Monday, February 21, 2011

Bus and Walk. Walk and Bus.

So today I'm going to recap the last day of the welcome program. It was exciting! It was jampacked! It was so tiring. We started at 9am and toured Macao, Taipa and Coloane until 7pm. While the tour was awesome, and I was very excited to get to see the city, by the end of the day I was ready to curl up in my bed and not wake up for atleast 12 hours.
With that said, let the tour begin!
My friend Terry. He is Korean and this is traditional dress for him. Korean males wear it twice in their lives. The first time when they turn nine and the second time when they feel they have become a man.
This is looking going out of Kun Iam Temple. My apartment is across the street. : )

This is inside Kun Iam. People burn many different offerings in these.


Three Lamps Square! It's a really good shopping district that also has some reallygood restuarants. If you want you can even partake in a tasting of brain.



St. Anothony's Church - The first of a bagillion group photos!




This street is called Lover's Street. There is a story about two teenagers who were in love. One was Macanese and the other Portugese, so they were forbidden to be together. In the middle of the night the two met here and ran away together. (now I might have this slightly wrong. I'm telling it purely from memory.)





Love this photo because I happen to catch my friend Sidsel jumping for another picture being taken! The panda is because the Chinese government gave Macao two pandas as a sign of goodwill.






Old set of doors.








Old street markers. I thought they were gravestones when I first saw them.










Traditional puppets. They are oddly beautiful and kind of creepy.









In the museum they have a street scene set up to show what the streets of Macao used to look like.











THE RUINS OF ST. PAUL!













Looking down from the steps of St. Paul's. This is the most visited sight in Macao, and as this was during the end of the Chinese New Year it was extremely crowded.












Three of my wonderful friends.














This was probably the moments I finally felt like I was in Macao. I'd seen so many photos of the ruins, and going there I felt like I had made it!















This is where we ate lunch. It was so yummy. We had chicken curry, rice and cheese, fried rice, etc. There was so so much and most of it was very good.
















This is at the IFT Taipa Campus. This room is suppose to mimic a western restaurant. I can kind of see it, but really it looks more like a banquet hall to me. And I didn't realize westen restuarants had such a large bar. haha

















The massage room! Sadly no massages for free. You have to be in the Spa class.


















A typical classroom.



















The most famous street in Taipa. At one shop we could sample everything! I ended up buying some biscuits that were filled with orange peels. They are delicious.




















One of the many New Year displays. This type of display is everywhere.





















Waiting for the group to gather.






















Emily and Me. still waiting. It's so much more fun to take photos than just sit and wait.























Looking across to the casino district on Taipa. The amazing thing is that this pond use to be the shoreline. I find it kind of sad.
























Jatana!
























In Coloane we got egg tarts. They are a portugese snack that Macao is famous for. I thought this one was really yumm, but the funny thing was the Portugese exchange students hated them.


























I can eat! Ta-dah!



























A little square in Coloane.





























In front of a church in Coloane.





























I thought this looked cool. We were at A-Ma Temple when I took this. A-Ma Temple is the most famous of all temples in Macao. The story goes that Portugese explorer came ashore and asked a local them what the name of the island was. The locals thought they had asked what the name of the temple was. In Cantonese the name for A-Ma is Ma Gao, so the locals told the explorers Ma Gao. Now you can probably guess what happened. Slowly but surely the pronunciation morphed from Ma Gao to Macao! : )






























The Golden Lotus. Another gift from China. The reason it is gold is because in Chinese culture gold represents money, and the Chinese love money. My friend told me that.































































































No comments:

Post a Comment