Macau

Just a short ferry ride away from Hong Kong is Macau. Macau is a former Portuguese colony and you really get a sense of that as you wander around the historical centre, with the architecture and patterned paving, not to mention all of the pastel de natas. Also like Portugal was the life size nativity scenes across the city.

There are some quite interesting sites to see including the mount fortress built in 1626 with a nice view of the city, and the ruins of St.Pauls, a catholic church built in 1640. The church burned down in 1835 leaving the facade still standing at the top of a hill.

To see a bit more out of the centre I took a tour bus taking in some of the unusual architecture and the 338 meters high Macau Tower. Instead of going up the tower I decided to visit the food fair that was taking place at the bottom where I had some good green tea ice cream and some griddle cakes filled with fresh strawberries!

Macau is the only Chinese city where casinos are legal, and there are plenty of them along with huge malls. Seemingly styling itself after Las Vegas some of the casino/hotel complexes are like mini cities including London, Paris, and Venice. I didn't stop at any of these though, opting to stay on the tour bus to the last stop of the ferry terminal where I headed back to Hong Kong.Read more