A trip to Macau

On the southern border of Zhuhai lies the city of Macau. Originally a Portuguese colony, it became part of China ten years ago and now exists in a limbo land as a half Chinese/ half independent special economic zone. Chinese nationals can only go to Macau once per year and everyone needs a passport to go there, yet it is officially part of China.

All the signs in Macau are bi-lingual in Portuguese and Chinese. The architecture is a whimsical mix of old Portuguese, old Chinese, and modern casino. The first casino, The Sands, was built in 2004 and now the city is littered with massive casinos. It is a bigger gambling center than Las Vegas.

Our trip began with a 40 minute shuttle bus ride from our suburb, Tangjia, to the southern edge of Zhuhai where the border crossing is. We walked to the border crossing, which is a very large building with many lines. The first line took 20 minutes and when we reached the counter, we discovered we needed to fill out a form. Since we didn't bring any pens with us, we borrowed the clerk's pen and took turns filling out our official information. Once through that line we encountered the health officials who were handing out the ubiquitous health form you see at every airport. I can't imagine who would ever check the box saying they had a sore throat or fever, since that would mean massive delays and a possible denial of entry. I also can't imagine where all these forms are filed since thousands of people fill them out every day. I wonder how they are filed since we used English, but most people write their Chinese names with characters. Oh, the mysteries of China.

Once we were through the health gauntlet we had to get in another line to get through the Macau border. Again, we filled out a form with our official information and hoped the clerk would stamp our passports with her red seal. It all seems rather silly and a waste of time and money, but what do I know?!

After an hour in the border crossing building we walked out into Macau and were greeted by casino workers dressed in smart looking uniforms, handing out coupons and ushering us to casino buses. Since the buses are free, we headed to the Venetian Casino.

The Venetian is not only the biggest casino but also the largest building in the world. It needs a huge space to hold a Venetian canal, complete with gondolas and singing gondoliers.

Inside the building, the sky is always blue with white fluffy clouds; it's perpetually approaching twilight; and you are surrounded by old Venetian buildings and squares. The bathrooms have beautiful brass fixtures. The shops are filled with expensive clothes and jewelry while bored looking shop clerks wait for customers. The hallways are filled with camera clicking Chinese tourists.

The Venetian is on a smaller island just south of the main island of Macau. So our challenge was to figure out how to get back to Macau Island. No worry - the Sands Casino supplied a free shuttle back over to their establishment. We rode the airconditioned coach bus to the Sands and then hailed a taxi cab to take us to the old section of the city.

Senada Square was being decorated for a big celebration with large colorful fruit hung on wires across the street. We set out walking, attempting to keep track of where we were on the small winding streets that radiated out from the square. We came across St. Mark's Cathedral. We stumbled upon a cemetary with a lovely chapel and a mix of Portuguese and Chinese names. Around every turn were interesting shops and restaurants.

Senado Square

Street Near Senado Square

Can you see the tiny street between the buildings?

St. Mark's Cathedral

Cemetary

We ended up at the Ruins of St. Paul's. St. Paul's Cathedral was the largest church in the city before it was ruined by fire in the late 1800's. All that remains is the massive front wall and grand steps leading to it. The front wall is carved with the obligatory Catholic saints, but also a Chinese dragon and a skeleton. By the time we reached the Ruins, we were exhausted from walking for two hours in the 100 degree heat. Rebekah climbed the steps to look out of the window and then hiked to the back of the ruins to see the crypt of the priest who planned the church. The crypt was worth the walk since it was 25 degrees cooler inside it.

Ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral

Next to the Ruins was a gift shop where we saw figurines made of amber. The proprietor proved to me they were authentic by putting his cigarette lighter to the bottom of one. I guess that proved they weren't plastic - but couldn't they have been red glass too?

Wandering the streets a little longer we were greeted by people giving out samples of food, jostled by the crowds, and overwhelmed by the sights and sounds. We stopped at a MacDonalds to use the restrooms (some things never change no matter where you are in the world).

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We found a little Portuguese Restaurant for supper and were happy to find a menu we could read (in English, Portuguese, and Chinese) and great food. The salad was grated carrots and oranges, the soup was potato and spinach, the main dish was pasta and beef or pork. Only the dessert was a disappointment. One always has high hopes when a dessert accompanies a meal. But when the waitress placed a plate with a small round piece of wiggling white jello in front of us, our hopes were dashed. It tasted faintly like almond jello. Nathan took one bite and then played with the rest.

The street our restaurant was on

Nathan anticipating that great dessert!

Here it is!

We asked the waitress how to take the city bus to the Macau Tower where we wanted to watch the International Fireworks Competition. She gave us good directions back to the MacDonalds and told us to take bus 32. After a few wrong turns, we found the bus stop, but no Bus 32 was listed on the sign. We asked a woman if she knew the way to Macau Tower. She waved us over to a man who spoke English. He directed us across the street to Bus 18, which delivered us to the waterfront across from the Tower.

