What Does Macau Offer? – A Colonial Past, Gambling, and Prawns!

Chinese New Year was our first big break of the year. It’s crazy how much you need a break after only a month of returning to work! Between work for Cam and my endless supply of 9 credits total at a time for me, we enjoy our breaks. Our life is a constant reminder of how lucky we are. We took a day break from Hong Kong to head to Macau! What does Macau offer? So much!

Many of you read this blog to enjoy and/or travel vicariously through us. We’re more than happy to oblige! So, I’ll share some of my insights about our trip to Macau this past February.

Macau can be a day trip from Hong Kong – an hour-long ferry ride. I had to buy a visa, but sadly, I got no stamp in my passport because Macau no longer stamps passports. Boo! I’m keeping the receipt. I had never been to a former Portuguese colony so this trip would be my first. I have now visited former British, French, Portuguese, and former Spanish colonies (in addition to being born in one!) Nowadays, Macau is more known for being the Vegas of Asia (in fact, Macau casinos generate way more revenue than their Vegas counterparts). Still, back then, Macau was a thriving port known as one of the few places in China where foreigners were allowed (I’m currently studying this in my Chinese history class. Fascinating stuff!). It’s not as exciting as Hong Kong, but it has that colonial nostalgia that I love. You’ll see what I mean in the pictures.

Cameron had been in Macau almost ten years ago. Surprisingly, little had changed. Everything was pretty much the way he left it. It was crowded because it was Chinese New Year, and there were a lot of tourists from the Mainland, but what will you do?

Macau had a strong Jesuit presence during the 17th and 18th centuries, and you can tell from the architecture. You can also see it in the colonial buildings – the historic center of Macau reminded me a lot of the colonial areas in Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. I’ve been to all of those. How cool is that?

We spent the morning walking through colonial Macau (the historic center is all one cluster of cobblestone streets), following the crowds or avoiding them in some cases. We did go to the Museum of Macau, which was not super exciting but quite informative.

For the main event, and I truly regret not taking pictures of the food, Cam took me to a Portuguese joint called Fernando’s (this links to TripAdvisor as Fernando’s Page doesn’t seem to work). He went ten years ago and spent ten years raving about it. And yup, it’s that good. Cod cakes, feijoada, roasted pig, and garlic prawns. And lots of sangria. Oh my, oh my. It was nom nom nom. It was a trek because it’s not in Macau proper, but it was amazing. Best face-stuffing I’ve had in a long time. If this is how people eat in Portugal all the time, they’re doing it right.

Next up, we went to Macau Tower because it was another stop Cam made ten years ago. Initially, he wanted to bungee jump, but it was too expensive, and hey, we live where the second tallest building in the world will be ready in about a year or less. It’s not like we don’t have better viewpoints and a better view in Shanghai. So we skipped it.

As against gambling as I am, and if you don’t know, I’m entirely against it, I agreed to go to one of the casinos to see what it was like. The MGM Grand and the Wynn were surprisingly empty (maybe it was too early? It was 5 pm) and CRAZY EXPENSIVE! We believe the lowest minimum we saw was US$40 at a craps table. It was made for the superstitious and highly addicted to gambling Chinese, not for us. The hotels are beautiful, though; I’ll give them that!

Here are some pictures of historic Macau. I apologize for the lack of names on landmarks – I’ll have to find those! I also apologize for the low-quality pictures taken from my phone. I leave the fancy pics to Cam – he’s much better with the camera.

Enjoy!