Lady Ho Tung Visits Macau

Macau: ancient Portuguese colony meets Las Vegas.

Administered by Portugal until 1999, Macau was the oldest European administered colony in China and along with Hong Kong is now a special administrative region (SAR) of the PRC (People's Republic of China). Go here for cute streets, signs that are written in Portuguese, Cantonese and Mandarin, gambling and more gambling.

For our first day-trip out of HK, Team Canada ventured to Macau--a one-hour boat trip from HK Island. Anne and I were determined to explore the old part of the city--having been forewarned that new-Macau is the Asian answer to Las Vegas. The others were mostly concerned with making some quick cash and flying home on a helicopter. The day, which was largely spent wandering around in parks and seeing "sites," culminated in my first gambling wins--hello big money mceachern.

Get this: there's no alcohol permitted in the casinos, so you've got all these rich Chinese (mostly) men dressed in suits, chain-smoking and throwing chips around while sipping on milk tea and OJ.

Of note: it's been said that Vegas should be called "America's Macau" because in 2006 Macau's casino revenues beat those of Vegas.
Hello Team Canada. When I hang out with Navine, Gave, Hess and our Korean-American friend we look like a mini-model UN.

Lady Ho Tung strikes a pose in front of the Ruins of St. Paul's.

The sun sets behind a temple. This is about as much as I saw of the temple despite marching at top speed through the seedy streets of old-Macau. Upon arrival we were met by an elderly Chinese man waving his hands frantically in our faces insisting that: "finish--finish!!!" Anne kindly interpreted this for me as "closed." Bummer.
Old Portugal goes for a stroll.













Old-school gambling. Men gather in the park to play mahjong and cards.