Weekend in Macau

July 16, 2006

Hi!

Hope you are well!

Tomas and I have just returned home from spending the weekend in Macau. Even though we took it easy there, we are tired now from being tourists all weekend, so we are just going to sit around now the rest of the night.

Some points of our trip were interesting, I think, so we thought we should share them with you!

We went to Macau on Friday right after classes. It is kind of wierd to go there. We took a taxi down to the Macau border. Note that Zhuhai, where we are living this month, and Macau, are literally connected, but in between is a huge border area. It was much more elaborate than crossing into Canada from the U.S., and since from Zhuhai we can even see some very tall buildings which are in Macau, it feels wierd to have such a border. I compare the feeling to if Minneapolis and St. Paul were separated by a major border. However, the difference is that since Macau is a former Portugese colony, it is "sort of" its own country. However, all it is is one big city, and then there is the ocean, and then there are a few islands (our hotel was on one of them). They also have their own money! Also, all signs are both in Chinese and in Portugese. Chinese people cannot go to Macau either without having a passport and I think a visa as well, which is why most people that we meet here in Zhuhai have never been able to go to Macau, although they say that they hope to go there one day.

Anyway, once we crossed the border, which took at least an hour of waiting in lines, first to "leave" China, and then to enter Macau, we were not THAT impressed with what we saw. It was just a very big, bustling city, and everywhere we looked we could see huge apartment complexes, and all of them looked very dirty and grey. I think this is because they don't seem to bother with the appearance of any apartment buildings at all, and the only buildings that actually look good on the outside of the buildings are touristy areas, like hotels, and some other buildings (and of course, the CASINOS...which are all blinking and flashing lights, just like in Reno). Anyway, for some reason, the picture that I had had in my mind of Macau was of a shining bright city, since everyone talks about Macau with such fascination and since everyone wants to go there... but Tomas wondered later where I get the background information for my mental images!!! This image was seriously incorrect.

We caught a cab which brought us to our hotel, which was on Taipa Island, it is called. A very beautiful, very long, and actually white bridge connected the island with the mainland. The taxi we were in, however, felt like it had seen better days... when the driver got up to speed ("cruising altitude" so to speak) the whole car started to kind of shudder and jump...I remember thinking, come on car, you can do it, you can do it... because we just really wanted to get to the hotel!

Once we got there, we were given our room. Now, some background info: we had chosen our hotel from the Internet, and the reason we chose this hotel, the Hyatt REgency Macau, was because it was a 5-star, very nice hotel, yet at a reasonable price. We felt we needed a relaxing hotel weekend. So we checked in and went to our room. When we opened the door, however, we were met with a VERY strange and very bad smell! We were only in the room a few minutes before we collected our things again and went downstairs to the lobby. We were given another room. When we got to this second room, at first smell things appeared to be normal, but when we turned the lights on, we were dismayed to see that in many places, the wallpaper was literally peeling right off the walls in many places! And once we had sat on the bed for about 10 minutes, and I was getting quite annoyed with the hotel, we started to smell a smell again as well! So finally, I worked up the nerve to go down to the lobby once again. This time I was honest, and asked if there WERE any better rooms at the hotel or not. The girl at the desk was kind enough to go with me and find a third room for us, on a different floor...and thankfully, this one did not smell (much) and the wallpaper was still in place! I did not really know if I was being socially ethnocentric when I went to the lobby to complain again, because I know it was not the girl's fault, but now I am glad I did it. Later we checked out the pool area, which was absolutely AMAZING! It was an outdoor pool, kind of the shape of 1 and a half peanuts, so not symmetrical at all, and surrounded by huge, tropical trees. After going out to eat supper, at a highly recommended Portugese restaurant, which we thought was okay but not worth the expense really (we ate eel! It was good, but our meal was over 4 times the cost of a really good meal with Chinese food. So we prefer that. However, the garlic bread was to die for, and that being the first time we have eaten real bread since we got here, it was almost worth the money for just that).

