We got up early to try to squeeze in one more dim sum meal before our trip to Macau. The previous morning we had walked by a small diner that served dim sum, so we killed a little time walking around the neighborhood before they opened. We bought two pastries from a corner bakery for later – a “sweetheart cake” and an egg yolk bun. Once the dim sum cafe opened we got in there and did some ordering.
They had a new dim sum for me – a steamed ginger cake that had an unusual texture. It looked like Japanese yokan, but not so sweet. I liked it, Kuniko didn’t. The other dim sum was good but not excellent like we had at the London.
After checking out of the hotel Kuniko guided us to the ferry terminal, and while waiting to board an Indian lady struck up a conversation. She was traveling alone through the area and asked me about the boarding procedures. She seemed really nice – I was impressed that she was doing the trip solo. We ate our pastries from the bakery shop, capturing our reactions with the camera. We both thought the sweetheart cake was a little too much like rice cake – not so flavorful but very filling. The egg yolk bun was better but hard to eat.
To travel by ferry to Macau we needed to go through immigration despite both areas being controlled by China. The immigration procedures were quite simple and they didn’t even check our bags for security. The ferry was quite modern and very high speed. At some points the movement of the ferry really rocked up and down with the waves, and we could hear people retching in seats not far from us. The sound of them almost caused a similar situation for Kuniko, but she somehow held on and made it to Macau without incident.
At the ferry terminal we had a long walk to the other end and went through immigration again there, and then struck out to find a casino bus to take us to the area near our hotel. The casino buses are all free, as they hope you’ll gamble at the destination, so it made sense to take advantage of them. We took one to the Lisboa palace in Taipa and there changed to another bus that took us to the main district of Macau where our hotel was located.
Macau was covered with casinos, many of which are exact copies of the ones in Las Vegas. The Wynn casino group does a lot of business there, and part of the fun of the trip was seeing the unusual architecture of the buildings – some of which were pretty outlandish. Our hotel was close to the Grand Lisboa, which has a very distinctive shape of a giant fan leaf over a large bulb shaped casino. Our bus dropped us off here, and we walked a few minutes to get to our hotel (YOHO Treasure Island) on the shore of the lake.
We dropped off our bags there, and then decided to go explore Macau. Right away we realized that although I had bought eSIMs for Hong Kong, they didn’t work here, so I used the hotel WiFi to buy one for Kuniko’s phone. Modern technology makes everything easy. Unfortunately Kuniko’s version of Google Maps wasn’t working very well, and we sort of got lost in the beginning of our journey. We had to rely on street signs instead of satellites. In the end she switched to Apple Maps and it was fine. Weird…
As we visited some of the old traditional Portuguese buildings of Macau we were surrounded by hordes of Chinese tourists. I very rarely saw any European people around, and it was an odd contrast between the architecture and the people. The weather in Macau was hot and humid, and climbing up and down the hills had us both sweaty.
As we approached the walls of St. Paul’s church, one of the main attractions for tourists, the street funneled into lots of Chinese shops selling goods to tourists. Oddly the main draw was “bakkwa” – meat jerky made in the Chinese style out of either beef, pork or lamb. I ended calling them “beef sheets”, and we saw them everywhere we went. I got a taste of them and they were quite good, but it seemed like an odd thing to be popular here.
We spent some time at the St. Paul’s church, and then climbed the battlements in the nearby park to see the cannons and the view of the city. It was seriously hot up there though – it was a good place to take a break in the shade. Many Chinese tourists were taking photos in dramatic poses – it was interesting to watch and see how much effort went into it.
We went back into town and stopped at the Grand Lisboa to look around, get some money changed into patacas, and use the restroom. In the glitzy casino restroom the urinal had a unique design. You stepped into a basin with raised stainless steel bolts – the idea was that any urine that missed the urinal wood pool here, but the raised bolts kept your feet (reasonably) dry. It looked like missing the urinal was a serious issue at the Grand Lisboa.
This was Kuniko’s first experience entering a casino, so we walked around to check it out. We eventually ended up at the casino bar for cocktails and a pork chop bun – apparently a traditional Macau dish. At the bar they were accepting vouchers for free snacks and sweets – younger Chinese girls kept coming to eat there. We were the only ones drinking alcohol – I had a Macau beer and Kuniko was drinking a dirty martini (!).
Back at our hotel we did some shopping in the lower levels. The hotel itself was quite new and they had added a bunch of luxury shops in the lower part of the hotel. These were staffed but empty of shoppers, so it was a little strange vibe to walk through. We found a grocery store, however, and bought some bubbles and snacks for later on.
For dinner we went to Albergue 1601, a restaurant that specialized in more traditional Portuguese food. We liked the area and all the tile work – the tiles were similar to what we had seen all over Porto during our visit. We sat upstairs with young Chinese couples on either side of us. It was interesting to listen in to their conversations while we enjoyed our food and wine.
The food was quite good there – we ordered duck rice which was really tasty (and filling) with big chunks of duck meat baked into the rice. We also had salt cod with cornbread crumbs, and this was good but not quite at the same level as the duck rice. The caldo soup was a little underseasoned, but we did enjoy the wine very much – both the white and the red were excellent. It was interesting that none of the Chinese people were drinking wine – just us and the Japanese couple behind us.
Our server was also super-nice, and she really took care of us. She let us try the wines before committing to a glass, and she poured pretty heavy. I wished we could tip her, but we gave her a good review on the survey instead.
After dinner we walked back to the hotel areas, this time all the colorful signs were lit up and we took some pictures along the way back. The view from our room was truly impressive, overlooking all the casinos. We had a wide cushioned bench in front of the windows and so we could sit and take it all in while sipping the bubbles. The bathtub in the hotel room was really cool – we could sit in the tub and soak while still getting a nice view outside.
Kuniko really outdid herself with this hotel room – it was one of the nicest we’ve ever had. We finally went to bed with full bellies in a very luxurious setting.
