2 VISITING MACAU'S SENADO SQUARE AND RUINS OF ST. PAUL

St. Dominic Church..parang nasa Pinas lang. :)

This is the continuation of our Macao’s horrible yet funny adventure. I would say our entire tour was full of unforgettable experience. We already accepted the fact that we booked our travel by mistake to Macao. And I thought that was the end of the dilemma however there was a lot, plenty of challenges waiting.

We understand that we need to leave The Venetian on scheduled time since we already divided our precious time. Apparently, we got lost! The Venetian is too small for us to get lost but for some reason we ended on the same place where we started. The computerized map system wasn’t friendly at all. Tensions heightened so I got nerve to ask locals and gave us directions to exit. It was already 2:30PM and we only have more than two hours left to visit Largo do Senado and Ruins of St. Paul.

o   The Senado Square, or Senate Square (Portuguese: Largo do Senado), is a paved area in the centre of the former Portuguese colony of Macau, China, enclosed by the buildings of the Leal Senado, the General Post Office, and St. Dominic’s Church. The Square is paved in the tradition Portuguese pavement. Wikipedia.

o   The Ruins of St. Paul (Portuguese: Ruinas de Sao Paulo), refers to the ruins of the 16^th century complex in Macau including of what was originally St. Paul’s College and the Cathedral of St. Paul. Today, the ruins are one of Macau’s most famous landmarks. In 2005, they were officially enlisted as part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Historic Centre of Macau. Wikipedia.

A Filipino worker helped us the fastest way to get to Senado Square and the only option is take a cab. Free shuttle service has 30 minutes interval of travel schedule to Macao Island. So I got confused. I thought Macao is one big island but similar to Hong Kong; it is an archipelagic country. It is divided into two major islands – Taipa and Macao. The Venetian is situated in Taipa which means we need to travel and take another minute of our precious time. And he told us that the cab fare will run between 60 – 70MOP [Macao Pataca]. Good thing Macao accepts Hong Kong dollars.

We got no choice but to take cab.  However we were worried and bothered at the same time. We might lock up to a place we’re not familiar of. In addition to that, we got only Hong Kong dollars on hand, the driver might not give us the change. Luckily, the driver did not play any evil game. He dropped us right in front of Largo do Senado. Cab fare was 60MOP and gave us an exact change of HK$100 to Pataca.

Wynn Hotel, Macau Tower, Grand Lisboa Hotel..all shot from the cab.

The square was crowded with locals and tourists and different nationalities similar to Plaza Miranda. Old buildings surround the area with boutiques and food stores on it. St. Dominic’s Church is also within the area. It is a catholic church built in 1587 by three Spanish Dominican priests, the church built during Portuguese occupation in Macao.

I thought I was in Quiapo because of those crowded people, small businessmen selling foods and souvenirs, tourists and police officers. After we took few pictures of ourselves we need to leave to get to Ruins of St. Paul. And because of unexplainable crowd, we were locked up. Instead of five minutes’ walk to Ruins, it took us nearly fifteen minutes. And again we got only few pictures in front of stone façade structure [Ruins of St. Paul], a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Couple of minutes later, we need to leave the place. The time was around 3:15PM.

Crowded Senado Square.

Going back to Senado Square, we exchanged our 100 Hong Kong dollars to Pataca for us to buy our favourite Beef Jerky. For a price of 49MOP per jerky fillet, enough already for the two of us since it was thick and tasty.  We were running out of time so we got no chance to stray around and check some stuff and souvenir items.

Our tour inside Senado Square with delicous Beef Jerky.

We passed by group of Filipino and we asked them what to ride to get to ferry terminal. They told us two options: either take free shuttle in Grand Lisboa Hotel or ride Bus 3A going to ferry terminal. He said bus fare will be 3.20MOP or 7MOP for two persons. And we should say “Yangga” which means two so the driver would understand that we dropped off 7MOP on his coin jar.

Halata bang problemado mga mukha namin?!

Since we still have more than an hour and walking to Grand Lisboa Hotel is not too far, we chose to take the free shuttle. When we get to Lisboa the officer requires a ticket. So we asked locals where to get the tickets and pointed us inside the casino. So we went straight to information and asked where to get the tickets for shuttle service. The girl, I don’t what happen to her – she was just smiling while looking straight to our face. No words came out from her mouth after we asked where to get the tickets. So we went back to the officer then asked the same question. And received no perfect answer from him. Tense arisen and every ticks of clock overheard throughout our brains. We ran out the Hotel then take option two – Bus 3A. 

The time was around 3:45PM already. Few seconds later Bus 3A aprroaching and the driver did not allow us to ride after we showed him 50MOP paper bill. His head was shaking, signed of refusal. Oh boy precious coin. Then the “amazing race” had happened, it seems like we’re in the middle of competition a game show that needs to finished our mission. Now I know the importance of “Takatak Boys”. We run everywhere to exchange our money and get precious coins. Finally a drug store showed up after few blocks of running. We bought wet wipes and received coins. So we rushed ourselves going to bus stop and at last we were allowed to hop in. A wide smile stretched all over our face. The time was already 4:10PM. I had a deep breath and still shaking out of horrifying unpleasant incident. The bus toured us around Macao and passed by different landmarks. Until we reach last bus stop which is ferry terminal, we dropped off and run straight to Cotai Jet. 

We gave them our returning ticket but the Cotai officer told us that it was not the right ferry terminal. We booked for Cotai in Taipa ferry terminal. So I came to realize that the bus did not pass any bridge at all. Oh good Lord! Time was 4:30PM. We were hopeless, the officer grabbed a piece of paper and writes something on Chinese characters and he told us to give it to taxi driver. Therefore we got no choice again but to take taxi! I was very sick of taking taxi, especially when you are a budget traveller. We got run around, strolling around Macao while holding my hands looking on my watch and monitoring the time. I almost lost everything, and thinking to pay another bucks to get back to Hong Kong. Thanks God after minutes of driving we arrived at exactly 5:00PM and we were the last passenger to check in.

We arrived in Hong Kong around 6PM and had heavy dinner at KFC then visited night market in Mong Kok for food trip.

FEW TIPS WHEN GOING TO MACAU:

•  Always check your travel schedule, consider everything!
• Prepare coins, coins, coins.
• When visiting Macao, it is better to have one night stay so that your not always in a hurry.