flip'n travels

While the aircraft’s tilting to make a 90 deg turn to the reclaimed runway, we saw lights beaming from the ground–alas, the sin city of the orient.

We arrived at the Macau International Airport past 9pm. Even though the casinos are kilometers away, I can feel the Las Vegas ambiance by merely looking at the uniformed chauffeur in the airport.

We wasted no time, after throwing our luggage randomly on our beds, we ran-off the street to search for our perfect Macanese dinner. The streets are narrow and rustic (reminiscent of Venice meets Diagon alley) but are amazingly clean… so taking the cab is a moronic waste of money.

alley near sao lajaro

part of the old university near ruinas de sao paolo

We were smitten by the fact that we are walking on cobbled marble curbside. For couple of minutes, we thought we were in a suburb somewhere in the Iberian peninsula. The only thing that reminded us that we were in China is the constant presence of the Olympic rings and advertisements (what a commercial oppression)

By 12 midnight, signs of life in the island are densely concentrated in the Casinos, so we checked out the infamous district. You can smell money burning from a mile away, and I thought the slot machines outnumbered the total population of Macau.

Somewhere along the way, we stumbled upon several Cantonese restaurants, as well as some lines of Thai Diners. The smell of the roasting flesh can easily lure me to splurge on an eating hysteria. BUT NO! I’m here to try an authentic Macanese food. Not Thai nor Cantonese not even cup noodles. But after more than 2 hours of hopeless walking and searching, stores started shutting close, and we were left with no other choice, but McDonalds.

A basic meal costs around PhP180-PhP230

I traveled this far to eat at McDonalds?

My first sumptuous dinner from a legendary culinary place turned out to be a Happy meal, super sized!

While yakking and whining I entered the fast food chain with a subconscious anticipation that there were also slot machines inside!

Macau is a walkable city… So walkable that we went out only to have breakfast and suddenly, the towering icon loomed over us. Since we were there already, we decided to seize the moment for a photo-op.

The place is not even a church church… What tourists see now is the façade of the Church of Mater Dei destroyed by fire in 1835 and the ruins of St. Paul’s College; which stood adjacent to the church.

Ruinas de Sao Paolo now functions symbolically as an altar to the city amongst other churches and, of course, the casinos.

GETTING THERE: Upon reaching Lagro do Senado, walk around the place,  St. Paul’s Ruins’ just around the corner, literally, it is just within 500 meter radius. The plethora of stalls selling from kites to beef jerkies will guide your way leading to the ruins. Just explore the small alleys around the area and you will be bumping on to it before you can even finish your box of egg tarts.

photos by ron cruz

We are both caffeine fueled creatures (Homo sapiens caffeinensis fabulousness). Starbucks is a basic necessity and it can be found at the bottom of our food pyramid. So it is imperative to say that whenever we travel we make it a point that we spend several unproductive hours sitting on an al fresco chair, shifting to trance mode while almost robotically sipping our fix.

It is also our way of recharging the energy that we exhausted while walking around the city. So we found a Starbucks shop (the only one, actually) in the middle of Largo Do Senado. It is a small space fitted in a turn of the century building together with other shop niches. It is narrow and the seats outside are limited. I guess residents of Macau are not a huge fan of this brand, because I realized that most of the customers are actually Filipinos and/or tourists.

photo by Ron Cruz

The Baristas are not as surgically obsessive compulsively neat as the ones found here in the Philippines; they don’t mind staining their aprons with coffee spills. The view in front of the shop is an endemic McDonald’s food chain, so it is not really compelling enough to do a prolonged hanging-out. So we opted to simply walk away with our cups to stroll around the plaza.

A tall cup costs around MOP36 (PhP200, US$4.20)

Santa Casa da Misericordia

A Video Montage of our trip to Macau and Hong Kong (August 2008)

[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6eIM6fVNl0"]

Macau shares a colonized past with the Philippines. The Portuguese stayed in the island for more than 400 hundred years and had set up the city to look like Lisbon, their capital. This holds evident looking at the black and white cobbled-stone streets on Lagro De Senado as well as streets and alleys leading to government offices and famous landmarks of Macau. Even the buildings have an Iberian air.

Lagro De Senado is a converging point where people would find designer and local boutiques and Chinese and Macanese restaurants lined up, including fast food chains, banks and coffee shops. Igreja De Sao Domingos is also located in the plaza. This church was built around 1587, making it older than Ruinas de Sao Paolo.

Facade of the Igreja De Sao Domingos

Tip: We found a money changer that gives the highest exchange rate at Av. Almeida in front of Leal Senado. Believe us, we were looking for a money changer for 3 hours and finally stumbled on to this place.

It was Olympics at that time we were there and they had a big screen set up at the end of the plaza so that the people were updated with the games. There was also an art exhibit in the middle of the main street displaying Chinese art and Olympic themed sculptures with an Oriental twist.

wooden sculpture rendition of a 300 meter dash

Winding alleys branching out from the main plaza are also lined up with shops and food stalls. It was almost like being inside a big maze. Hawker’s place abound selling pork buns and tarts and of course, indispensable Chinese noodles. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to find Ron’s ever so coveted gelato. We asked someone where it was located, we followed his directions and we ended up finding Häagen-Dazs.

Shops at the Senado Square