Saturday, October 8, 2011

Middle Kingdom 2010 Part V: Macau

26 July 2010:
Ah, Macau, Macau. A lot like Hong Kong, only a lot more cramped. Yet a million times more interesting and prettier looking than Zhuhai, where I was just minutes ago. Took the border crossing- before I knew it I was in Macau. It's that close. I thought that there would be a bridge, or something... instead I just got my passport stamped and crossed an imaginary line.

First sign that you're not (entirely) in China anymore- road signs. Aeroporto- Portuguese, I think. Sounds a lot better than the English word for it.
My plan was to pinball through the main island- I had a map which I used to look for landmarks to... bounce off on my way to the port. This here's one of them- some sort of garden.
A school, I think. We have buildings like this one back home too- Portuguese legacies- one of the benefits of having your country colonized (Or bits of it at different points. Or the whole lot, regardless of what government historians say)- is the variety of architecture you get to admire later on.
This one's definitely a school. A girl's school, at that. Their uniforms are nice- like the sort of Catholic Girl School's uniforms you see in anime. Didn't take any pics of them for fear of being thrown into jail. Seriously, who takes pictures of schoolgirls and hopes to get away safely?
The Casino Lisboa. Would have checked out some of them if not for all the luggage weighing me down. Despite the name, it doesn't look the slightest bit Portuguese from the exterior...
Shanghai, localized as Xangai. I like it- sounds edgy. Then again, anything that starts with an X sounds edgy- with the exception of that xXx movie starring Vin Diesel- that one gave the impression that it was a porno movie which gets interesting in the middle of the film.
So bloody hot that I just felt like jumping in and never come out. Stopped for a rest somewhere nearby and was approached by an Indian man asking for directions (he was on the wrong island, it turned out)- his trouble was that nobody understood English.
That gold thing there- some sort of landmark. I saw it in Hong Kong too- I think it's a peace monument or something. Didn't care much for it. I don't think the locals do either. The only exception being weird camera toting tourists who take pictures of it for the sake of taking pictures of something.
Subway here means 'underground walkway'- it's not for trains.

I didn't know there were volcanoes in Macau... seriously, though, I think it's yet another casino.
Oh look. Malacca, eh? I'm back in Malaysia, apparently...

That's the bridge back to China. I think it leads directly to Guangzhou. All in all I spent a few hours walking from one end of the island to the other, before backtracking to the port for the ferry to Hong Kong, the final part of my journey:
Cosmopolitan Hong Kong at long last. I could have spent more time in Macau- I did think of walking over to the other islands- but the heat... I needed my rest. And so ends this ridiculously brief travelogue. Come to think of it, it's more of an interlude, really. Anyway, Hong Kong...

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