National Day: Happy 60th birthday to the PRC!

Thursday morning started off with a bang, literally - people were setting off firecrackers in the street, which woke me up waaay too early considering we had stayed up late chatting with Azita and Joseph the night before. Amy had deviously invited Azita to see their apartment, planning to have an early surprise birthday celebration.

Azita making a wish on her chocolate “peanut” cake (made by Holly)

Anyway, I stayed in for the morning to avoid all the craziness outside, but around 1 PM, I hopped over to the ferry terminal to pick up Jessica L and Jessica M, two of the Hong Kong ETAs who had come to visit for National Day. We met up with Brian and Mari as well, then headed out to explore what Macau had to offer on National Day.

The first stop was Tap Seac Square, where there were plenty of Mid-Autumn Festival decorations, but there was also a huge open-air concert/carnival going on, with things like mini-car driving and an inflatable obstacle course for the kids (oh, Richfest memories!) I was especially amused by this moonbounce that is supposed to resemble the Guia lighthouse and fortress:

Ta-da!

Between Tap Seac and Senado, we also found this charming side street with cobblestones, Portuguese-style buildings on both sides, and these mildly freaky pinata-style bunny lanterns.

Look into their eyes, I dare you...

They're even creepier up close

At Senado there wasn't much for National Day, besides the big gate that's been there for a while, but we also went up to St. Paul's and saw some more Mid-Autumn Festival decorations there, like this massive lantern:

The top part spins!

Of course, by now I've been to Senado many times, but I still manage to find something new and/or amusing on every visit. This trip's highlight was the sign advertising one of the street shack eateries across from Lemoncello gelato...possibly the least appealing translation EVER:

Eww.

For dinner, we opted to try some Portguese food in Taipa Village, where there are lots of supposedly good restaurants. Our first choice was unfortunately super-crowded, so we ended up at Pinocchio, which opened up their second floor because there were so many diners. The restaurant had a cute menu and nice facility, but pretty mediocre food and absolutely awful service. We asked four times why we didn't get a basket of bread (as everyone around us was), with four different responses:

1) Let me check with the manager.
2) You have to order soup to get bread.
3) We ran out of bread!
4) It's coming, it's coming!

When we finally got our food (we were one of the first tables seated and one of the last to be served), it was pretty disappointing. I had ordered the pork chop rice, thinking it would have a savory sauce soaking through the rice similar to what we had at Fat Siu Lai a couple weeks ago, but instead it was a bowl of rice, with a pan-fried pork chop on top (that was at least 1/3 bone), slathered in ketchup (of all things). Ick. After scraping off most of the ketchup and cutting out the bones, I ate it because I was hungry, but it was still barely palatable.

They need someone to be their conscience

To make up for the bad dinner, we tried to go to the Altira hotel to watch the last night of the international fireworks festival, but the view wasn't that good (too much reflection from the glass) and Austria just failed. As Jessica M. said, "I was expecting the Alps [in fireworks], or at least the von Trapp family!" What we got instead was a rather bad show with awkwardly long pauses (so long that we thought the display had ended twice before the actual finale). It was so clearly the worst of all the entries we had seen, we figured that either Austria had been paired with China on purpose, or they had been paid off or something.

As might be expected, China went all out for their National Day fireworks display, with massive bursts that went even taller than the Macau Tower! All in all, quite an impressive National Day celebration =D

Weekend recap: Hac Sa, fireworks, casino tour, and more

Friday evening after work, Susan, Sam and I got slightly lost in Z.A.P.E. after getting off the bus a few stops too early, but after some walking around we finally met up with the MPI girls for dinner at "A Taste of India" near the Kun Iam statue. I thought my spice tolerance had increased throughout college after rooming with Atisha for three years, but things here still seem to have quite a kick, and the combinations aren't always what I expect. For example, my chicken curry had a LOT of cilantro, along with some other unidentifiable spices...I think I chewed a bit of ginger at one point and there was something that looked like a raisin but smelled lemony. It was still really good, but quite, um, flavorful.

Sam and I were pretty tired so we went home early while the others went out bar-hopping, but we all slept late in preparation for the afternoon/evening full of activities. Things started off around 4:30 PM with the UM exchange students' barbecue, all the way down at Hac Sa (Black Sand) beach.

The beach, which I guess is more dark brown than black

A cool sculpture overlooking the beach

The exchange students' association, including people hailing from all sorts of places (mainland China, America, the Philippines, Finland, France, Germany, among others), had invited us ETAs to join the fun, and we took the opportunity to explore the area a bit more ourselves. Joseph and Henry, two local students, had also come along to meet more of the exchange students (they both studied abroad, so their English is very good), and because they had kindly agreed to guide us to a good local restaurant for dinner, but more about that later.

Hac Sa itself was nice and cool, partially because it was so cloudy, which made it perfect weather for the annual beach rugby tournament. Austin wasn't with us at the barbecue, but that was because he was playing rugby!

Attempting to dodge a defender

By early evening, we were getting kind of peckish, so Susan, Henry, and Joseph stopped by one of the little food stalls to get a snack...a very protein-rich one =P

Susan with her snack, which looks like it escaped from Davy Jones' locker. She said it was yummy.

For dinner, we headed back to Horta e Costa, where Joseph and Henry guided us to a popular local joint called Sun Iek. Amy and Holly joined us for dinner as well, so it was one big party. While I'm getting a bit tired of Cantonese food all the time, I thoroughly enjoyed the tong cai, shrimp with cheese, pork chop with spices/cheese, spicy fried pork pieces, and curry chicken in a giant bread bowl!

