Macau Hangover (Part I)

For the life in me, I still can’t go back to work. The office-sponsored trip to Macau was definitely a welcome break for me – for all of us lawyers, actually, partners and associates alike. Three days in a foreign land with no work to think of was definitely what I needed to relax and unwind.

I feel like narrating the events which took place would entail too much thinking on my part. Thus, the best way to encapsulate my memories of Macau would be through the pictures I took of the different beautiful sceneries of the small island of China that’s full of surprises.

On our first day at Macau, we decided to walk around a bit and head towards the Ruins of St. Paul Church. There, we saw the mixture of the old and the new; of the Oriental and the Western. The contrast in the scenery was a splendid sight. It shows development and progress without destroying roots and history. Being a colony of Portugal for quite some time, Macau’s general atmosphere still has traces of Portuguese structure and architecture.

This is actually a favorite shot of mine (see below). It was a narrow alley that reminds me of European alleys which look exactly like this (without the Chinese characters, of course).

This is a signage along the alley which I just really had to take a picture of!

Just near these sights is the market similar to our Divisoria or Greenhills. It was there that we saw instantly the shades of Orientalism in Macau.

I just loooove this shot (see below)! Notice the narrow alley and the structures which are actually the residences of the Chinese vendors. I feel like Jackie Chan or Jet Li can shoot a film along this alley and create fight scenes involving the market stalls and their products, and the windows and terraces on the upper floors. (Plus the ropes which hang from one structure to another. I wonder if they’re used as clotheslines?)