Macau 澳門

This weekend, I went with some of the other exchange students from America on a day trip to Macau 澳門. It was our first trip outside of Hong Kong since we got here, so we were expecting great and exciting things! Due to the close vicinity of Macau, we could take an hour and fifteen minute boat ride there. Boarding the boat!

Since we left campus around 8 a.m., I fell asleep within 5 minutes of taking my seat on the boat which was about half the size of the Staten Island ferry. It was a bit rocky but good thing I napped through nearly the entire ride so I wasn't conscious enough to get seasick. Hong Kong currency is used almost interchangeably with Macau currency so we didn't have to exchange any money when we finally arrived.

Senado Square

Senado Square is one of the more touristy and famous locations in Macau so we walked around the area for a while. There were so many decorations up in anticipation for Chinese New Year!

Baked duck rice at Restaurante Platao. First time having Macanese cuisine!

We went sightseeing around Senado Square for a while and marveled at all the Chinese New Year decorations up. I've only ever spent Chinese New Year in America and even though there is a sizable Asian population where I'm from, it doesn't come close to what I've seen around Hong Kong, and in Macau.

Portuguese egg tart.

Macau is famous for its Portuguese egg tarts so the next thing on our agenda after lunch was to find Margaret's Cafe e Nata. According to wikitravel, this bakery makes the best Portuguese egg tarts in Macau so we weren't going to settle for just any random 'ol bakery. However, this wasn't the easiest place to find and we got lost for a while even after asking locals for directions several times. We finally found the place in the end and the egg tarts were indeed delicious and extremely buttery. 

The next leg of our journey was to the famous Ruins of St. Paul's. It was extremely crowded but it was really exciting to be at such a historic place. We walked around a bit and talked about how different, yet similar Macau is to Hong Kong.

We walked to the top of the ruins and there were all these adorable panda statues that everyone was taking pictures with, so obviously as tourists, we had to join in.

It was getting rather late in that day by that time so we headed over to The Venetian hotel/casino. The Venetian in Macau is very similar to the one in Las Vegas so it wasn't as exciting as the other parts of Macau that we saw that day. The legal gambling age is 18 in Macau so I was on one of the slot machines for about two minutes before I got bored. None of us were big gamblers so we wound up going shopping instead. It was a really long day, but as the first trip  outside of Hong Kong it went very well. Macau was a lot of fun and this makes me anticipate visiting other places in Asia even more if they're as interesting as Macau was.