After eating supper, we went into the pool area. Note that to go there, first we had to enter the male or female spas that they had. This was a gorgeous area! They gave us towels there, and they had mirrors, with chairs in front, and with hairdryers and cotton balls, little rooms for changing, etc., etc., and a whole room with a jacuzzi, and nice hot showers. Anyway, after changing in the luxurious female spa, we went into the pool. It was WONDERFUL swimming outside! But after a little while I asked Tomas what those wierd noises were, coming from the trees. I thought that it must be monkeys or something. But he said, no, there are bats all over... And as we swam, the whole time, in the wonderfully coolish water, and as we looked around at the tropical trees, which were all lit up with some Christmas-type white lights, we could see bats dipping, flying, dipping...right above us.

After a good night's sleep, and a wonderful breakfast, (with actual wheat toast with apple-cinnamon jelly! I felt at home with the cinnamon... And coffee...and Tomas was overjoyed to find bacon) we got up and toured Macau. As I already said, it is a big, bustling, kind of grey city. However, certain parts of the city were very beautiful. We found, for example, several beautiful parks with tropical trees and flowers, where many Chinese people were relaxing. One park was also some type of ecological area, and they had animals also, just like at a zoo, including monkeys and many tropical birds!

We walked and walked, all day long, and along with parks, we also saw several churches. In one, they had bones in glass cases, of Asian martyrs. One difference we noticed from Zhuhai and Macau is that all over Macau we could see evidence of churches and so on. At several stores, they sold Precious Moments' things, and these were all VERY religious in nature. There were also many small Buddhist temples, with nicely scented incense burning. Later in the day, we came to some old ruins from a Catholic church, and we also found some very fun small streets for shopping. There was a mix of old Chinese wooden objects, and antique stores (including old coins, Dad!) and a lot of nice, and trendy, clothing stores as well. There were also small bakeries and restaurants everywhere. At the bakeries, they would actually stand there making the small goodies that they sold in nice bags or boxes. I could have bought so many of these if we would been going home soon! But I just bought a few for us to eat. They were delicious!

Oh, one wierd thing we came across: in the middle of a mall complex, in the middle of the day, right next to a McDonald's, there was an open ice skating rink!!! This was just full of Chinese kids going crazy all over the ice.

At night we actually went into a casino, but we didn't even understand the games, so we weren't there long before we left again. At this point we had walked miles and miles, and our legs were just exhausted. Today after breakfast we relaxed in the pool again, and today was our coolest day so far here--about 28 degrees both in the air and in the water. But it still felt great, and then we left again for downtown Macau. After walking around a shopping mall for a few hours, we ended our stay with a Chinese Food Court in the middle of the mall. This could have been any mall in the U.S., except for the pluthera of Chinese food, of course, and except for the NOISE LEVEL in the food court! We are noticing that the Chinese do not seem to care about keeping the volumes down when they eat, and it was even worse in the food court. I covered my ears the whole time we were waiting for our food. There were loudspeakers on, people kind of yelling to each other, children playing and being loud... but the PIZZA we ate (yes, pizza!) and actual pudding for dessert made it worth it!

A few last closing comments on Macau: some really good things about the city include the fact that there were public restrooms all over the place, and these were actual western toilets, and free of charge, and they also had toilet paper. Another thing is that at all these restrooms, there were small signs all over the place saying "Don't Waste a Drop," or, "Please Do Not Waste Toilet Paper," etc. I found myself thinking about this, and this is one area in which I believe we, from the West, can learn a lot from the Chinese. They do have bad water shortages here (especially in Gansu, where we will be living and working) and even if we do not have the same problems, I think everyone should still keep this in mind. I think this is like the "eat up your food, there are starving children in Africa," that parents might say to their children, and as rediculous as that might sound, I think it is all a matter of attitude. If we are not prepared to think along these lines, (keep other peoples and cultures in mind as we go about our day to day lives), and if we do not try to empathize with other peoples' situations, how can we even try to begin to understand any other peoples? (Refer to Gen. 2:15). So my idea of the day is to be like the Scandinavians--when showering, turn of the water while showering, while you soap up or shampoo. This is a good start!

Have a good week and please keep in touch. I will try to send some pictures too.

Love,
Rachel and Tomas

At the altar

Purple water flower

Buddhist temple

Macau city view

Beautiful flower opening