Day 4: Yum! Suspicious Meat-Paper!

December 21, 2010


Today was the day trip day... meaning... I had to.. get. up. early. 

AHHHH! The horror. 

Anyway, we walked to the China Ferry Terminal and took the First Ferry to Macau, which, like Hong Kong, is a SAR (Special Administrative Region) of China, meaning that we had to go through customs. Yay! Honestly, though, the exiting Hong Kong and getting on the ferry was pretty easy. In fact, the ferry itself was super nice - assigned seats that were bigger than coach seats on airplanes! Plus, the ride was only like an hour. 

It was the customs in Macau that was where the fun started. Along with - literally - thousands of people, we waited in a standing line for an hour. By the time we were done, my feet felt like they were going to un-attach themselves and eat me out of vengeance. 

The wait length makes total sense considering the fact that Macau has 27 million visitors a year and actually makes $3 billion more in profits than Las Vegas does each year. Yeah, Vegas. Suck it. Of course, Frommer's said, "Oh the lines not bad! It won't take more than half an hour." Useless lying assholes. 

So after we got through customs, we caught a cab (also cheap like in Hong Kong) to a restaurant highly recommended by the book. Unfortunately, though, it was closed, and I very nearly launched in to a public tirade about how much Frommer's sucks, but I realized that the book did say that La Lorcha was closed on Tuesdays. 

By this time, we were like rabid squirrels in the ferociousness of our hunger. Fortunately for us, though, the book recommended another restaurant down the road, which we found out was, quite literally, just down the road. 

Our new eating home is called Litoral and serves Macanese food, which is a mix of Portuguese and Chinese culinary traditions. I'll be honest with you; I was predisposed to not like this place, because I had wanted Portuguese food, damnit! But, this restaurant drop kicked me in to a 180. 

It. Was. Awesome. 

Oh my God; the food was amazing. I had minced meat with fried egg and rice - Sounds boring, right? Absolutely not. It was tasty as all hell. My dad and his fiance had chicken curry and saffron pork, respectively, and both said that the meal was delicious. 

If you ever go to Macau, go to Ristorante Litoral. You will not be disappointed. 

It was at this point that my dad decided to split off and go play poker at one of the many casinos - I would assume that you got the impression that Macau is a gambling Mecca by the fact that it's profits are more than Vegas'. If not, you're a dumbass. - Anyway, Colleen and I went to a temple close to Litoral called A-Ma (dedicated to the Sea-farers Goddess of the same name), which is the oldest Chinese temple in Macau.

It was pretty damn old alright. Nasty. Falling apart. Etc...

I'm kidding. It was in fine shape and is mostly made up of rocks and stairs and crap anyway. Despite my fun-making, A-Ma is actually kind of neat, because it has a view of part of the harbor and it's an actual functioning temple, so you get to see people going there and making offerings of incense and that sort of thing. Speaking of incense, there were these weird yellow coil things hanging from, well, everything, and they looked like little Christmas trees. Once we got up close, though, we realized they were coils of incense that burned FOR FREAKING EVER by the sheer length of them. For the rest of the day, I looked for places you can buy them, but the temples apparently have some sort of cabal/blackmarket incense ring that only they're privy to. 

All the while we were in the temple, we were getting texts from my dad saying that he couldn't catch a cab to save his life, so while Macau may have cheap cabs, they aren't nearly as easy to grab as in HK. In fact, he later told me that he got on a bus and pulled out the equivalent of a 20 or so dollar bill. They made him get off. 

Apparently, he eventually got a cab after half an hour. We were not so lucky. Upon leaving the temple, we noticed that there were some tour buses around the corner. Thinking that was a transportation center, we walked over there. Cabs? Nope. So, we continued to walk down the lane... which turned in to a parking lot... which turned in to a street... which turned in to a private road running along a canal. On the bright side, we got to see the Macau Tower, which is quite impressive, but that was kind of eclipsed by the EPIC WALK AROUND THE MIDDLE OF BF NOWHERE IN MACAU. At one point I could vaguely see the Wynn in the distance and was heading toward it like the city was a desert and the casino was the holy grail of oases. 

We never made it to the Wynn, because some random-ass person was getting dropped off at some random-ass place on the random-ass street we were walking down. We literally ran after that cab with arms-a-flailin'. 

The cab took us to another temple, the?????. and the traffic on the way was a douche. Seriously. It sucked bad. The temple, though, was interesting. Unlike the last one, this one was much more "temple-y" in that it had more in-door areas and shrines. In fact, there were numerous offerings and shrines to the recently deceased. 

