Trevor and I arrived in Hong Kong right before the Chinese New Year. This was a really interesting time to arrive as we got to see the preparations that take place as the city got ready for the upcoming holiday. Mini orange trees popped up in every lobby, red envelope sales appeared in most shops, and beautiful paper lanterns appeared throughout the arches of shops, and were strung across the parks. As the holiday atmosphere became more and more visual, business as usual slowed, and our work visas ended up being a bit delayed.
After two weeks of being “tourists”, our visas finally arrived, and the final step for activation was to leave and re-enter Hong Kong. The quickest and easiest way for us to do this, was a ferry from Hong Kong Island to Macau.
Macau is a former Portuguese colony, now turned Chinese “Special Administrative Region”. According to a quick search on the internet, it is one of the world’s richest cities, as well as the world’s largest gambling center. The biggest appeal to us was that it was a mere hour away by ferry, thus making it the fastest way for us to activate our visas.
Upon arriving to Macau, we took advantage of the casino’s free transportation into the city, which dropped us off amidst some very expensive looking Casinos. A quick walk through MGM, provided us with a quick taste of the high-end casino culture; gold statues, marble facades, and a lot of mirrors. As we wove our way towards the exit, a glance at the tables lets us know that $100 USD was the smallest bet being accepted.
Old town Macau is a strange mix of Chinese culture, mixed with Portuguese style architecture and tiles. The colorfully printed ceramic tiles cover everything from intricate mosaic floors, to sides of buildings, to street posts. The textures, patterns, and colors were enough to make you feel like you had entered into Portugal. This was sharply contrasted by the abundance of Chinese street food – fish balls, various intestines, and entrails which quickly reminded you that this was indeed, China.
Our first (and so far only) trip to Macau was short. We spent about 3 hours in the town before heading back to make sure we got our return Ferry. After a small hiccup in immigration, were they claimed they could not read our visas and made us wait in immigration “jail” we finally made it back to Hong Kong, with activated Visas, ready to work.