Macau, Day 2

Charlie and I started our morning by taking Tony and Elena's suggestion of ordering coffee and bread from room service.  The coffee was excellent and the croissants were fluffy.  They also gave us three kinds of jam.


We all loafed around for a couple hours and then once we were ready to go, had a second breakfast (buffet style) at the hotel cafe.  I literally ate a pile of bacon and it was oh so good.

Our first excursion was to the Guia Fort, a small light house overlooking the peninsula.




Elena in one of the guard towers.


Looking out of the guard tower window you can see Macau Tower, the highest bungee jump site in the world.


This was another guard tower, but it was closed.


It did, however, have a funny sticker just below the lock on the gate.


Charlie weighing anchor.


A Zen riddle of some sort.


We were amused by this guy's shirt which, in a way, sums up the capitalist mentality of Hong Kong and Macau.  "Ice means jewellery; Cream means cash.  The two things which make the world go round."


After the lighthouse we decided to check out Lou Kau Mansion, believed to be built around 1889.  It looks pretty simple from the outside...


... but inside it was incredibly intricate and beautiful.








I have been having some problems with my feet for a while that started acting up during the Cheung Chau excursion a couple days ago, so by this point I was in serious pain.  We decided to go back to the hotel where we sat by the pool for a few hours just relaxing (well, except for Tony, who used the gym).  I took a nap, Elena read a book and Charlie smoked a cigar.  Once we had rested up a bit, we headed over to Taipa, the smaller of Macau's islands.  This area reminded me a lot of the southern coast of Spain, with it's very European architecture and the light-colored paint on the buildings.  And, as with everywhere in Macau, all the signs are in Portuguese.

I liked this tiny blue house.


Here is the Pak Tai temple, nestled between two other residential buildings.


Inside the temple.


A typical row of buildings in Taipa.


Chinese jerky!  Charlie and I have fallen in love with this.  It is basically meat put into a blender and then dried into sheets (a process similar to that employed in making paper).  This store was a madhouse but we braved it long enough to buy pork, spicy pork, spicy beef, and ostrich meat - tastes just like chicken!  We also bought some yummy almond short bread cookies.


After succeeding in our quest for jerky, we all relaxed in this park for a while.  In this picture you can clearly see the smog problem because the sky is blue above and then a line of brown starts around the tops of the buildings.  Plus, it starts getting hazy at about 100 meters away.


This statue of Luis Vaz de Camoes made me laugh.  Between the effeminate pose and the obscene bulge in his pants, he looks like David Bowie from Labyrinth.




We had reservations for a schmancy Portuguese restaurant in Taipa simply called "Antonio" after the chef.  They were fully booked and turned several people away while we were there.

I loved this painting on the wall.


The portions were huge!  Here is my fish of the day stew and Elena's sole.


Tony had beef tenderloin which was cooked at the table on a hot stone (sorry, the pictures didn't turn out) and Charlie had this ham and cheese stuffed tenderloin.


We grabbed a taxi back to the hotel to pick up our bags and made our way to the ferry terminal.  We had a sickeningly choppy ride back to Hong Kong, during which I feared for my life.  When we got home we were all exhausted and went right to bed.