Macau

Merry Christmas!

Mandarin / Portuguese

Portuguese pavement

Bemused by Portuguese Food in China

Cool Chinese dude

Ruins of St. Paul's church

Cool trees

Diana Fitting In

Disputably the most luxurious casino in Macau

Macau was to be our peanut butter and jelly destination; a bizarre combination, of Portugal and China no less, but it just seemed to work. We loved it.

This little known territory was a unique fusion. Here Portuguese-style architecture lay interspersed between high rise Chinese apartment blocks, road signs and shop names were written in both Portuguese and Mandarin, and cobbled street districts were filled with Chinese tea shops.

The food was not as good as back in Europe, but that was only be expected. But it was good to see a little piece of Portugal still prevalent in one of the old colonies, no doubt never to be extinguished unless the Chinese somehow manage to destroy the churches and forts still dominating the skyline.

Abs’ favourite part was the significant number of casinos which have sprung up over the years feeding the hunger for Chinese nationals to nip over the border and gamble away their lives. We tried a little blackjack but failed miserably and walked out after less than 10 minutes. Our only respite was that we made a lot of use of the free shuttle buses on offer by every casino and went into several just to pick up free bottles of water.

We were fortunate enough to couchsurf here and were tremendously grateful to our host for her hospitality, but due to the extremely high costs of doing anything (specifically gambling) we packed up our bags after a couple of days and made the short 20 minute journey via free casino shuttle bus into China for the final time.