THE PORTUGUESE WERE HERE IN MACAU

From the square, we walked again and the road was going uphill a bit. The number of people increased suddenly and the pilgrimage became merrier. 

Do you see what I see from afar?

And the, from afar, we saw the most prominent landmark of Macau - The Ruins of St. Paul. It was originally a church that was built by Portuguese long, long time ago but what was left behind was only the ruins. It is now one of UNESCO Heritage Sites. Read more about it HERE.

There were just too many people here and everyone was too busy taking pictures. In the end, I think I was observing people's behaviour more than the historic building. 

We saw this one group of Indonesian girls who were conquering the front area of the structure and posing like front page cover girls so I asked one of them to take a photo of us. We just had a few photos together throughout the journey. I have to learn how to use Photoshop after this.

smoked meat

The shops along the road were doing good business. People were flocking around these food stalls selling variety of Macau's delicacies like the smoked meat, ginger candy and topping the list would be the Portuguese Egg Tarts.

Portuguese egg tarts

Ginger candy

fridge magnets anybody?

The souvenir items here were a bit expensive and I was a bit disappointed because I could not test my bargaining skills. So I just bought one piece of fridge magnet for myself. Serve them (the shopkeepers) right!

next posting: MACAU MUSEUM

THE HISTORICAL SITE OF MACAU

Right after taking pictures of the modern buildings, we went to search for Macau's historical site. It was not that difficult, we just had to: first, follow the cobbled walkway along the shops (the cobblestone pavement was already an attraction) and second, just follow the flow of the crowd, I felt like as if I was in some sort of a pilgrimage. However, people were moving in both directions and the corrIdor was quite small so be careful to avoid accidents from happening.

My first impression: it was as if I was in Melaka, except the buildings were more colourful and it was much colder. Macau was once colonized by the Portuguese and had become the place where Christianity was first brought into east Asia. The Portuguese influence was still prominent there as the sign boards were written in Portuguese words other than Chinese and English. I wonder whether Portuguese is Macau's second language.

ST. DOMINGO'S CHURCH

the metal door

This was one old church that was opened to public. There were police officers inside who told people not to make noise while they were inside the building.

T O   B E   C O N T I N U E D . . .