Macau Tower is a huge "space needle" type building on the southern edge of Macau Island. It is filled with shops, restaurants, and offices. By this time of the day it was dark and the lights from the surrounding casinos reflected across the water. People can bungy jump off the top of the building for $400. One can also walk along the outside edge of the building (with a safety harness hooked to a track in the ceiling of the overhang) for $200. Maybe the next time we visit we'll try that!

Yes, it really is that tall!

(Check out the bungy jumping here)

The fireworks were stunning, but the music accompanying it made no sense and echoed incoherently down the water front. We stood eating ice cream and pastries, watching the display along with thousands of Chinese in the heavy tropical night air. The final burst floated in the sky with little red Chinese lanterns in the shape of a Chinese character.

As we watched the fireworks, the thought hit us that all these people would be trying to catch a bus or taxi home at the same time and place as us. Sure enough, after the fireworks ended at 9:30pm, a massive crowd moved to the bus stop in front of the Tower. Over a hundred people were in line for the taxis so we tried our luck with the city bus. Earlier we had asked the Tower information desk which bus to take, so we surged forth with the crowd when Bus #9 arrived. Mike led the way as we became part of a mass of marbles all funneling into a tiny shoot. Only two teenage girls got between Mike and I, but when I turned around on the bus Nathan was a dozen people behind me, still on the sidewalk. This was no time for Minnesota Nice. Nathan pushed along with the other people and was one of the last people to climb on the crowded bus.

One young Arab man, lucky enough to find a seat, clutched a city bus map (I wonder where he found that?) and looked frightened. He asked a man standing near him where to get off for the ferry back to Hong Kong and discovered he was on the wrong bus, going the wrong way. He was adviced to get off at the next stop and take a taxi if he wanted to make his ferry.

During the 30 minute bus trip back to the border, we stood the whole time. It turned out that 80% of the people on the bus were headed to the same place, so no seats opened up.

Back at the border we had to fill out the same set of forms, for all three sets of bureaucrats. Unfortunately when Mike and Nathan picked up the health form, they filled out the one for entering Macau rather than entering Zhuhai, so they had to redo that one. This meant we missed the shuttle bus back to Tangjia by 10 minutes.

As we walked across the wide open square outside the border building, a young, cleanly dressed woman carrying a 2 year old approached Mike and said, "Hello. Thank you. Hello. Thank you." over and over. Apparently she wanted money and even though Mike ignored her and kept talking to me, she kept saying, "Hello. Thank you. Thank you. Hello." with a smile on her face.

Eventually we reached the city bus stop, exhausted. It didn't take us long to decide to hail a taxi for a 25 minute airconditioned ride home for the equivalent of $13 rather than stand for 40 minutes on the city bus for $1.50. The ride home was a roller coaster experience where our lives flashed in front of us at least twice. The driver wove in and out of traffic, changing lanes, zooming through intersections, honking his horn to warn pedestrians and bicycles.

11:15pm we arrived home. Even though we experienced a lot, Macau has many more things for us to explore such as art museums, historical museums, Chinese Lion dancers in the Square by the Ruins, and many more churches and parks. Our next visit to Macau will be easier with our newly gained knowledge. We'll also wait for cooler weather. Maybe we'll even take the ferry around to the side entrance and avoid the long border crossing lines....

Typhoon

We experienced our first typhoon this past week. On Monday children at school were excited because a big typhoon was predicted. Typhoons here are like blizzards in Minnesota - they carry the potential of canceling school for a day.

Monday evening the winds picked up and the rain started. At first it was a typical thunderstorm, but then the rain came down in torrents and the wind had the trees dipping and waving. In our cement block apartment building with study windows we were safe and dry.

Monday evening the public and private primary and secondary schools canceled classes for Tuesday since the brunt of the storm was to reach us by Tuesday afternoon. Ferries stopped running, flights were delayed, and businesses closed early.

The college didn't decide to close until Tuesday morning, which caused a lot of confusion. Some faculty road the city buses to campus at 8:00am. Others waited for the college shuttle buses to pick them up at their usual spots, standing with umbrellas in the wind and rain.

The college e-mail notice told us to keep checking for more messages because if the warning level went down, classes would resume in the afternoon. At 12:00pm we received notice that classes would start again at 2:00pm. As I headed out at 12:30pm to catch the shuttle bus to campus, the rain was coming down in torrents and the wind was still blowing. My pants were soaked by the time I got on the bus. Amazingly, 38 out of 50 students showed up for my class.

By 3:00pm the storm had passed leaving lots of small branches and signs blown over, a number of big trees uprooted, and a few flimsy buildings without roofs. Now we understand that the braces around the trees on the boulevards are there to stablize them during a storm.

One of the nice things about typhoons is that the temperature drops and the wind feels good!

Tennis

Tennis is not a big sport in China, but our apartment complex has two courts and Nathan loves to play. On our second day here we met Giff Searls, a man who works in career development at UIC, but whose passion is tennis. He is trained as a Peter Burwash tennis coach and has coached many famous people like Bill Gates and Harrison Ford. He invited us to join a group of people who play tennis every Monday, Wednesday, Friday afternoons from 5:00 - 7:00pm.

