Macau

On Saturday December 19, Mom, Dad and I went to a place called the Island of Macau. It is an island about 1 hr boat ride away from Hong Kong. It is an island still owned by China, but like Hong Kong it is governed by itself. Macau was owned by Portugal for 450 years until Portugal gave it back to China in 1999. There is still a large European influence, as can be seen in many of the buildings and life. The island is interesting, there is the old section, which has a large Portuguese influence. Then there is a new section that is full of casino's and very modern. Apparently there are a lot of high rollers that come and play at the casino's and gambling brings in a lot of money. We didn't spend any time in this part of the island, except to catch a taxi!

This sign is typical for signs on the island. I thought it was fascinating that all of the signs were in Chinese and Portuguese.

In order to get to Macau, we took a boat. This is what the boats looked like that we took.

This is me and Dad getting into the boat.

This is part of the old town square. They had up some beautiful decorations for Christmas!

Macau apparently is pretty well known for it's shopping as well. Look at how many people are on the streets. This was actually not very crowded yet!

There were some pretty amazing places that are on the island. The first one we went to is the Fortaleza do Monte. It was built in 1616 and originally was where the settlement was founded. The walls are thick and there are big cannons that surround the top to help with protection (or for modern day peoples such as myself to take pictures with!)

This is the view of Macau from the top of the wall.

We also went to the facade of the Ruinas de Sao Paulo. This is what remains of a Jesuit Cathedral built in the 1600's. It is built at the top of a steep staircase. It's beautiful.

We were able to go behind the facade and climb up a staircase to look out some of the windows and get a great view of the city.

We went to a Catholic church called St. Dominic's Church.


While walking around we saw some celebrations going on in honor of Christmas. Some of them were very much reminder of the Chinese influence! We were able to see a dragon dance... well, actually 2 dragons dancing with typical Chinese instruments being played for music.

While trying to find a Protestant Cemetery, we went into a large city park called Luis Camoes Garden. It was a beautiful garden with plenty of plants, large open areas and even some old Chinese men playing what we think was checkers. We also came upon some Chinese women doing some sort of dance. We weren't sure for what, but it sure was fun to watch.


We finally did find the Protestant cemetery which was mostly in English, although we did see some German.


Here are just some general pictures of Macau.


After a very full day, we got back on the boat and went back home. It was an awesome day!

Hong Kong for Christmas!!!!!

So this year for Christmas I gave myself a trip to Hong Kong to visit my parents. I got in Thursday night, December 17. I'm not going to lie... It was a long trip! It took around 21 hours for me to get here to Hong Kong. I flew from Salt Lake to San Francisco, then luckily I had a direct flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong. That flight was just over 13 hours! Needless to say, it was a LONG trip! However, I have just about 3 weeks to adjust to time over here! :)

Friday for lunch Mom and I went and met Dad and some people from his office for lunch. One of the girls took us for lunch to a Japanese Noodle House. I have to say it was really pretty good! The noodle bowls are served with a ladle attached to a long wooden handle and chop sticks. I learned that the way to eat a noodle bowl is to scoop up some broth, put some noodles into the ladle with the chopsticks, then to eat the noodles and broth. Slurping is allowed! Thanks to my mad chopstick skills... I ate like a pro! Not only was lunch fun and an experience, the food was really pretty good!

Here are some general pictures of Hong Kong. I am absolutely amazed at how tall the buildings are. It's like any big city, but still, I'm a girl from Alaska! It truly is incredible to me how many people live in such a small area. There are always people around! I have been quite impressed with my Mom... she has gotten to be quite the aggressive walker. I have been concerned a few times that I may have to stop and provide medical care for some old person Mom has knocked down! ;)

People in Hong Kong do celebrate Christmas. It is interesting though... There are not really any religious symbols around. Also, the colors used to decorate are a lot more purple, pink and silver, not as much red and green.

Hong Kong is awesome so far!