It's Chinese New Year so I'm on holiday, Chris is visiting and we went off to Macau for a few nights. We stayed in the Pousada De Mong Ha which is a wee bit out of town but is run by tourism students so they are all really keen to serve their guests and the hotel is not too expensive. (
http://www.ift.edu.mo/pousada/eng/intro.htm)
Chinese New Year decor in the main tourist street
The main things for tourists to do in Macau are: admiring the Portuguese style architecture, visiting the beaches and gambling in the casinos. We spent our first day wandering around the town centre admiring the ruins of St Paul's and the Monte Fort. It does make a nice change to see winding streets and European style architecture instead of the blocks of towers that cover the majority of Hong Kong, but some of the buildings have been painted so brightly that they look uncannily like scenery for a Wild West film! We also came across the Camoes Garden which is a fascinating little park containing mosaics, a foot massager, picnic tables, exercise machines, a children's playground and some badminton courts. It was nice to see lots of locals using all the facilities the park has to offer and we felt like we'd got properly off the tourist trail... especially when we left the park and found ourselves on Avenue Marginale with no sign of any taxis! But when we looked on the free tourist map we discovered we were actually pretty close to the Pousada, so all was well.
The ruins of St Paul's - No 1 on the Macau Tourist Itinerary
Is it a church or a saloon?
As I mentioned already, the staff at the Pousada are falling over themselves with eagerness to help their customers, so we told the receptionist we wanted to go somewhere for dinner and asked her to order a taxi. She (and the taxi driver) sent us to a block full of bars and restaurants, most of which looked empty, and we chose a Portuguese restaurant where we had delicious beef and decent red wine and got given a free glass of port by the owner. I only wish I'd remembered the name of the restaurant, or the area, so we could recommend it or go back! We tried the same trick the next night with a different receptionist and ended up in the tourist centre, where we had a meal that was tasty but not nearly so atmospheric.
The Macau Lighthouse
Day 2 in Macau was going to involve visits to the Wine Museum and Grand Prix Museum, but unfortunately they're both closed on Tuesdays! Instead we went to visit another park and a lighthouse on a hill, took a ride on a cable car, toured the Macau Fire Service Museum and returned to the Pousada to watch a film in the warm! It's really quite chilly over here just now! In the evening we braved a visit to the Grand Lisboa casino. The doormen in capes and metal detectors are a little intimidating, I guess to put off people that aren't going to spend any money, but it didn't work on us! We had a drink in a lounge bar overlooking the tables and watched everyone else spending their money.
Me in the Fire Services Museum
We did make it to the museums on our last day in Macau, but I wasn't too impressed. They are part of a big new purpose building tourist activity centre, close to the ferry terminal, so I was expecting them to be really interesting. The Grand Prix Museum had some cool looking cars and a lot of information, but the display boards had too much writing on them and the only interactive part of the whole museum (some car racing games!) was roped off! The Wine Museum was a little better but mainly because of the taste of wine at the end. They're not bad for a rainy day activity, but you could make so much more out of them. We also went to the Macau Tower, which was a lot more impressive. Luckily Chris wasn't feeling too great so he didn't attempt to make me bungee jump off it!
Chris contemplates bungee jumping
Back in Hong Kong now and just a few days of holiday left. Chinese New Year has been a bit odd as all the shops have been shut (although that doesn't make the streets of Mong Kok any less crowded!).