Yum.

Post-dinner, Joseph and Henry left us to start their homework and Amy went home, but the rest of us caught the 32 bus down to the Lisboa to watch the second round of fireworks: Taiwan vs. France. Both were definitely better than last week's contestants, although my photos aren't as nice because I didn't have the backdrop of the Macau Tower.
After the shows, Holly went home, but Susan, Sam, and I randomly bumped into Emily while walking around the MGM. We continued exploring the casino lobbies, some of which had some extremely amusing decor:

The light/water show at the Wynn

Chinese zodiac-themed dome in the Wynn rotunda

"Legend of the Golden Panda" at MGM

Mock Senado Square (which doesn't really look like Senado) in MGM

More pandas in the MGM =P

We stayed out until the wee hours of the morning, but it was a pretty satisfying night of explorations, so it was all worthwhile =D

Exploring Senado

昨 天 下 午 去噴水池 逛 街：買 了 一 條 皮 帶， 也 吃 了 上 海 煎 餃 和 台 灣 胡 椒 餅。

Yesterday afternoon, I went to walk around Senado Square (it’s just referred to as “The Fountain” for the large fountain in the middle). I bought a belt, and I also ate Shanghai-style fried dumplings as well as a Taiwanese “pepper-meat bun” (the translation just says pepper bun).

我 們 找 到 了 一 家 書 店 那 裡 有 許 多 英 文 和 中 文 小 說。 我 不 知 道 Roald Dahl 寫 了 那 麽 多 本！
We (Susan and I) also found a bookstore with many English and Chinese novels…I never knew Roald Dahl wrote so many books!

I may just have to buy some of the titles here, because I've never seen them in the US...the "new" ones appear to be geared toward older readers, mostly consisting of short story collections. Still, seeing a title like "Kiss Kiss" from the author of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" was a bit disconcerting. The rest of the bookstore had a semi-random hodgepodge of titles, but I may go back to find something simple to read in Chinese once I've improved my vocabulary a bit more. It's definitely true that context helps - I still have trouble just recognizing individual characters (one reason that typing in Chinese takes me so long!) but reading signs and stuff is usually ok because I can figure out what the whole phrase is supposed to be. Going home last night on the bus, I knew a restaurant served "seafood hotpot" even though I had no idea what the character for guo (kettle or pot) was supposed to be =P

I may just have to buy some of the titles here, because I've never seen them in the US...the "new" ones appear to be geared toward older readers, mostly consisting of short story collections. Still, seeing a title like "Kiss Kiss" from the author of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" was a bit disconcerting.

我 在 噴 水 池 最 喜 歡 的 店：果 子 天 地！
This place is possibly my favorite shop in Senado Square: Fruit Wonderland!

Besides having lots of delicious American candies (Coca-cola bottles, gummy bears, even gummy penguins), they also sell an incredible variety of Chinese “snacks” like shredded squid (there’s a shredding machine right by the door), peanuts, and many dried fruits. Some of the English translations are pretty hilarious, as seen below:

The best part, though, is the fresh fruit juice. So far I’ve only tried the mango, but man, it’s gooood =D

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!

Day 2: Exploring with the GAs

Woke up early this morning (jet-lag!) and went exploring a bit...found my way back to the Sanmu grocery store and picked up some cereal (Honey Crunch Corn Flakes!) for future breakfasts, but the third floor was closed off so I couldn't get a bowl or spoon to eat said cereal. To make up for that, I stopped by the Saint Honore Cake Shop, the smaller of the two bakeries across the street from the bus stop, but it's a chain brand throughout Macau and HK. It's quite cheap and delicious, albeit unhealthy for daily consumption: I got a tsa sao bao (BBQ pork bun) for 5.5 MOP and a "Rocky Bun" (buo lo bao) for just 3 MOP, so spending just over $1 USD.

"Rocky Bun" with red bean paste - just 4.5 MOP!

I managed to find my way back to the Altira roundabout via the 25 bus, where I met up with Austin, Holly and the other two MPI ETAs, Emily (yay for Yalies!) and Amy. After some adventures figuring out where we were supposed to meet Eve and using a New Century Hotel payphone (since none of us had cell-phones or Macau simcards yet), Eve took us on a quick tour of the UM walkways...so much more convenient than hiking up the hill! We ended up spending more time in the ELC than expected - the MPI ETAs all had to check email and deal with something about their MPI contracts.

For lunch, Eve brought us to Senado Square to meet Karen and Tom, two UM grad students who are working at the ELC as graduate assistants (GAs) helping students with their writing. They took us to a little dumpling/noodle shop for lunch (where Emily was curious to try the "black fungus", then all around Senado Square, the historical center of Macau.

Senado Square

We were able to get a lot done - purchase cell phones/simcards, get fresh-squeezed juice (mango, yum!), sample beef jerky/almond cookies/egg rolls from street hawkers, and take some ridiculous photos, like this one:

There was some historical stuff too - the ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral (the rest was lost to a huge fire), and the Mount Fortress, with old cannons and a great view of Macau:

St. Paul's, with huge weekend crowds

View from the balcony of St. Paul's

An antique cannon at Mount Fortress

By the end of the day, we were all pretty tired...Karen walked Susan and I back to Horta e Costa, passing by more landmarks like the Macau Public Library and the local flu clinic =P Tomorrow will be even more exploring, so time for bed!