to look like the streets of Venice, complete with a domed roof that looks like blue sky. All of the shops are high end, places for the big rollers to blow their wins. Within the mall are two different canals, complete with gondolas and gondoliers that serenade the crowd. To go from the mall to the casino you can take a curved escalator. The casino floor itself is huge, full of every game imaginable. We played the slots for a bit but neither of us walked away richer.

MGM Casino washroom

Tim & I at the Macau Tower

Even if you aren't in Macau to gamble, the casinos have their perks for tourists. All of the big casinos offer free shuttles to and from the ferry terminals. Therefore, when you arrive in Macau from the ferry, you just figure out what casino is closest to where you want to go and you hop on the bus. The casinos also have some of the most amazing washrooms I have ever seen. Seriously. Picture glass chandeliers, 10' x 5' mirrors, big stalls, hardwood, glass sinks, the list goes on. The only problem that I had with casino washrooms is that elderly Chinese ladies DON'T LOCK THE STALL DOOR. Which made for some really awkward moments for me. Yes, that’s right, moments as in it happened TWICE. The second time I even made sure that it was a stall with a door that was open a few inches, thinking that surely that was a good indicator of a vacant stall. Not so. By the third washroom that I tried I had definitely developed a bit of a complex and was seriously considering waiting until I got back to Hong Kong. Tim convinced me otherwise (probably to see if it would happen to me a third time). This time though I found a stall with a door all the way open and thankfully vacant. I checked, and the stalls definitely have locks, I'm just not sure why old ladies prefer not to use them, and then act shocked when I walk in on them.

Funnily enough, Tim also had an unfortunate bathroom experience of his own. He naively decided that using the bathroom in an old fortress would be a good idea. He emerged a few minutes later, looking a bit disturbed. Apparently every surface inside was wet, like they had cleaned it by hosing the place down. But in the humidity of Macau nothing dries, so the bathroom was in a perma-wet state, and smelly. Probably due to the toilets only had sub-par functionality. The highlight for him that was that there was soap in the dispenser, which was more than expected, given the state of the rest of the facilities.

Overall we had a fun, if slightly bizarre day in Macau.