Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Touristing in Macau

Yesterday was the first day we've really spent as tourists. We blundered about quite a bit but had a good day visiting a couple of museums and a temple.

Macau was developed by the Portuguese as its base for China trade. Its status is now similar to Hong Kong as being part of China but fairly autonomous ("One Country - Two Systems").

We found it a confusing town to navigate through and became confused often as to where we were and what direction in which to travel to get to our desired destination. Most streets are narrow and winding. There are several steep hills and bodies of water surrounding the city. These prevent the streets from having a grid like structure. The sky didn't give us any clues either as it was a uniform gray from a combination of clouds, mist and pollution.

The streets are well signed but the languages used are Chinese and Portuguese. At least we could recognize the names in Portuguese.

We weren't able to have dinner last night in the teaching restaurant because they were hosting a special event (a sold out $160/person wine tasting dinner). We ended up going to a restaurant that probably doesn't get a lot of non-locals. We ordered what I will call the foreigner special ("I'll have what they are having") by using the phrase book that Marcia bought before we left.

We hope to do a little more touristing before catching our 6:30 PM flight to Clark Field in the Philippines but unfortunately it is raining right now. To save on weight on this jaunt, we stashed our rain jackets in the bag we left back in Doumen.



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