After an hour smooth boat ride we arrived to Macau from Hong Kong. It was quite interesting that these two parts of China are treated as separate countries. Unlike to China, here we could enter without visa, but had to go through immigrations and customs at both ports.
As anticipated, Macau is very different from Hong Kong. There are a few skyscrapers concentrated mainly at the seaside, but it is by far not such an urban jungle as Hong Kong. Interestingly, after 10 years that the Portuguese gave back their colony to China (funny enough that the Portuguese tried to give back this tiny land already in the 70s, but China did not want it), still everywhere the signs, street names are in Portuguese. According to some schoolgirls we talked to, only very few people actually speak Portuguese. Probably removing these signs would cost too much... English is not widely spoken here and in most of the restaurants the menus are only in Chinese, so dining is quite difficult (of course at fancy places there are English menus, but these are over our budget). We probably will not try the famous Portuguese-Chinese fusion cuisine, because these dishes seem to be also expensive and I doubt that there is anything for vegetarians.
Yesterday we walked around in the area west from the Hotel Lisboa (the landmark building that our guidebook uses as a point of orientation). It is kind of like in Europe, the buildings are very European (protected by UNESCO, listed as a World Heritage Site since 2005), they are in a very good condition. The streets here were very clean and there were many tourists, but almost exclusively Chinese and no Westerners. This distribution of tourists might of course explain the lack of English signs and language skill of the locals. The downtown area was very touristy. The main souvenir hit seems to be dried meet, that is pressed into big sheets and that is cut by scissors to the desired size. In that area we visited the remains of the catholic Sao Paolo church (burned down in 1835, so only the facade remains) that curiously is decorated with Jesus, Mary, some saints and Chinese lions and hydras with 7 heads. Next to it, on the top of a hill is a fort that is in a very good condition houses the Museum of Macau and offers nice views to the city. Unfortunately the view to the sea is blocked by the tall buildings (mostly hotels with casinos), so it could not fulfil it is original duty to watch over any danger emerging from the sea, meaning the Dutch.
Today we will walk around in town a bit more and try to visit some casinos (if they let us in in our run down outfit: washing cannot effectively remove any more the stains of a year of travelling).
As anticipated, Macau is very different from Hong Kong. There are a few skyscrapers concentrated mainly at the seaside, but it is by far not such an urban jungle as Hong Kong. Interestingly, after 10 years that the Portuguese gave back their colony to China (funny enough that the Portuguese tried to give back this tiny land already in the 70s, but China did not want it), still everywhere the signs, street names are in Portuguese. According to some schoolgirls we talked to, only very few people actually speak Portuguese. Probably removing these signs would cost too much... English is not widely spoken here and in most of the restaurants the menus are only in Chinese, so dining is quite difficult (of course at fancy places there are English menus, but these are over our budget). We probably will not try the famous Portuguese-Chinese fusion cuisine, because these dishes seem to be also expensive and I doubt that there is anything for vegetarians.
Yesterday we walked around in the area west from the Hotel Lisboa (the landmark building that our guidebook uses as a point of orientation). It is kind of like in Europe, the buildings are very European (protected by UNESCO, listed as a World Heritage Site since 2005), they are in a very good condition. The streets here were very clean and there were many tourists, but almost exclusively Chinese and no Westerners. This distribution of tourists might of course explain the lack of English signs and language skill of the locals. The downtown area was very touristy. The main souvenir hit seems to be dried meet, that is pressed into big sheets and that is cut by scissors to the desired size. In that area we visited the remains of the catholic Sao Paolo church (burned down in 1835, so only the facade remains) that curiously is decorated with Jesus, Mary, some saints and Chinese lions and hydras with 7 heads. Next to it, on the top of a hill is a fort that is in a very good condition houses the Museum of Macau and offers nice views to the city. Unfortunately the view to the sea is blocked by the tall buildings (mostly hotels with casinos), so it could not fulfil it is original duty to watch over any danger emerging from the sea, meaning the Dutch.
Today we will walk around in town a bit more and try to visit some casinos (if they let us in in our run down outfit: washing cannot effectively remove any more the stains of a year of travelling).
sziasztok!
ReplyDeletehope you are still enjoying the trip!we always read your blog!just wanna let you know that you became a third degree aunt!:) szaffi annabelle will read your bloog soon!:)))till then have more fun!
gabor&angelika