Day 3: Car Tour of Macau!

This morning we were supposed to meet Eve and Kim (the ELC director, aka our boss boss) for dim sum at the Kapok restaurant behind the Altira building where we usually get off, but when Susan and I got there, the restaurant had a sign saying that it was closed for a few days. Instead, Kim drove us down (she drives! In Macau! On the left side of the road!) to the southernmost part of Macau: Coloane (路 環 – Lou Wan in Cantonese).

Map of Macau-Taipa-Coloane
(click for a bigger version)

Coloane and Taipa used to be separate islands, but the Macanese government “reclaimed” a lot of land in-between, which is now known as the Cotai strip (meant to be modeled after the Vegas strip since a lot of major casinos are there). Coloane itself is still fairly undeveloped, however, with lots of woods and hiking trails, as well as the famous Hac Sa (黑 沙) black sand beach. As you can see from the map, mainland China kind of wraps around Macau, so as we were driving south, we could see wind farms on Chinese territory.

This was the view from the restaurant where we ate lunch
(The green hills are mainland China)

Besides having a delicious meal, we went exploring a little around Coloane Village. In one of the churches, I first wondered why there was a painting of Guanyin, a goddess of mercy in Chinese mythology, but then realized it was a Chinese depiction of Madonna and Child:

Having lived in Macau for almost ten years, Kim had a lot of interesting things to point out along the way – a youth hostel at the tip of Coloane, a marine sports center (where a lot of people stored kayaks and canoes), a huge swimming pool where we could pay student admission rates, her favorite hiking trails, the old shipyards, and much more. The highlight, however, was the A-Ma Temple, which we never would have gotten to on our own because it was pretty much at the top of a mountain.

The entrance to the complex (lots more uphill driving after this!)

The architecture and the sheer amount of detailed work (carvings, gilding, etc.) was incredible – I can’t even imagine how much time and hard work it took to bring all these materials up the mountain, much less put it all together.

The main temple courtyard

The courtyard gate (view from the courtyard)

The temple itself

Huge statues of A-Ma and other gods inside the temple
(being repaired that day)

A few close-up shots of the carvings – I particularly liked the dragon column because it reminded me of the ancient Chinese earthquake detector, where the top dragon would drop the ball into the mouth of the bottom dragon (or a frog’s mouth, depending on the version):


The crowning glory of this temple, however, is the huge statue of A-Ma that’s carved from several thousand pieces of (unpolished) white jade. The statue is so large that we could glimpse it from the Cotai strip, clearly visible amidst all the green treetops. It requires a further hike up the hill to get there, but it’s definitely worth the view.

Side view of the statue

View of Taipa and Macau – you can even distinguish the Macau Tower

On the way back to UM, we stopped by the Taipa Municipal Cemetery, which sounds morbid but is actually more historical and picturesque than creepy (kind of like the Grove Street Graveyard). It’s a massive place, with terraces wrapping around several hillsides to accommodate all the years of families bringing their deceased there. You can actually see the graveyard from the UM library, which will be an important fact for a later story.

The graveyard guardian

One side of the graveyard

After more driving around Taipa and Macau, Kim left Susan and me near our apartment, so we headed home for dinner and rest to prepare for the official start of training!