Susan's Shanghai Blog - Week 26 - Hong Kong Part 2 (Day 3)

The 3rd day of our Hong Kong vacation, we decided that we were ahead-of-schedule and could take a day and go to Macau. Macau is another SAR (special administrative region) of China. It is quite easy to get to Macau from Hong Kong ... a semi-short ferry ride. They must be doing something right, since according to The World Factbook, Macau has the second highest life expectancy in the world and it has literacy rate of 93.5%. Macau is also the most densely populated region in the world, with a population density of 18,428 persons per square kilometer

Macau was just another small fisherman's village until the Portuguese arrived in the 16th century. It started in the 1600's when Portuguese traders obtained the rights to anchor ships in Macau's harbours, then they established a permanent settlement in Macau and in return, they paid an annual rent. In the 17th century, the Dutch attempted to take Macau but were defeated. In 1887, the Sino-Portuguese Treaty of Amity and Commerce was signed which turned Macau over to the Portugal. In 1974, when the Portuguese dictatorship was overthrown, the new Portuguese government said that it would relinquish all its overseas possessions. Between 1976 and 1986, several negotiations and agreements moved Macau closer to being part of China, ending with the declaration of Macau as a Special Administrative Region, which took effect December 20th (my birthday!) 1999.

Macau's economy is based largely on tourism and gambling, with a large number of casinos. Gambling revenue has made Macau the world's top casino market, even more than Las Vegas.

As we arrived by ferry, we saw this very impressive building. We thought "wow, what a great historical building!" Not so much! We later found out that it is Fisherman's Wharf, the first ever themed entertainment attraction in the tourism industry of Macau. The project occupies an area of over 111,500m2, combining entertainment, retail, food, hotel, marina, convention and exhibition facilities in one place. It isn't even an old building ... built from 2000 to 2005.

Once the ferry landed, we decided to find a public bus to the center of town. We knew roughly where we wanted to go, and found a bus that would drop us in the right general location. About 10 minutes later, we got off the bus near Senado Square, or Senate Square. It is a traditional "European" square with some great architectural buildings. The red (or pink) building is the Loyal Senate (Leal Senado) building and was built in the 1780's. While under Portuguese rule, it housed the colonial government and today, it has the Mayor's offices, an art gallery, and the Senate Library. In the middle of the square, they had this HUGE Christmas tree, between the senate building and St. Dominic�s Church.

Also on the square is the Holy House of Mercy. It is an historic white building built in 1569 which has a branch of the Santa Casa da Miseric�rdia. It was a medical clinic and several other social welfare structures in early Macau. It later served as an orphanage and refuge for widows of sailors lost at sea.

While we were there during the day only, we could only imagine what it would look like at night, since we could see all of these icicle lights in the square.

St. Dominic's Church is a Catholic church built in 1587 by three Spanish Dominican priests. It has an imposing facade of cream-coloured stone with white stucco mouldings and green-shutted windows. Inside, white pillars support a flat ceiling and apron balconies trim the walls. The great baroque altar contains a cream and white statue of the Virgin and Child and a painting of Christ. The church has a fine collection of exquisitely-carved ivory and wood saints.

This building is the Tourism and Cultural Activities Center (CATC), and sits at the foot of the Ruins of the Church of St. Paul.

In front of the CATC, there was this place where you can take a picture of yourself in a pedicab, which used to be a symbol of Macau.

One of the most impressive sights was the Ruins of St. Paul's, a 16th century complex including of what was originally St. Paul's College and the Cathedral of St. Paul. The original complex was completed in 1602, and at that time, it was the largest Catholic church in Asia. It was destroyed by a fire during a typhoon in 1835. From the main square, you walk up through a shopping area and there it is ..up another set of stairs (66 stone steps to be exact). What remains is the Southern stone facade and some footings, but no walls and nothing really inside. The facade, as you can see, is intricate carvings, supposedly done by Japanese Christians in exile. The carvings include Jesuit images with Oriental themes, such as a woman stepping on a seven-headed hydra, described by Chinese characters as ' Holy Mother tramples the heads of the dragon'. A few of the other carvings are the founders of the Jesuit Order, the conquest of Death by Jesus, and at the very top, a dove with wings outstretched. It is customary to throw coins into the top window of the ruins from the stairs, for luck, and we could definitly see this when we went up to the 2nd floor, which you can do from the inside of the facade.

Between the Senate Square and the Ruins, there are small streets that are a pedestrian shopping area. It seemed like a majority of stores on the smaller streets sold food, specifically these little almond cookies, egg tarts, and some meat thing which the only way to describe it is like beef or pork jerky that isn't dried all the way yet. As you walk up these streets, almost every little store will have someone out allowing you to sample all of these.

As we strolled through, we stopped at a little area with a great fountain and a nativity scene. The large white building (we think) is called simply The Cathedral, and it sits on Largo da Se. Heading up to the Fort, we saw this really nice colorful building, but we didn't really know what it was.

The Fortaleza do Monte overlooks the ruin and it was quite a hike to get up there! But I must say, the views from up there were quite cool. Fortaleza do Monte, or Mount Fortress, was built in 1617-1626 by Jesuits and is the historical military centre of the former Portuguese colony. The fort was initially built in the 16th century for protecting the properties of Jesuit in Macau. Later it was seized by the Governor, for the defense of Macau. There are still cannons around the exterior. In the middle is the Museum of Macau, which was built in the 1990s.

So, after hiking all the way to the fort, we headed back down. On the way back to the ferry terminal, we went by the Lisboa Casino. The first picture was taken from the Fortress while we were up there, and as you can tell, it has a very unique shape. Inside, it was a really nice hotel/casino lobby, with his big Christmas House where they were selling things. Walking around, they also had alot of artwork and we took a couple pictures, one really close-up, of one of the carved tusks. In alot of places in Shanghai, they talk about how these are not actual Ivory because it is illegal now to buy/sell ivory tusks but that these are from mastadons or mammoths. We went into the casino but we didn't spend much time there, mostly because of the heavy smoking going on. We tried to watch a little of the gambling, but what we initially thought was Black Jack was really Baccarat. It looked like Black Jack, since there is the "player" and the "banker" or "house". However, after watching a few hands, we learned that we had no clue what was going on. Looking online at the way it is played, I can see why we were totally confused. In Baccarat, cards 2�9 are worth face value, 10s and J, Q K are worth zero, and Aces are worth 1 point. Hands are valued according to the rightmost digit of the sum of their constituent cards: for example, a hand consisting of 2 and 3 is worth 5, but a hand consisting of 6 and 7 is worth 3 (the rightmost digit of the total, 13).[2] The highest possible hand value is 9. In the game, a "Baccarat" refers to anything with a value of zero; in a hand of K, 4 and 6, the King is a "Baccarat", and the hand value is also "Baccarat".

After feeling totally confused at the Baccarat tables, we caught the bus back to the ferry terminal and the ferry back to Hong Kong. It was Christmas Eve, and they seem to do things on Christmas Eve similar to what we would do on New Year's eve. We were near the harbour on the Kowloon side, and they had blocked roads and there were just tons and tons of people walking up and down the streets. Somewhat reminded us of Times Square without the ball!.

This isn't the best picture, but Tom was attempting to get a view ofjust how many people were in the Hong Kong subway system that night.

We also grabbed some pictures on our way in of the decorations on the Peninsula Hotel.