Macau
One of our trips was to Macau. Like Hong Kong, Macau is a Special Administrative Region in China, and was also a colony until the late 90s. Unlike Hong Kong which was a British colony, Macau was a Portuguese, and the traces of colonial times is more obvious here. Looking at the picture you will find the houses and squares in Portuguese style, signs in Portuguese and other elements of the city such as a lot of mopeds. Macau is in general a very strange mix, not only is it a mix of Portugal and China, but throw in some Las Vegas in the mix too. Yes, Macau is the Las Vegas of Asia.
The ferry, or whatever it is (to me it mostly reminded me of a huge jet-ski that flew over the water) takes about an hour from Hong Kong, and you have to go through passport checks like you're visiting another country.
Ruinas de Igreja de São Paulo is one of the most popular attractions, although it is only a facade. I can imagine that it looks more amazing in good weather (the entire city had probably given me a better impression with better weather, by that time it was raining and I felt most wet and miserable). Too bad.
Men trots sina portugisiska inslag påminner större delen av staden om att det ändå är Kina vi befinner oss i.
Most smaller streets looked like this, crowded and shabby with balconies that looked like cages. Awesome or terrible - you decide.
And as always, there was a temple to visit, this time the A-Ma Temple.
When we got tired of walking around in the rain, we figured it was time for gambling, and went to Macau's own version of The Venetian. Which is named exactly the same here. Macau may not have as many casinos but they are huge and apparently they make more money than in Las Vegas! The casino part of The Venetian (where you could not photograph) was bigger than any of the ones I saw in Vegas.
The typical indoor sky was there too, of course. After a whole day of rain even a fake-sky felt good. How strange to walk around in a Venice Inspired place in a Las Vegas inspired place in an ex-Portuguese colony belonging to China. Inception?
After being in Las Vegas, Macau didn't quite live up to expectations when it comes to the casino part, despite their large and super luxurious casinos. All hotels are not found in the same place as in Vegas, some large casinos were on a completely different island so we had to go across the bridge. There was only one area that reminded me of a weak copy of Vegas.
But you can't complain about the insides. In MGMs hotel we found this underwater world which has to be one of the craziest indoor environments I've been in! And apparently it is only temporary as they have new themes after a few months.
We had a last drink there before it was time to take the big "jet-ski" back to Hong Kong.
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