Zhongshan to Macau

Thursday October 24, 2013
After breakfast, we left the Sheraton Zhongshan Hotel and traveled by bus to Macau.

 When we reached the coast of the South China Sea, we stopped briefly for a photo op with the Fishergirl statue. There's some story behind this but I can't remember what it is.

 The short ferry ride from Zhuai to Macau was a bit hectic. China's leases to Portugal and the UK for Macau and Hong Kong expired in 1997 but they agreed to leave both former European colonies as they were until 2047. It is still necessary to get a visa (on arrival) and go through customs when entering or leaving Macau or Hong Kong from China or anywhere else.

 Our first stop was the Chinese temple near the original Portuguese landing place. There are little shrines all the way up the hill behind the temple.

 The temple itself was very small and crowded so it was nice to relax for a moment partway up the hill.

 Our next stop was the old fortress of Macau with modern Macau in the background.

 From the fortress we could look down on the facade of St Paul's Cathedral, the old Portuguese Church. The rest of the cathedral burned down in the 1830's, I believe.

There are lots of tourists on the steps leading to the cathedral.

 The main square in the old part of Macau is quite beautiful.

We wandered around a bit more in the old part of Macau and then took the bus out to the Sheraton Macao Hotel Cotai Central, which is an area of new construction that seems to be on land reclaimed from the ocean. Once again, our hotel is very fancy. Since Macau is famous for casinos, our hotel has a big casino on the main floor. There is an enclosed mall with shops and restaurants, leading to other hotels and casinos.
For the first time on this trip, dinner was on our own. We looked at some of the expensive restaurants and at the less than desirable food court. We really weren't that hungry anyway. Finally, we saw a few others from our group at a McDonald's so, against all dietary sense, we had a hamburger. That should do for another 10 years.
We wandered through the casino briefly but, not being gamblers, it didn't hold our attention for long.