Macau Madness

At the conference in Korea I met the former PhD adviser (Brian) of my officemate (Quadir, from Bangladesh) with whom I had planned to do this whole trip (but his pregnant wife got sick and so wisely he stayed home). Brian is semi-retired from Hong Kong University and now lives an hour jet boat ride away in Macau. He and his wife invited me to stay at their home, and so I went, knowing no more about the place than that it used to be a Portuguese. Well, maybe I will just let the pictures speak for themselves. This is all a 24 hour period on an island that is just 10 square miles.

The Lisboa casino, with the largest curved display in the world, and the most phenomenally hideous tower being built above it (also huge presence from the Sands and Wynn):

One of the several Portuguese churches we saw:

The entrance gate at a Buddhist temple:

The ruins of St Paul Cathedral:

The view from Brian's new flat in the city center with all the casinos...across the water is communist China:

Another view, showing the casinos on the right, China (with rice paddies just out of the picture) on the left, and the crossing between them, including a complicated loop-de-loop of road that gets you from driving on the left to driving on the right!

And my favourite - the largest curved display in the world, all built with bamboo scaffolding!