My Trip to Macau

Well, another week has passed in Hong Kong, and my how things have changed. I am now an official resident of Hong Kong for the next year (previously I was here as a tourist), I have a Hong Kong ID number (my card will be here in 2 weeks), I have more stamps in my passport, and I am continuing to get settled in Hong Kong.

Yesterday, Nathan and I made a day trip to Macau. It used to be under Portuguese rule, but now it has been returned to China, similar to Hong Kong previously being under British rule. Also similar to Hong Kong, Macau is a separate entity from Mainland China, so you don’t need a Mainland China tourist’s visa (which is expensive)to go there, but you do need to get your passport stamped to visit there from Hong Kong. I had to leave Hong Kong and re-enter under my employment visa in order to activate it, and Macau’s proximity made it the perfect location for my travels.

We spent the day touring Macau, seeing various old churches, forts, lighthouses, and more. In the afternoon, we wanted to go visit the Protestant Missionary Cemetery. We got in a taxi, pointed to where we wanted to go on our map, and we were on our way. The taxi driver pulled up to a cemetery, but it was a Catholic one. Not that there’s anything wrong with Catholic cemeteries, it simply wasn’t the one we wanted to visit. So, we told the taxi driver we were at the wrong cemetery, showed him the map again, emphasizing that we wanted the Protestant cemetery, and again pointed to it on the map, just to make sure there was no confusion. He looked at the map (which was very easy to read), seemed confused, called HQ on his radio to double-check his directions, got a response, seemed excited, and we were on our way. A few minutes later, we pulled up to a cemetery, paid our fare, and jumped out, excited to see this Protestant Missionary Cemetery. Nathan and I walked in and discovered that every tombstone there had a crescent moon and a star on it. What’s more, we found that the small building next to it was the home of the Macau Islamic Association. The man took us to the wrong place, twice. Nathan said he couldn’t believe the guy got the totally wrong religion. I couldn’t believe the guy took us to the totally wrong side of the island. Yes, that’s right, the wrong side of the island. We showed him the map twice, specifically pointing to where we needed to go, and somehow ended up farther from where we wanted to be than we were when we started.

But, the trip to the cemetery wasn’t a total loss. On the way, we spotted a Dairy Queen (which they don’t have in Hong Kong). As we walked back toward our ferry, we retraced our path from the taxi ride, found the DQ, and each got a blizzard. It was an excellent way to end a fun day abroad.