I’ve now been in Macau for 24 hours, and I have made the most to see a fair bit of it, whilst avoiding walking the streets like the stereotypical tourist – oblivious to all around them, and with their head stuck firmly in a Lonely Planet guide. Don’t get me wrong, the LP books are handy, and give you the basic information you seem to need to navigate your way through a foreign country/city, but I have heard that sometimes people use the books as a paint-by-numbers way to travel ( “Go to lunch at A, as per pg 123. Then have afternoon tea at B, pg 126. Then dinner at C, pg 128. Take identical photo to illustration on pg 130….“)

My day started at about 9AM, although I can’t be sure of the time because 1) I was sleepy, 2) I didn’t check my watch and 3) I am still split between two timezones. Patrice, the other Couchsurfer staying with Lena and James, was leaving after having stayed up all night working on his short film. A very cool guy, even for a Frenchman. (NB: That was a joke, just if anyone wonders.) After sitting in bed for a while, writing up a couple of entries for this blog and tweaking the layout a little, I decided to embrace the day and get out for a walk. Lena and James had given me a set of keys for the apartment, so I didn’t need to wake them (such lovely trusting people) and I was off.

I started by getting a feel for where Lena’s apartment was – walking to each end of the block and taking note of the street names, and identifiable stores so I had some reference points for later in the day. The unfortunate thing about Macau is that, to the untrained eye, like mine, alot of it is somewhat identical – like the backgrounds out of Scooby Doo episodes. Anyway, after getting that baseline bearing, I started wandering, in no particular direction, to see what I could find. With it being Day 2 of 3 for the Chinese New Year, alot of the stores which I am sure would normally be spilling out onto the footpaths were closed up, so there were stretches of road which felt somewhat like ghost towns.

I found some markets, which I wandered down looking at the various goods on sale. There were some ubiquitous items (knock off jeans and jumpers), which could just as easily be found at Paddy’s Markets as in Macau. There were also some rather unusual items, like a store which had a spayed barbequed piglet hanging from the rack, along with what I think was deep fried eel. There was plenty of fruit of types which I had and had not seen, and flowers and tons of other things. I didn’t buy anything from the markets as my day was only just starting (and I didn’t want to be lugging around BBQ Babe).

I retraced my steps and decided to investigate in a new direction. This time I headed out towards the Monte Fort – an old military fortress on the top of one of the few hills in Macau. To get there I passed by an old cemetery. The cemetery was an interesting place – a mix of Christian memorials, some of which bear effigies of Christ but with distinctly asian features along with Buddhist memorials, and a number of which were non-descript, simply bearing the resident’s name, date of birth date of death and “R.I.P”. I went into the chapel and just relaxed there for a moment, sitting on the hard wooden pews which remind me all too well of Sunday masses with my grandparents, or the masses I used to attend when I was at primary school. Pews which were so uncomfortable I remember squirming on them as I started losing feeling in my bum. Dunno – that may well be the intended effect – transcendence through pain.

There was a small balcony area with stairs leading up to it, so, me being me, I decided to investigate. It led onto a small room in the bell tower, with a single bell, not attached to any ropes or similar. Across the top it was embossed “Novelty Ironworks H.K.” Not sure if they mean “novelty” as most people I know would interpret that word – being as a joke, or whether it was a case of poor translation for “custom(ised)”. And, again, me being me, I struck it softly. That bell was so well tuned, a tiny tap and off it went. I had to try and deaden it with both my hands, which eventually worked, and then I made a hasty exit down the stairs which more resembled a set of potential neck breakages than anything else on the way down.

After leaving the cemetery, I continued out towards the Fort. I checked out the Ruins of St Paul’s Cathedral, which was packed with tourists. Of course, most of those tourists were Chinese, which made them hard to pick out of a crowd. Kind of imagine if one day, in Sydney, every resident woke up and looked at the city as a tourist – would create some pretty crazy (albeit lovely) scenes, wouldn’t it? Well, that was the scene.

One thing which struck me about the various shops which lined the streets packed with tourists, was the number of pharmacies they have here. Either pharmacies are not the same as pharmacies back home, like cafes in Amsterdam, or people in Macau must be some of the biggest hypochondriacs on the face of the planet!

