#flathal #flatstanleyproject #macau
The A-Ma Temple has the classic swooping roofline so often seen in pictures of Asian countries.
After our visit to the temple we drove by a Las Vegas style area, with golden hotels and casinos competing for our attention.
Several times we got confused, trying to figure out if we were looking across the river into China, or still seeing part of Macau.
Our day trip to Macau was like an amazing field trip to a place we never thought we would get to visit. We traveled with people who learned about Macau as a territory of Portugal when they were in school! Others on our tour were fluent in Portuguese and disappointed the locals didn’t speak the language, even though the street signs all had Portuguese on them.
From the Macau Tower we got a bird’s eye view, allowing us to appreciate a place that “grows” by “reclaiming land from the sea”—they add sand like we add pieces to our Lego set to make bigger stuff! Macau is at least twice as big as it was 50 years ago!
Outside A-Ma Temple we saw a road made from stones that traveled around the world in the bottom of a ship, helping keep it balanced and “fully loaded”— ballast stones.
It didn’t sound like it to us, but a simple miscommunication led to Macau accidentally being named for the A-Ma Temple. The first Portuguese sailors asked where they were, the locals gave the temple’s name (A-Ma-Gau), and the sailors heard Macau. It’s been Macau ever since!
The Flat Friends really enjoyed our day trip to Macau. Experiencing as many different places, and cultures, as possible is one of the many highlights of our adventures.
Our ship stayed overnight in Hong Kong— making this one of the rare ports where we had almost two days—so we could tour both Macau and Hong Kong!
