As fascinating as it is to explore what a Chinese city looks like if it were ruled by the British for 150 years, if you're at all curious about what it would look like if a Chinese city were ruled by the Portugeuse for nearly 450 years (!), well that's just next door! As you can see from the map below, it's just a 1hr ferry to Macau from HK, and it only costs about US$20. There's also a recently completed bridge connecting HK and Macau. I believe the driving time is really only 2 hours, but the bus will take longer both because buses always take longer and from what I read online there's some complexity as one goes through the immigration area and gets back to the bus.
When you get to Macau, you get a paper visa similar to the one you get in HK. As you can see it's in English, Portugeuse, and Chinese all at the same time.
Macau is famous as a gambling destination. Surprisingly, despite being on the other side of the world, the main casinos are developed by the same organizations that run the Las Vegas casinos, such as Las Vegas Sands and Wynn Resorts. The fountains at Wynn Palace in Macau are reminiscent of the fountains at the Bellagio (and are, in fact, made by the same company, WET Design).
Just like Vegas, they have monuments from different parts of the world.
They even have canals and gondolas inside the Venetian!
And yes, the sky is not sky, it is ceiling!
Macau is not very large. It consists of just two islands, Macau and Taipa/Cotai.
Most of its land comes from reclamation, a lot of it surprisingly recent, just take a look at this gif
As such, most of the historical and touristy things are on the "original" main island of Macau (I suppose it's not really an island since it has a land border with neighboring Zhuhai, but for certain practical purposes it is indeed an island). This is where I spent the afternoon! The main tourist attraction is the Ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral
One other attraction is the Macau Tower, and you can even go outside if you like! I chose stay inside 😁
I strolled through the neighborhoods of Macau a little longer before I needed to catch the ferry back to Hong Kong, and got this wonderful photo of the tower.