Giff loves to teach and coach tennis; Nathan loves to learn about tennis, so they have been a perfect match. Nathan's tennis game improved more in 15 minutes with Giff than it did all last summer. Giff has a marvelous positive attitude and friendly demeanor. He also plays a mean game of doubles. Power is not the key to his game - control is. If you play him, be ready to run around the court alot.

The tennis group is an interesting mix of people. Steven Chen pays for and reserves the courts for us. He is a retired business man; originally from Hong Kong, lived most of his life in New York City, and retired to Zhuhai. A few years ago his wife became ill with cancer and he came to China to try an alternative treatment. He knew there were risks and the treatment caused her to have a stroke. Soon after that, she died. When Mr. Chen goes to Macau, he can stay at the largest gambling casino, The Venetian, for free because his son, an investment banker in NYC, helped with the financing of the casino. When Mr. Chen lived in NYC, he and his wife would often fly to Las Vegas to gamble all weekend, taking the red eye flight home on Sunday night. When Atlantic City opened up gambling, they flew down there in a helicopter for the weekends. Mr. Chen plays a good game of tennis, but since he smokes and carries about 20 pounds too many, he has to rely on skill rather than speed.

Mrs. Lui is a tall, athletic Chinese woman in her 30's with buck teeth and a ready smile. She is Mr. Chen's housekeeper. Elan is a petite, Chinese woman in her 20's with a bobbed hair cut and sparkling eyes. She is Mr. Chen's cook. Mr. Chen supplies the women and their families with their own apartments in Horizon Cove. Every M/W/F afternoon the two women play tennis with Mr. Chen. For many years they played badminton every day and now they play tennis like it's a badminton game, popping the ball high in the air. They almost never miss, but the ball never comes fast and strong towards you, only high and looping. They speak almost no English so when Giff tries to organize a round robin game with extra players, they never understand what he is trying to do. They just smile and keep playing their tennis/badminton.

Clare is an American ESL teacher at UIC. Marya is an American business teacher at UIC. Clare can play a decent game of tennis so she is matched with the better players. Marya joins the badminton players. It is all a lot of fun and no one keeps score.

New Food

Embracing the adventure of a new culture, we have tried a number of new foods in the past 2 and 1/2 weeks with rather mixed results....

Durian Fruit - Commonly called Stinky Fruit. This football sized fruit looks like a spiny sea urchin and its odor greets you at the door of every grocery store. It smells like spoiled milk. We have been told that people get addicted to the taste of the fruit inside. At a restaurant in the Gombei underground shopping mall, we ordered a durian fruit, vanilla and coconut ice cream dessert. The flavor was a unique blend of banana, peanuts, and rotten potato. We think it must be an acquired taste. We left the durian fruit on the plate and focused on the ice cream instead.

Hua Long Guo - Fire Dragon Fruit - This beautiful fruit gets its name from its red outer skin. It looks like a very large artichoke in beautiful pinkish red. The fruit inside is white with many little black seeds and a texture like kiwi fruit. The flavor can be summed up in one word - bland. It really tasted like water - and what's the point of eating that?!

Frog legs - Yes, frog legs really do taste like chicken, but they have many little tiny bones. So why not just eat chicken?!

Squid - This was part of a large dinner of many different dishes. It was chopped into small pieces and stir fried. It had a mild flavor with a definite rubbery, chewy texture. Nathan gave this a thumbs up.

Red Bean Buns - Imagine a soft white creamy dough on the outside and a thick red bean paste on the inside. Heat them up in the microwave or fry them on the stove. We were all in agreement that red bean paste is another acquired taste....

Beef buns - Imagine Grandma Hvidsten's barbeque on a soft white bun and you will know why Nathan loves these.

Shrimp Pringles Potato Chips - A bad idea on many levels....

Sweets from the Danish Pastry Shop - Who could go wrong with a European Pastry Shop? We chose three sweets. First we had an angle food cake with spun sugar on top. It must have been in the shop for weeks since it was dry and tasteless. Our next choice was a sugar cookie. Again, it was old and stale and none of us finished it. Finally we tried a puff pastry with a filling that looked like apple or maybe almond paste, but it turned out to be durian fruit. Ach! Lesson learned - just because it sounds like western food, doesn't mean it tastes like western food.

Fish - We live on the ocean and ride the bus past acres of oyster fields every day. The boats of local fisherman line the harbor so fresh fish is abundant. We don't know what kind of fish we are eating but it sure is delicious. Yesterday we bought fish at the "wet market" - a very large farmer's market where you can buy every food imaginable in China - bananas, apples, grapes, lemons, bok choy, broccoli, onions, carrots, potatoes, egg plant, many kinds of greens, beef, pork, chicken (you can choose a live one and have it butchered while you wait), and fish. The fish are in small cement ponds built into the floor. You choose your fish and the fisherman or woman retrieves it for you, whacks it on the head, descales it, guts it, and puts it in a flimsy plastic bag for you to carry home. My fish kept flopping around in the bag the during the rest of the morning shopping. Cooked with a little green onion and ginger root, the fish was wonderful!