Macao

We spent yesterday in Macao visiting Michelle's grandmother and an uncle and aunty that live there. Her uncle Paul had taken the day off and was kind enough to show us around the tourist sights, including sampling the famous Portuguese egg tarts!


Paul works at one of the local casinos and took us in to see the best ones. We caught a crazy floor exhibition thingy at the Wynn's casino. It apparently cost several million dollars to produce and is designed to get people into the casino and in the mood to gamble!

When we walked in we were marvelling at the animated ceiling, made up of hundred of LCD TV tiles. Just when I was getting the camera out, the screen parted and a huge chandelier descended from the ceiling. If that wasn't enough, the floor opened up and a golden tree rose from the floor and rotated under the chandelier while its leaves changed colour. After a few minutes of spinning trees, they all retreated back to their starting positions and an embossed covering showing all the chinese signs covered the ceiling. It was all pretty ostentatious, but kinda cool.

There are many mainland Chinese people moving there and they have caused the population to more than triple since the reunion with China. Even so, you can still spot the occasional person of Portuguese descent.


From the site of the old fort you can see all of Macao and mainland China spread out before you. The cannons at the fort used to be able to reach the harbour, but there has been so much land reclaimed that now they would be lucky to hit the casinos!


Macao has legalised gambling and there are some humongous casinos there. They dwarf all other buildings and are designed in crazy shapes or colours to attract the punters. They completely dominate the skyline near the coast. The rest of Macao is a mish-mash of old Portuguese and Chinese style buildings. The road signs are all in Portuguese and Cantonese. Even though it is only 45 minutes away by ferry (or 1.5 hours if you catch the slow one we got) it really is a completely different culture.


Paul was an awesome guide and her family were very hospitable. Like Hong Kong, the apartments are humble in Macao, but they had managed to buy two adjoining flats and knock through the separating wall to create a spacious and cozy apartment.


Yes, they were happy to see us, they just don't seem to smile for photos!

This will likely be my final blog entry for a while. We've been lucky enough to have a computer with internet access in our room so its made updating a breeze. I imagine the updates will be a little less frequent once we hit the UK.