Work Permit - Macau Trip

I'm now legal to work in HK! Yippee! We had to exit the country as "visitors" and re-enter as "work-permit residents," so we took the opportunity to go to Macau, a little island one hour away by "Turbo-Jet" ferry.


Macau has an interesting history - is has a great deal of Portugese influence (has many centuries of being ruled by Portugal), it was briefly a protectorate of Japan (WWII), and was not handed over to China until until 1999, although there have always been Chinese on the island. Like Hong Kong, Macau is not completely "interested" in being called "China;" it holds on to its heritage as being independent from China in many ways. Under China's theme of "One country two systems," Macau (and Hong Kong) maintain their own simplified passport control offices, so it is easy to get in and out.

Anyhow, Macau was the quickest / easiest way for us to get into and out of HK for the appropriate passport stamps. It is not exactly a great fun place for kids - - it is the gambling mecca of the region (MGM Grand, Sands, Venetian - - all the big names are here). So we spent the day introducing the kids to 21 and Cubalibres (ha ha ha ha JUST KIDDING!!). But Macau does have a nice little town center which was getting geared up for the Mid-Autumn Festival - which will be held the night of September 14 (full moon). Everyone celebrates by hanging lanterns and eating moon cakes.
The town center has these wavy stone patterns - kinda cool although a little "vertigo-ish" at first.

Portugese influence can be seen in the local architecture - - unlike Hong Kong, Macau is trying to preserve some of the older buildings and keep so many skyscrapers from popping up.

Although my Spanish language skills are NOT good, it was nice to see writing in a Latin alphabet, and I could make out most words on the menus. Some of the traditional food looked great, but they had no plain rice or chicken nuggets. So...we ended up at this very silly sushi bar -

...in the center of the long table, you'll see all these covered sushi items on different colored plates. This thing rotates and you grab the one you want. The pricing is according to the color of your plate. (We ordered tempura and plain rice - Jessica was the only one brave enough to try the sushi - shrimp on rice but I think the shrimp was boiled.)

All in all, a fun little adventure!