Macau Recap
- Only A Plane Away
- Oct 13, 2018
- 4 min read
We decided to take the ferry over to Macau on the second day that we were in Hong Kong.
The ferry ride takes about one hour and we took the ferry from the mainland China ferry pier on Kowloon. Pro Tip: You do have to go through immigration and customs because Macau is its own SAR (special administrative region), so you'll need your passport.
Macau is primarily known for its gambling now, but it was a Portuguese colony long before that. In fact, it was the earliest and longest lasting European colony and is now the fastest growing metropolitan area in the world. It was its colonial past and the juxtaposition of European and Asian cultures that drew us to Macau.
We first stopped at the Ruins of St. Paul, a Unesco World Heritage site of the ruins of a 17th century complex including St. Paul's College and the church of St. Paul that was destroyed in a fire following a typhoon in 1835.
We continued to walk around the historic district and admire the Portuguese architecture. We stumbled upon Senado Square which was on our list to check out but we didn't realize it was so close to the Ruins of St. Paul.
There were many beautiful buildings around Senado Square. One that impressed was was the Instiuto para os Assuntos Civicos e Municipais (Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau). It' basically a fancy government building that you can just walk around.
Another thing we also really enjoyed were the mosaic sidewalks which reminded us of the ones we saw in along the Copacabana and Ipanema beaches in Rio de Janeiro. Some of the ones in Macau were even more intricate and interesting even featuring different animals.
We also stopped to grab a Portuguese Egg Tart which are very popular in Macau and (much of South East Asia to a lesser extent). They are basically an eggy custard in pastry crust shaped like a mini pie. They are very delicious! They were nice and browned on top and the crust was super flaky. These were definitely the best egg tarts we had on the whole trip.
We also tried some "jerky" which is sold at nearly every little store in the historic district. It isn't like jerky in the US. It was actually quite soft, only a bit chewy, and many of the flavors had a nice sweetness to them. They are sold in large sheets and you pay by the pound. We ended up with way too much and unfortunately couldn't bring any back to the states with us since it is a meat product.
We decided to make our way down to an area with some casinos, since after all we were in Macau. There are tons of casinos but many of them are the same chains we've seen before in Las Vegas, like the MGM Grand, Wynn, Paris, and Venetian. We decided to stop by Lisboa Casino since it was a casino unique to Macau. The building is probably one of the most iconic in the skyline of Macau but the casino itself felt pretty much like any other. However, there were many games being played that were not like anything we had seen before. Since we didn't know how to play and often the instructions were in Chinese, we opted for some video roulette. Pro Tip: Strangely enough, he slots and video machines in Macau do not accept Macau dollars; they only accept Hong Kong dollars. There really isn't much need to change currency into Macau dollars if you're coming from Hong Kong, since both currencies are accepted almost anywhere.
After a bit of gambling, we headed back to the historic district because there was a wine bar there called Cathedral Cafe that we wanted to check out. It was a bit of a long walk, so we decided to catch a ride back in a rickshaw.
Once we made it to the wine bar, we were disappointed to find that they were booked up with a private party so there was only space in the small bar area upstairs, and they couldn't serve us food. That didn't bother us too much, as we were really there for some Portuguese wine anyway. We settled on a bottle of Vinho Verde. Since we hadn't had lunch, the wine hit us pretty hard. Perhaps our server noticed because she said they could do sandwiches in the upstairs, so we ordered a toasted ham and cheese. It was nothing special, but soaked up some of the alcohol in our stomachs. All the staff there was very nice. We even spoke with the owner as he saw us admiring some of the movie posters. It turns out that this bar was used as a meeting location for the cast and crew of Now You See Me 2 that was filmed in Macau.
After our lunch stop, we decided to explore the area a bit more and wandered through the crowded streets. Since we were still a bit hungry, we stopped for an egg waffle. This is very different from the aforementioned egg tart. An egg waffle is similar to a regular waffle but instead of having lots of small squares, they are round balls. This actually makes it a very convenient street food. They roll it up into a cone shape and you can easily tear of one or two balls at a time as you walk through the streets. It's also common to get them topped with ice cream or other goodies, but we opted for the traditional as we didn't want too much sugar.
After our afternoon snack, we headed to yet another wine bar called MacauSoul. (What can I say, we like Portuguese wine). Not only did we have some delicious wine here, but we also filled up on an enormous charcuterie plate. We were also able to meet and speak with the proprietor here, who was a retired veterinarian expat, originally from Britain via Hong Kong. We were there right when they opened, so it was not yet busy and we were able enjoy our conversation with the owner for quite a while. We talked about politics and how much both Hong Kong and Macau had changed in the 40 plus years he had been there. It was quite interesting to get a local's take on the area.
After that it was time to head back to Hong Kong. We caught a cab to the ferry terminal and then caught a cat nap on the ferry ride back to Hong Kong.
Check out our recap video of Macau on Youtube too!
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