Macau

On Wednesday, Sara, Kat, Anna, Mimi (Anna's friend from Taiwan), and I went to Macau (also known as the "Las Vegas of China"), which is another part of China about an hour ferry ride away from Hong Kong. Macau was a Portuguese colony until 1999, so a mixture of both Portuguese and Cantonese culture is present - quite a unique mixture, no?! Unfortunately, it was raining from the moment we got there until the moment we left, but we didn't let that stop us from exploring. Macau is known as the "Vegas of Hong Kong" because many people, especially from Mainland China, visit Macau to gamble at many of the same casinos Vegas has, such as the Venetian, MGM, Hard Rock, and the Wynn. After getting off the ferry, we went to see a little bit of the Fisherman's Wharf, which has replicas of many famous places in the world, such as the Forbidden City and the Colosseum. It was pretty neat :)

*View of Fisherman's Wharf from ferry pier

*Roman Amphitheatre

After the wharf, we took a bus to the Portuguese section to see the Largo do Senado (Senate Square), which is at the center of Macau and has wavy black-and-white cobblestone walkways & colonial buildings - very pretty! Then, we visited the Ruins of the Church of St. Paul. The ruins are some steps leading to a facade with statues and engravings, which are rather intricate. The church was destroyed by a fire during a typhoon in the mid-1850's, but before that, it was the largest Catholic church in Asia.

*Largo do Senado

*Me in front of the Ruins of Saint Paul

After the ruins, we stopped at the City of Dreams & Hard Rock casinos, but decided to spend most of our evening at the lovely Venetian! The Venetian in Macau is quite a bit bigger than the one in Vegas & happens to be the biggest casino in the world measuring in at 546,000 square feet worth of gaming with 3,400 slots and 800 game tables- whoa!!! The hotel is beautiful, especially the "Sistine Chapel" ceilings and the canal through the canal shops with gondolas. The gondolier's all sang "Santa Lucia" very well :) After walking around, we all tried our luck at the slot machines as none of us really knew how to play any table games. Unfortunately, I won nothing, but didn't really expect to anyways.

*Guido (loved him) and another gondolier :)

*Pretty canal shops at the Venetian

After the Venetian, we headed to the ferry piers to take our ferry back to Hong Kong, which was definitely an experience. After being on the boat for about ten minutes, all of the sudden the boat started to rock back and forth, back and forth, and it literally felt like we were going to tip over because the water was SO choppy, and it was quite windy and rainy outside as well. People were puking all around us, and I feared for my life for a few minutes, but figured they knew what they were doing and wouldn't have gone out if it wasn't safe. Then I realized that our ferry was the only one to go out into the harbor as all of the other companies cancelled their rides, which made us even more nervous, but thankfully we made it back okay! Don't ever want to experience that again - the hour ride felt like half a day, yikes!! Besides the trip back and the rain, I really enjoyed Macau, especially the contrast between the Cantonese and Portuguese culture, and I loved the Venetian as well :)

*Side note: Yesterday, I went to see the new Harry Potter as it FINALLY came out in Hong Kong - sooo good!!!

More pictures:

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