Throwback Thursday's: Hong Kong // Part 3 (Day in Macau 1/2)
Hello Steemian friends,
It's another Throwback Thursday's!
For those of you that missed out on Part 1 and 2, please find it below:
Throwback Thursday's: Hong Kong // Part 1
Throwback Thursday's: Hong Kong // Part 2
Monday 29th January - Macau
As our ferry from Mui Wo docked into Central, we could only noticed one thing. We stood out. We stood out like a sore thumb, it was the mad Monday morning rush to get to work! Locals and expats all in business attire walking to an aimed destination with no interaction. It was like being in London again when you hit the morning rush hour. This was Hong Kong's version. If we were up in the sky watching this unfold with a magnifying glass, it would be like watching ants at work. We had to follow the flow as we need an ATM machine and we knew there would be one in the building in front of us. This building was the IFC (International Finance Center), which is the tallest building in Hong Kong. We thought to ourselves 'there must be an ATM here'....after searching three floors and two closed ATMs later, we found a working one. We got the amount we needed for the rest of our trip and now it was a mad rush against the crowd to get to Macau ferry terminal, which is next to Central ferry piers.
The ferry to Macau
Luckily, there is a ferry to Macau every thirty minutes and it's ongoing (24/7). So, don't rush over as if you miss one, it's just a thirty minute wait. There are two companies that will take you to and from Macau; TurboJet and Cotai. We unintentionally went on both (one there and the other one back), so we could do a review of the two.
TurboJet's ticket counter was more visible and therefore we brought our tickets there. The cost of a Economy weekday ticket was 171 HKD ($22) one-way. We wanted to get a hot drink for the hour long journey, but our ferry was going to leave in twenty minutes and we still had to get through immigration. Yes, immigration as Macau is another country.
Once we were on the ferry, we found our assigned seats next to the window. Even though the ferry was docked, the ferry was swaying from side to side. Anyone who hates travelling by boat because of sea sickness would have been sick even before the ferry got going. However, after the ferry departed port and was on its way to Macau, the ride was a lot smoother. There was not much to see outside as it was grey and cloudy. It was time for a snooze.
Welcome to Macau
Fastest immigration queue ever as most of the visitors are here for the day, maybe two, but few stay more than that. Why? Well, first of all, the country is very small. It's the 6th smallest country in the world. Secondly, you can see all the main sights easily within a day, but if you want to dwell deeper or take your time at each site then that's why visitors stay a little bit longer. Finally, Macau has many casinos, so if you are there to gamble your money away, you can probably do that within the first half a day.
We noticed upon arriving outside the ferry terminal, that there are lines of coaches taking tourists to different hotels. Upon closer inspection, these were free shuttle coaches getting mainly Chinese tourists to the indicated hotel. These weren't ordinary hotels, these were casinos. This free service is done as the hotel management knows that these tourists will come to their hotel and hit the casinos and gamble their money. It all pays off. We took the local bus. You need the right change for the bus, so take note as this delayed our time spent in Macau for about twenty minutes. Not massive amounts of time lost, but enough.
Just following the tourist map
Eventually, we got off at Largo do Senado, which is one of the main squares in Macau. From here, it is walking distance along the cobbled streets to the Ruins of St. Paul's. From the sight of Largo do Senado, we were getting memories of Lisbon. We couldn't believe this. Not sounding racist, but it was almost like the Chinese over ran a Portuguese town and kept everything the same. That pretty much sums up what happened actually. Most of the building in this central part of Macau were from the colonial days and still had Portuguese writing on them. It was quite surreal.
Walking up to the Ruins of St. Paul's, the streets are lined with shops selling dried meats (like Pork/Beef jerky) in all sorts of flavours as well as the famous pasteis de nata (also known as Portuguese Egg Tarts).
There it was. The Ruins of St. Paul's. Although, the weather hadn't turned out for us, we thought it was a beautiful site to see. It has been a ruin for almost 200 years. Originally a church, it was destroyed by a fire in 1835. The only remains left is the front and the crypt. To be honest, there's not much to see and you can roam around the site within five to ten minutes.
Other sites around the area we saw was Monte Fort. This is the fortress next to Ruins of St. Paul's and it is the location of the Museum of Macau, but we came on the day it was closed: Monday. Apparently, this museum is a must as it will give you and crash course on everything you need to know about Macau. In the end, we just walked up and roamed around the top of the fortress. There were a couple of disused canons on display and a great viewpoint to see most of Macau.
By this point, we were getting hungry and decided to walk back towards Largo do Senado and go beyond. We knew there was a place we could catch a bus to go to the southern island of Macau. Our host, Netty, suggested a place to eat at the end of this island, by the beach and quite secluded. We had been building up an appetite and anticipating a good hearty Portuguese meal. Sam couldn't control his hunger and had to dive into these:
Stay tuned for next week's edition (part 4), as we continue our time in Macau. We just finished a doing our morning sightseeing and we are starting to get hungry!
Where did we go for lunch? What did we do afterwards? Find out next week!
Stay Classy Steemians!
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So many beautiful things you can see there! I was fascinated by the architecture of that casino though :D
Aw thanks even the photo of Sam eating Pasteis De Nata was beautiful? Appreciate that. There is so many things you can see in Macau, which we wanted to talk about. Yet, we are trying to limit our posts. This went over 1,000 words and we don't want to bore the reader.
There's more fascinating casino architecture coming next week as we will be talking about the casinos in next week's post. Stay tuned! :D
Yeah that picture too, haha! Cool, looking forward for it! :)
What an interesting place this "Las Vegas of China" is! (except that it is a country of its own of course..). Thanks for the interesting post, I will keep it in mind when I make it to Hongkong!
It is the 'Las Vegas of Asia' (let's put it that way - don't want to offend any Macanese.
You should visit Macau when you make it to Hong Kong. It's a mix of cultures! We even wanted to take a trip into Shenzhen in China, therefore visiting three countries in one trip.
Hiya, just swinging by to let you know that this post made the Honorable mentions list in today's Travel Digest!
Thanks as always @steemitworldmap