Vespas. Casinos. Chili-Fish Buns. O My!

Glo and I hopped (by hop, I mean took a ferry) over to Macau last weekend. We left Saturday, stayed the night and came back late Sunday.

First impression: casinos, casinos, more casinos and even more vespas. Everyone and their dogs have vespas in Macau. I think Gloria’s already scheming to get her hands on one when she’s back in the States. Look out Austin!

Neither of us is adept at working out public transportation systems. Gloria at least asks questions every now and then. I just start walking, but luckily for us, Macau is totally walkable – although having a vespa would’ve been nice. So with map in hand and a general direction to walk in, we headed away from the ferry terminal towards our choice of place to stay for the night: the local Best Western. After a while of walking, we came across the first major street we had to cross. Before this particular street, we had been taking these bridges made specifically for pedestrians to cross the streets. I never gave a second thought as to why they had these bridges, not until this particular street that is. Most of the streets close to the casino areas don’t have traffic lights. That was interesting.

Once we were settled in the hotel, we set out to visit the casinos. We figured we probably should. Do as the Macanese do when in Macau. Side note: we asked the concierge at the hotel what the nomenclature for the natives of Macau is, and she answered “Macanese.” I’m still not entirely sure if I believe her. We ended up only visiting one casino. All of the games were extremely foreign to the both of us. We hovered over a couple of tables on the ground floor where the lower stake tables were. The majority of the people there were little old Chinese women. I wonder why that is. After a while, we started wandering to the upper floors where the high-rollers were. We definitely got looks. Apparently college-frump isn’t suitable attire for those tables. There was one room packed full of men that got rather rowdy when we walked in; in retrospect, I wish we had stayed and had some fun – no telling what may have happened. It was one of those instinctual fight or flight situations. We flew.

We called it an early night and headed back to the hotel, letting Pretty Woman lull us to sleep. The morning showed us completely different side of Macau. Where the night was full of light and energy, the morning had a dull brown shade with old, weathered buildings accenting the skyline. We checked out of our hotel and went off to find some comida. We ended up at this café where no one spoke English or Mandarin. Gloria ended up ordering a side of vegetables (that was the safest bet), and I went for a chili fish bun and just for kicks, got a side of french fries. Apparently fries are universally accepted just the way they are; I’m not sure what I was expecting. What I wasn’t expecting was for my chili fish bun to come out with an actual fish in it (sans head and tail). It was odd but rather tasty.

So onward with the touring – I’m lucky that Gloria’s rather flexible with my method of sightseeing. As head navigator, I have the tendency to go down streets (in the semi-right direction) that I deem interesting. I’m definitely the type of tourist who avoids tour groups and guides. It’s more interesting my way =). We walked through a couple of parks, visited St. Paul’s ruins and saw almost the entire main island of Macau (there are three). The Portuguese influence on the architecture is absolutely breathtaking, especially at the ruins. Our last stop was to Guia Fortress, located on the side of a large hill. We accidentally walked up this large hill instead while trying to find the cable car that would’ve taken us to the top. I suppose there’s a downside to not planning things out. We never found the fortress. The mission was aborted. The hill defeated us. The point of maximum misery (so far) on this trip was the journey off the hill. We could see the ferry terminal we were trying to get to, but we couldn’t find our way down. It was heartbreaking. It was hot, and the mosquitoes were ninja-like.

All in all, Macau rocked. They have this huge racing culture, and they’re set to have a big race sometime in November; I may have to make a trip back.