Hong Kong, Hong Kong (Day 2 – Senado Square, Macau)

Day 2 – Macau (Part 1 – Senado Square)

We started out early the next day despite sleeping late the night before, hence we weren’t affected by the ‘no heater’ problem.  We didn’t have any breakfast as we wanted to eat at Macau, famous for its porkchop buns and Portuguese egg tarts.

Oh, did I mention that the room has a coffee maker?  Well, the first day they only provided 2 coffee capsules but the 2nd day, we found 4 capsules waiting for us at night.  It must have been the tips we left for the cleaning lady since we suddenly found that the toiletries were generously topped up as well LOL

Anyway, I digress 😛  Where was I?  Oh yes, the outing to the land of casinos.  Instead of taking the MTR, we decided to take the hotel shuttle service to Tsim Sha Tsui to take the ferry from China Hong Kong Ferry Terminal at the China Hong Kong City.  We had to buy ferry tickets first and there were many touts selling tickets at the terminal and according to my sisters, they were from travel agencies and were selling leftover tickets.  So since the next ferry was just a few minutes to departure, we bought from one of the touts who were selling at HK$1 cheaper than at what was being sold over the counter LOL

We had to clear the HK customs since we were leaving HK for Macau, another SAR (Special Administrative Region of China), like HK.  The ferry was a fast jet with comfortable seats.  It took us about an hour to reach Macau.  The ferry ride was uneventful, although it did rain and the water looked choppy.

In the ferry…

– Sleepless in Hong Kong and sleepy on the way to Macau

Farewell, Hong Kong!

Farewell, Hong Kong!

– Choppy waters…

Did you know that Macau was rented to Portugal by the Chinese Empire as a trading port and was administered by Portugal under Chinese authority and sovereignty until 1887?  Then it became a Portuguese colony until 20 December 1999 when its sovereignty was transferred back to China.  It is now a SAR of China.  So with the Portuguese influence, many of the street names are in Portuguese, and signs are written in 3 languages: Chinese, Portuguese and English.

Portuguese

English

Chinese

Enough of the boring history stuff.  You’ll do much better reading up about the history on the internet than from me 😛  On with the rest of my adventure in Macau…

We took a public bus from the ferry terminal to the city centre.  The first thing we did there was head into a shop that had just put out freshly baked Portuguese egg tarts.  We were hungry and each of us took one piping hot egg tart as we milled around the display of BBQ meat and beef jerky, trying to decide what to buy for our family and friends back home.  We had a few sampling of the sweet and spicy meat, either pork or beef and each one of us bought something from there.

Armed with our new purchases, we headed off in search of an eatery to fill our stomachs (still no breakfast yet and no, the one lone egg tart each did not count).  Lina wanted to find the eatery where she and her husband had eaten there before only a couple of months back but she had forgotten where the place was.  It was raining then and so we decided to just go into the only eatery we managed to find.

– Taken from the bus…the street of Macau

Waiting for our brunch

Horlicks – my beverage of choice in HK

Stef’s egg sandwich

Me and the other 2 LZB’s had the famous porkchop buns

Since we had to use our bare hands to eat, we need to clean our hands afterwards…Guess who doubled up as personal care-giver?

– After meal service provided by Stef

Tip for the service

The meal was cheap, the porkchop bun was humongous.  We were belly-full when we walked out of the eatery.  It was still drizzling when we left and since only Lina had an umbrella, the immediate mission for the rest of us to get an umbrella.  We came upon a street that had makeshift stalls selling umbrellas among other things so we bought a HK$20 umbrella each.  That done, we headed off to The Historic Centre of Macau.

It is amazing how my sisters could get around in a foreign land so easily, even though they haven’t been to Macau more than once or twice before.  We came upon Da San Ba where you’ll find The Historic Centre of Macau.  The area is steep in history, the architecture magnificent and it basically just took my breath away.  I have always had a fascination for old buildings, especially those built in colonial times and Macau is just full of old colonial buildings.  I’ll let you see for yourself with the pictures I took of some of the buildings…

On the way to Da San Ba

Senado Square

The square is full of pastel coloured neo-classical buildings and is quite a sight to behold

Residential building

Busy street of Da San Ba

Another residential building with nice architecture

Shopping street

Moi at the square

Cobbled footpath – not ideal for high heels

The steps leading to the Ruins of St. Paul’s

Closer…

Looking down the steps, half-way up to the ruins

Had to catch my breath…

Finally!

Note on The Ruins of St. Paul’s taken from Macau Government Tourist Office website: http://www.macautourism.gov.mo/en/discovering/sightseeing_detail.php?catid=54#184

The Ruins of St. Paul’s refer to the facade of what was originally the Church of Mater Dei built in 1602-1640, destroyed by fire in 1835, and the ruins of St. Paul’s College, which stood adjacent to the Church. As a whole, the old Church of Mater Dei, St. Paul’s College and Mount Fortress were all Jesuit constructions and formed what can be perceived as the Macau’s “acropolis”. Close by, the archaeological remains of the old College of St. Paul stand witness to what was the first western-style university in the Far East, with an elaborate academic programme. Nowadays, the facade of the Ruins of St. Paul’s functions symbolically as an altar to the city.

The entrance of the facade

Some things you need to observe…a man was stopped from entering because he was smoking a cigarette

Inside the Ruins

Another view from just inside the Ruins

Panaromic view of the Ruins

Some information at the foot of the Ruins

Isn’t it grand? Sigh…

Back to the square

Advertisement for porkchop buns

Cobbled streets – thank goodness for my sandals!

– St. Dominic’s Church

Seems like I have lost the text formatting along the way…  Anyway, I’ll just leave it here since I still have more pictures of Macau to post but not of Senado Square so watch out for Part 2 of Macau 😉

next: Macau Tower https://judith4381.wordpress.com/hong-kong-trip/hong-kong-hong-kong-day-2-macau-towercasino/