Livin' Las Vegas... in Macau, China

Alll right, its okay. In case you're like, "where is Macau?" its okay because I had to look it up myself before I left for this trip. Ha ha. If you look at a map of China, look at the very bottom and you will see the island Hong Kong (should be on every map!). Just west and a little south of it is this tiny little peninsula, Macau! It was actually a Portuguese colony up until the 90's (officially became under Chinese rule in 1999) and is now one of 2 Special Administrative Region with Hong Kong (has its own currency, etc), In the late 70's it was already considered a Chinese terrority with "temporary Portuguese administration," so these 2 cultures have been living in harmony for awhile. So as you can imagine, although tiny, Macau has a lot to offer, especially being the last European colony in Asia. At first, everything seems very random. There is definitely a Chinese feel to it (referring to things looking run-down and dirty), but then there are these big o brightly colored casino's. Yes, Macau is trying to become the Las Vegas of Asia with the casino's:

Actually, the same person that built the Venetian in Vegas helped build this one and it really is almost exactly the same. Super nice, big, with the canals and everything. It was actually pretty fun! Different than Vegas, however, is that the main source of entertainment in Macau is gambling, versus shows, the strip, concerts, and other things Vegas has to offer besides just gambling. Anyhoo, so besides the China feel, Vegas feel, there is, obviously, Portuguese feel! There are these amazing churches, fortresses, european style buildings, squares, and small cobblestone streets that I have not seen elsewhere:

The 1st picture is one of many pastel colored buildings we see and one of many churches. Which, by the way, because of the mixed religions of Macau, almost all temples are miu, where a combination of Buddhist, Taost, and Animist gods are worshipped. The 2nd picture is A-Ma Temple, which is named after a seafarers' goddess that dates to the 16th century. Legend has it that a girl, A-Ma, was very poor looking and she was looking for a pssage to Canton. She was refused by these wealthy junk owners but a lowly fisherman took her on board. A storm came and wrecked all the ships, except the one that the girld was on. So on arrival to Macau she vanished and reappeared as a goddess, on the spot where the fisherman built her temple. Its an innense mecca, almost overbearing at times, but very spiritual. It is said to exist before the city of Macau did. Finally, the last picture is the famous Ruinas de Sao Paulo, super amous in Macau. The church was built in 1602 along side a Jesuit College. Then in 1835 a fire destroyed all but the facade and the stairs behind it. It was restored in the early 90's and today is a must see by all tourists, like us! Its pretty cool!

The atmosphere is also interesting - Hong Kong is very business and very professional (and clean, organized, efficient, etc), and Macau has a small district like that, but it is 028443290X more laid back, and much better than mainland China - cleaner, less polluted, and pretty! I really feel it is a great mix of China, HK, and Portugal.

So all these days it took us to get here was worth it, and 2 days is enough. Looooong story short, we were trying to get organized in Hong Kong with our travels and other arrangements and basically spent 5 full days there. Then it happened that this weekend, when we wanted to go, was all booked up because it was yet another Chinese holiday (as we are learning, there are a lot of Chinese holidays. And when there are holidays, everyone and their mom's goes out of town and things are closed). With that there was this big convention, so basically we were short-ended on accomodations. Another long story short, we had to go to Goang Dong, China to sleep, to come back to Macau to spend 2 nights. So we wasted a whole day going through HK customs, Macau customs, and then China customs. Seriously. Big pain in the butt. All in an afternoon (its just an hour ferry to get from HK to Macau, and then a short bus ride to the China border). The next day was worse - we waited almost 2 hours for China customs, and then 30 min. for the Macau customs. Alas, it all worked out. Being back in China though... what a difference! We've been TOTALLY spoiled this past week and we literally crossed the border and, call me crazy, but it just seemed more polluted to me, dirty, was next to impossible to try to ask someone how to find a taxi, get to our hotel, and it was just a mess. Back to the hawking and people staring at us, not fun. We were happy that we were just there for one night. We did have our favorite bok choy, this yummy veggy, and poa (pronounced "bow"), this doughy dumpling with different fillings, so that was good.

So when we made it back to Macau, we felt we lot a lot of time and pow-wowed the city. It is small enough that we actually did walk the whole city. Lots of great and beautiful sites. Its just soo awesome to see portuguese street names and building names, and plazas and what not, in China. And of course we had to treat ourselves to a seafood portuguese dinner and some wine. YUMMY! (yes, we like to spoil ourselves sometimes!). Macau is also known for there egg tarts, which is tastes more custardy than eggy (depending) with a nice crisp crust. Here is me enjoying one:

And the next day we did more walking around and then I jumped off a tower. Yes, you read correctly. I think I am becoming an e-drenaline junky. When I jumped in Queenstown, NZ we found out that one of the world's tallest jump was in Macau. I was kinda joking, but after the high of jumping, I said "lets do it!" So Char wanted to do it, and it advertises itself as the Worlds Tallest Bungy Jump at 233 m (or 764ft). In NZ it was 134 m. Even Char asked me "why are you doing it again?" And I don't know! Why not? This one was obviously a lot different because we were jumping from this Tower and were lowered down versus pulled up. Not to bore you with details again (refer to 9/16 "E-drenaline" blog), but the build-up wasn't nearly what it was in NZ, but the jump was definitely crazy, the free-fall being 100m more. However, the swing was 'controlled' more by a secondary cord that was attached to us. And then I was hanging upside down for what seemed like 084329278432 hours (couldn't feel my legs after awhile), which was kinda uncomf. Bottom line - it was definitely e-drenaline again, but the experience in NZ was a lot better. I'm glad I did it, but I'm officially going to take a break from bungy jumping. For the next month that is! ha ha ha! Just kidding!

FYI - this is the tower that Char and I jumped off, the Macau Tower:

advertises itself as being "the World's Tallest Bungy" (how could I say no to that?), but that is controversial because it does have a deceleration cord (i.e. the more-or-less 'controlled' swing up and down with a 2nd cord after the initial fall). In NZ, that was almost as good as the jump itself! So I think South Africa has the highest freefall (meaning the jump, and then the bouncing up and down), but there is a bungy jump at the Royal Gorge Bridge in Colorado that is the ultimate highest (321m or 1053ft) but is rarely available for whatever reason. So basically, in a little more than a month apart I jumped possibly the worlds highest jump and the 5th (I think that is what NZ is!). Wow!