While on our trip this Christmas break, we jumped from Hong Kong to Macau for a visit. I am not too interested in gambling and neither is Jiao Jiao, but I still managed to lose a few RMB.
I had been to Macau one time before, the summer of 2004, and I was interested to see Macau again and see how it had changed. It was completely unscientific observation we stayed in a different area in 2007 than I had stayed in 2004 and we were much more focused on where we were going and what we wanted to see.
In 2004, I was amazed at how different the society had grown in comparison to the average Chinese city or Hong Kong. It was slow moving, casual you could say. There were fisherman sitting all day on the pier and people eating noodles for breakfast at 10 am. I spent that trip mostly walking around the residences and the pier, but I did make it into the touristy area as well. Here are some of the more memorable pictures from my 2004 trip.
This is a picture of a normal road, it was actually on the way to downtown. Notice how empty it is. I have seen similar architecture to this in both Guang Zhou and Manila. I think it is a European influence, although I have yet to travel to Europe. It is very functional for a climate with a lot of rain.
Here is the pier where I spent most of my trip walking, it was peaceful after busy Hong Kong.
These were the houses along the pier, very unique in China.
Here is a photograph of the street signs which were used in that area. I would consider it to be rather extravagant, but it looks really nice.
Here is a picture of the Church on top of a big hill in Macau. I forget the name right off hand, but it is on the tourist map. It is easy to see, but not easy to find. The roads often fork one way or another and you just have to keep turning uphill. It was a hot and steamy day when I went and I was covered in my own sweat after I finally reached the top.
Here are pictures of the two main tourist sights taken in 2004.
We also took pictures of them in 2007.
But, in 2007 we decided to go into the Church because Jiao Jiao had never been into a Church. Also, we were able to get a look at the ruins of the old Church which was being renovated in 2004.
We also went to the old army fort at the top of another hill. Here are some pictures of that area. Also, here is a comparison between a picture from 2004 and 2007 of the city in general.
Here are two pictures of a city view from 2004.
Here are similar pictures from 2007.
Here you can see some Chinese people in the public grass digging for food from 2007. Apparently they can eat some root from the dirt and so they dig up the grass to find it.
When we left the hotel to go to the tourist area, we took a wrong turn and ended up walking right into an area called The Fisherman's Wharf. This place is obviously very new and I am sure it did not exist when I was there in 2004, maybe it was under construction. It looks like a closer version to Las Vegas than Macau looked in 2004. There is the Sands Hotel and Roman-style architecture for tourists to see.
Actually, in 2004 there were only a couple of places to gamble and they were packed. In 2007, there are many more casinos with plenty of seating for everyone. New names have came to town to make some change in Asia like Sands and MGM Grand. We were right down the street from the MGM Grand, here are some pictures of the visit there.
It was nice to be in Macau for a day, but the next day we walked to Zhu Hai - back to China, something I had done in 2004 as well.
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