Okay. Cultural experience taken care of.

Once again, we took a cab to our next destination, though it took a hell of a lot less time to catch a cab this time around. Said destination was the ruins of Saint Paul's Cathedral, which is basically just the facade of the church. It was neat (especially the bone container thingies), but the real treat was the walk down from it, because the church is at the top of a well-known mosaic tiled street lined by old Portuguese-styled buildings, which you are, of course, expected to walk down.

So we did. 

It was pretty neat; there are lots of antique shops, if you're interested in that sort of thing, and food stores, most of which give out free samples. Yum. In fact, we tried some of their version of almond cookies! I was excited, because I happen to really like almond cookies. Unfortunately, though, the Macau (maybe actual Chinese?) versions are gross. They're very dry and powdery; it's like eating pure flour. If you happened to be a resident of Macau there on that day and at that time, you would have seen a random tourist walking around looking like she was going to gag. I literally was looking for somewhere to spit it out, but in the end, I had to suck it up. 

Also very prevalent along the street were these strange concoctions. They were all shiny and flattened to about 1/4" - 1/2" thick and I suspected they were made of meat. Of course, I just had to try some, so I walked up to one of the guys handing out free samples and motioned like I wanted one. He said something in Chinese (at least, I couldn't understand him) that definitely meant something along the lines of "Are you sure you want to try this suspicious looking food thing, tourist?" I nodded my head vigorously, so he gave me one. j

YUM. Suspicious meat-paper is tasty. I wanted buy some, but it looked as if you could only buy large amounts and I didn't know if it was even legal to bring food like that through customs. 

Sadness. 

Anyway, we continued on down the street and came across a real treat. I mentioned before that Hong Kong was decked out for Christmas, and Macau, apparently, is no different. Epic icicle lights hung over the street for a good distance, leading up to a giant Christmas tree made purely of lights. It was quite a site to behold. Upon getting closer, there were many other Christmas decorations scattered around the base of the tree and the facades of buildings (Santa Pandas are very popular.). 

Not one to let good shopping escape me, I spotted a bag I liked very much - I was seriously looking for a large bag at this time to bring back all the stuff I'd purchased. - but when I asked the lady how much, she said "tomorrow" and walked away. 

Good business strategy. 

Done with the lame shopping area, we headed toward the Grand Lisboa, which was the casino where my dad had ultimately ended up. I don't think I mentioned this before, but the Grand Lisboa is the newer building added on by the Casino Lisboa to accommodate more guests and gamblers. It is significant because it is one giant-ass building (one of the top 100 in the world, I believe) and you can see it from almost anywhere in the city. It is very noticeable not only because of its sheer size but also because it is one seriously ridiculous building (it looks like a giant plant made of lights). 

"Grand Lisboa." Google Image that shit. Seriously. 

Our walk took us through the section of Macau where most of the casinos are - This area is home to the Lisboa, the Wynn, MGM Grand, Sands, etc... - and it was lit up like all hell. Vegas  looks a bit like a turd compared to this area. I shit you not. 

It wasn't a long walk from the Portuguese section to the Lisboa, so we were inside the casino within half an hour, and let me tell you, the interior is no less impressive than the exterior! Besides the classic casino elegance of crown moldings and rich carpets there are floors and floors of tables and subfloors with restaurants on them that overlook the casino floors, making the overall rooms far bigger than anything I've seen in Vegas. 

Speaking of one of those subfloors, we sat at a little cafe on one and watched the tables below (I even got in a few pictures, which isn't allowed. Teehee.). We were also SO lucky as to catch one of the shows - if you can call scantily clad women dancing (poorly, at that) a show. At one point, one even started taking off her clothes!

Awkward? Very. You should have seen the crowd of men gathering.

Luckily, no one ever actually got naked. Thank God. I would have died of embarrassment for my gender. To the casino's credit, though, there was an acrobat at one point which was cool. Overall, however? I'm gonna pass on that experience again. 

On a happier note, we, joined by my dad, ate at one of the hotel's restaurants, ???? and it was pretty good. I won't lie. I'm writing this like a week later and all I can remember is that we had some sort of noodles and steamed pork and fried beef dumplings. Quite good, I must say. 

After dinner, we caught one of the hotel's free shuttles - Handy? I think so. - back to the ferry terminal. Thankfully, going out of customs in Macau and entering customs in Hong Kong was  lot easier/shorter than our earlier experience. 

By the end of the day, I think I would have died if I had had to stand for another hour.