After meandering down the streets of the more formal tourist market-y area I found a large square which had tons of decorations for New Years. I had no idea where I actually was (as leaving the Lonely Planet guide at the apartment also meant I was without a map) – I simply knew the path which had roughly led me to where I was. So I reversed that track to find my way back. I checked a couple of the stores on the way through – clothing seemed about as expensive (and possibly more so) than home, whereas electronics seemed a fair bit cheaper. I considered buying an iPhone, both to combat the power problem (in my rush to pack, my Nokia charger had failed to make the flight) and to give me easy access to internet (through one of the many unsecured WAPs which seem to litter this city) and might also be able to link into my Skype account to give me a connection to home. The price was around AU$600 or so, so I will have to check to see how that compares with the rest of the world. But anything that charges via USB is a good thing – means I just need to be able to plug my laptop in (and it’s power system seems pretty good).

Deciding not to impulse buy, and as all prices, at a number level are 4-5 times more than the AUD equivalent (as AU$1 = HK$4-5), so a AU$7 hairbrush is marked as MOP35 (MOP = Macau Patacas which are close enough to Hong Kong Dollars to make them interchangeable. Although Patacas are aout 1.25% less, meaning most vendors will take HKD and pay change in MOP. Oh, and Patacas are not as widely accepted outside of Macau.) I headed back towards the Cathedral and then headed up to the Monte Fort – one of the many old fortresses around Macau, with almost every mountain/hill boasting one.

After climbing up the steep basalt/granite stairs to the top of the mount, along with a few hundred tourists, I reached the ring path which runs around the fortress. Most of the tourists headed right, making a bee-line for the “Armourial Gates”, but, being me, I went left, to see more of the fortress from the outside, before making it around to the gates in due time.

As I walked along the path, the scale of the fortress struck me. It was not a massive construction – nothing to the scale of fortifications I have seen on TV or in photos from Europe or even parts of America. But the amount of material which had to be hoisted up a very steep slope on all sides was massive. And the walls themselves – smooth-skinned and at least twenty feet tall, made me thankful I never had to look at them as an attacking soldier.

I made my way around to the gates, and then into the inner courtyard, which has a number of the old cannons at their stations on the battlements and is dominated by a colonial style building which is the top of the Macau Museum. I didn’t go to the museum, as by this time it was getting close to closing time, but I did find that the top building was also the top floor of a set of escalators and stairs allowing you to enter and exit the fort from the inside. Much easier, and I did use it as my way down, but I think that climbing the outside made the experience all the more impressive.

I headed back to the apartment and then got a message from Lena telling me that James and herself, along with some other friends were at Senado Square to see a dragon dance, and invited me to join her. It was a serendipitous invitation, as I had just been thinking that I was finally getting my head around navigating through Macau. So here was a challenge – find a location which I did not know, based on it’s Portugese name (which no-one else seems to know) and then get there.

So I set off, with no map, and no idea… Yet.

I found that at the “Circle-K” stores which litter this city, along with 7-Elevens, they give away the Macau telephone directory. I flicked through one, hoping to, and finally finding, a map of the city. Alright, now I have a map, but it does not have Senado Square on it. But it’s a start. I then started wandering in the direction which I though was most likely to be the right way, until I stumbled upon a tourist map. In the corner, written in rather small type, was a legend which mentioned the Square and from that I found it on the map. A few minutes later and I was on my way, legging it across town to meet the guys for the dragon dance.

I managed to find them, in the square, and in time to catch one of the dragon dances, which was great.

After the show was over, we headed to the MGM Grand casino, as Lena had a ticket in a draw for a Masserati, which a previous Couchsurfer had left with her (you have to gamble a certain amount to be able to be given one of these tickets). But the draw was in a few hours, so we didn’t stick around that long. Instead we grabbed a quick meal and then headed back to the apartment which we then gave a quick clean to as Lena and James were expecting a new housemate that night. Many hands made light work, and we were done in no time, before heading over to “Kun Yam Tong” (a local temple which we use as a landmark for taxis, etc.) to meet May, their new housemate.

On the way back to the house, we stopped by 7-Eleven and bought some beer and then chilled out around the table for a few hours just shooting the breeze.

So, all in all, a very interesting, challenging and rewarding day.

Getting back to the title – one of the things I keep finding about Macau is that it seems to give the impression that it is multicultural with it’s Chinese/Portuguese street and business signage and with some signs also having English on them, and whilst the influences of other cultures are evident in the architecture and food and other aspects of the physical side of Macau, the only language which seems to be used actively for everything here is Chinese. I love the history of the place – don’t get me wrong about that, but it does feel like the city wants to be alot of different things and just doesn’t follow through on all of them.

But, hey, I have only been here for a day – what do I know?