The Great Asian Race: Day 7

Today we are headed to the country of Macau.  Macau was first settled by the Portuegese, and therefore that is the officail language of Macau.  Very interesting...It has a lot of the Portuegese influence in their architecture, which I really liked, and it is also vying to become the next Las Vegas.  It has a lot of the new casinos like Vegas, the Venetian, MGM Grand, the Wynn and a few more.  We started off the day by getting our tickets to Macau, we were going to travel by Hydrofoil Ferry, which is a VERY FAST ferry.  We got our tickets and were waiting around for our departure time.  At 15 minutes before we left we entered through the door and discovered that there were A TON of people waiting to get through customs to get on their alloted ferry to Macau.  We realized we had made a big mistake by waiting outside, and when our ferry took off....we were still in line.  As soon as we got through customs we raced over to the next ferry that was about to leave and begged them to let us (all 9 of us!) on the next ferry.  We were talking so fast and had raced in front of so many people that I think they didn't enough english to reply so they just let us on.  Phew!!!

This is Paul and Susan and Emily after our mad rush to get onto the Hydrofoil.  The seats on this ferry were very nice, which was good because the ferry ride to Macau was an hour long, and I get very sea sick on boats!!

Once in Macau, we took a bus to the Central part of Macau where they had decorated for Christmas.
This is the town square, I like this picture because I kept the building it's yellow color and everything else is black and white.  Kind of fun.
Chris and I in the town square.

A church in the town square.
Yep, this is Chris coming out of McDonalds.  It was a very big deal that he eat at a McDonalds here.  Chris has eaten at McDonalds in every country that he has ever been to.  Which is a lot!!  His last passport he had to get extra pages in because he ran out of room!!!

This is a view of the next street that we walked down.  So many people.  I wanted to get a good picture of it, so I got on Chris's shoulders to get a better view.  While I was up there some Asian girls started pointing and laughing at me and taking pictures.  I guess they don't do that there?

There were a lot of shops selling this pork jerky.  They were giving out samples and I have to admit, it was really good!

We went to a Portuegese restaurant for lunch and this pig in a santa house was outside the door.  We thought it was pretty funny.  It is like a rocking horse, but is a rocking pig!!

Catholic church that is still used today.  

The next two pictures are residential areas.

This is a picture of the Portuegese Consulate.

The next few are pictures at a fort that is high up on a hill in Macau to protect it from invaders back in the 1600's.

A casino from the fort.
The entrance into the fort.

Standing by one of the many cannons in the fort.  This one is pointed at the casino!

We thought it was a crazy picture to have all of the residents in their their tiny house backed up all the way to these huge casinos!!

The next pictures are of St. Pauls church.  In the 1600's it was all burned down by a fire in the kitchen, all except for the front of it, which is still the only part of it they have kept.  Very interesting.
This is from the fort.

From the front....
Chris in front of the church.

Am I in Vegas....no wait.....
Nope, still in Macau!!!

Well, we could not get tickets back to Hong Kong...so.....we had to buy first class tickets on the Hydrofoil.  We were pretty excited.
Chris and Paul are waiting in the First Class lounge for the boat, it wasn't as nice as we thought it would be.  And then we got in the boat.  It wasn't as nice as our boat there, so first class wasn't as nice as economy.  Oh well, at least we got a sandwich with the crusts cut off and some jello!!!

The Great Asian Race day 8 to be continued.......