Wednesday, February 28
I got up really early to go on a tour of Macau for the day. I was picked up at a hotel in Kowloon, then taken by minibus with a few others to Hong Kong Island to the ferry pier. We had some time there to get breakfast and then we were supposed to meet up with another tour guide who would take us on the ferry and through customs in Macau.
I went to get coffee, and then I was hanging around when I noticed this guy who kept looking at me. I was sort of creeped out, so I tried to ignore him. When it was the meeting time, it turned out there were others meeting our group there, and it turned out that that guy was one of them. Our new tour guide was named Jimmy, and boy, was he ever animated! The first thing the staring guy (whose name is Ariel) said to me was "this guy is like a cartoon!", which was so true! He was hilarious! Ariel latched on to me right away, and we actually sat together on the ferry, so I talked to him for that whole hour on the ferry. He and I were the only 2 young people aside from 2 Indian people who were there with some older family members. It turns out Ariel is originally from Israel, then moved to Turkey when he was 6, then moved to the US for college and for a few years after when he was working in the film industry in LA (including working on the movie Seabiscuit). He got sick of the US, so he moved back to Turkey a couple of years ago where he is trying to get into directing. He was a little cocky, but nice enough and kind of cute. :) We ended up sticking together most of the day.
Anyway, high-energy Jimmy was quite amusing as he told us things about Macau before and after the ferry ride. His English was quite good, but he often repeated things, maybe to emphasize the point, or maybe to practice his pronunciation, I'm not sure. He told us the flower of Macau is the lotus....the lotus...the lotus.
After getting us through customs, sadly, we parted ways with Jimmy, and got passed on to another tour guide named Edmond who took us around Macau for the day. The first thing I noticed about Macau is definitely the Portuguese influence in the architecture. Oh, by the way, Macau is a Special Administrative Region of China (like Hong Kong), previously under the control of Portugal until 1999. I also noticed that Macau had a lot of scooters everywhere! Oh, and another thing I noticed when we were arriving on the ferry was the yellowish coloured water. Jimmy said it was because of the water coming out of the Pearl River (I guess it must be disgustingly polluted or something).
Our first stop was the Museum of Macau which depicted how the cultures of Portugal and China originally met in Macau, and how the cultures blended together. It was pretty interesting. We went on top of the museum which used to be a fortress, so we could see great views of Macau, and north and west to mainland China.
Next we went to the facade of St. Paul's Cathedral, which was a church built starting in 1602, but then was burned down, except for the facade, in 1835. Right next to it was a Taoist temple called Naughty Boy Temple. Down the street we stopped at a bakery which gave us samples of various things including almond cakes. I also got a Portuguese egg tart. Yum!! I had one at dim sum on Friday, and Noreen said I had to get one in Macau because they are Portuguese afterall. I wish we could have hung around that area longer and gone down the street to the Largo do Senado (Senate Square), which was the old city square and is a good example of Portuguese architecture there, but our minibus came and whisked us away to see the border with China. Near the border with China are more recently built residential highrises for the more recent Chinese immigrants.
Then we went for a lunch buffet at a Miami-themed casino for "western" food. Macau's biggest industry is the casinos, so that is why we were eating at one. :) We had time to check out the casino next door which was the Babylon Casino. I am really not a gambler, so I just looked. So fancy!
At that point 8 of the 13 people on the tour left to go to China for the rest of their tour. Five of us went on to the Macau Tower which is 1110 ft high and had more great views. Where the tower is built is called "reclaimed land". Ariel and I were talking about the craziness of this. They have done A LOT of this in Hong Kong as well. Lots of areas of Hong Kong and Macau that used to be along the water, aren't anymore because they have expanded the land with landfill (don't ask me what they use or how in the world they do it) to have more space to put buildings. I think it's kind of scary!
After the tower, we went to the A-Ma Temple, which is the oldest temple in Macau (600 years), and right by where the Portuguese first landed. While we were there, a few huge strings of firecrackers were set off for Chinese New Year. Making firecrackers was a major industry in Macau at one time.
After that we went to the Sands Casino, which is the largest casino in the world, we were told. Like I said, I am not into gambling, so we just took a walk around the place. The size of it and all the people were impressive. LOTS of people, rich or poor, come to Macau from China for gambling. Ariel had already gambled a little bit at the Babylon Casino, so we decided to go for a walk outside since we had an hour to kill. There wasn't much in the way of stores or anything nearby because all the business is in the casinos now, I guess. We ended up sitting in a square that had a big lotus statue and just sat and talked for the rest of the time. Then we were taken back to ferry, reunited with Jimmy (woohoo!), and went back to Hong Kong.
On the way back, I kept getting hints from Ariel that he wanted to keep hanging out in the evening in Hong Kong, but I told him I was going back to my cousin's. He was quite a talker, and I felt like he was trying to impress me, and I was kind of done for the day! We were both glad to have had each other on the tour though, because practically everyone else was older, and with other people, so it was nice to have a tour buddy.
Anyway, the tour was pretty good overall, but if I had it my way I would have spent far less time checking out the casinos, and more time just wandering the streets near that church facade. However, if I would have gone on my own, I would have had no idea how to get around (and it doesn't help that there was very little English there - just Cantonese and Portuguese), and they said taxis are really expensive there (unlike Hong Kong), so I think it was good that I was on a tour.
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