- Ten things to know
before you go to Macau. I'm Chris, this is Topher and
this is Yellow Productions. We do travel guides that are fun, informative
and entertaining. This is part of our series on Hong Kong and the areas around it. If you want to see more
information about Hong Kong, find links in the description below or at the end of this video,
even more videos on Macau too. But still, let's talk about Macau. Some general information first, Macau has been a Portuguese Colony, it was for about 400 years,
from the 1500's until 1999. Which now, it's a special
administrative region of China. Macau, it is very small. It is like 11 square miles,
but 640,000 people live here. Every year though, in 2017, 30 million visitors came to visit Macau. Most of them from Mainland China. Macau is famous for two things, One, the old Portuguese square, being this old Portuguese colony, that's one of the major
reasons to come here. Also, for gambling. This is the only place in
China where gambling is legal. And so, the visitors
from China who come here, they primarily come to gamble. In fact, gambling is so popular in Macau, that the gambling in the casinos in Macau have generated seven times
what the Las Vegas strip generates in gambling revenue. That's pretty crazy. If you are coming from Hong Kong, it's definitely worth a day trip, maybe even an overnight trip if you want to spend some time in Cotai. We will talk about getting in in a moment, but you should know Macau
has like four areas. There is the Macau Peninsula which has the main Portuguese village here with the Ruins of St. Paul. Going down south there is Taipa, the Cotai strip where the casinos are, and on the end is Coloane. Before you go to Macau, you will need to know
about getting into Macau. Chances are, the way you will be getting into Macau is via a ferry. I am standing at one of
the Macau ferry terminals. There are two ferry terminals in Macau. This main one here and there
is a second one in Taipa, which is more convenient if
you're going to the Cotai strip. Most people come from Hong Kong and come to Macau as a day trip. There are four ferry
terminals in Hong Kong and two ferry operators,
TurboJet, the red one, and the Cotai WaterJet, the blue one. The offer pretty similar services. It takes about an hour from
Hong Kong, or either way. And I will recommend if you get prone to sea sickness or motion sickness, you might want to buy a
ticket for the upper deck. It is about twice the
price of the lower deck, but it moves a lot less. There are a couple other
options to come into Macau. You can fly, there is an airport. You can cross the border
from China by land, or you can take
helicopters from Hong Kong. It is only 15 minutes by helicopter. Before you go to Macau,
you need to know about getting around Macau. And so there's basically three options for getting around Macau. Well, four if you count your
feet, you can certainly walk. But of those three, there are taxis, there are a lot of taxis in Macau. When you come into the ferry stations, there will be taxi drivers waiting there. There's buses, Macau operates
a public bus that runs around. The service is pretty good. But third, something you
should get familiar with are the free shuttles
that the hotels provide. Like the Venetian, the
Sands, a lot of these provided these free shuttles. so if that is going where you want to go, learn to use the free shuttles. I'll point out, no ride
share companies operate here, Uber, Lyft, Grab, none of those things
are available in Macau. So if you are looking for a taxi there might be a bit of a wait. We have experienced some wait while we were waiting
in a casino for a taxi. If you come in the ferry terminals, you'll see there will be
a lot of people offering like tours and things like
that to take you around they will offer and come
up to you for taxis. Take the official ones out
of the official taxi rank. And they will charge
you in Macanese pataca, but they are pretty cheap. We will talk about
currency in a little bit. The fourth thing to know is
that the number four is unlucky. The number four in
Chinese sounds like death So you will not see fourth floors in any of these hotel room buildings. So onto number five, speaking of luck, Let's talk about casinos. You need to know about casinos
before you come to Macau. I mentioned earlier the
Cotai Strip, right here, this is where all the
big casino hotels are. The City of Dreams,
the Wynn, the Venetian, which I'm standing at right now. But you should know if you are
going into the casinos here they're a little bit paranoid,
actually, ultra paranoid. Going into every single casino here, you will go through metal detectors and they do not allow cameras, even to be shown in the casinos. We were walking into a casino and this girl had a camera around her neck, and they said you got to put it in the bag before you come into the casino. It's actually gotten a lot
better now than it used to be. When I came here 10 years ago, they actually put a sticker over my camera with a no-camera sign over it, really keep your cameras away when you're in the casinos here. In the casino hotels its okay to take photos and videos in the common areas. But here, at the Venetian,
if you go past that point, with the white screens,
then no cameras after that. Before you come to Macau you
need to know about the money. The currency in Macau
is the Macanese pataca. MOP is how it's abbreviated. The Macanese pataca is basically equivalent to the Hong Kong dollar. Actually, they will except
both currencies here, Hong Kong dollar and Macau patacas. But you might use Macau
patacas - actually, you might use Hong Kong dollars, and they may give you
Macau patacas in change. The big restaurants, and
things like that, the casinos they will all take credit cards, but the little places around the Portuguese village,
you will want some money, but probably make sure to spend all your patacas while you in Macau, before you go back to Hong Kong, because they won't know what to do with your Macanese pataca. By the way, the official exchange rate is one Hong Kong dollar is equivalent
to 1.03 Macanese pataca. But you will find many stores have signs that they accept it one to one to one. The next thing you will need to know before you go to Macau
is about the language. So, there's two official
languages in Macau, one is Portuguese, being a
former portuguese colony, the second one is
Chinese spoken Cantonese. English is not one of
the official languages, though they do speak a
little bit of English. You will see everything,
pretty much signed in Chinese and Portuguese,
maybe in English. But by the way, the Portuguese, if you've learned portuguese in school, they have a special dialect
here called Macanese Portuguese. Before you go to Macau, you
should know about shopping. The best shopping in Macau,
its in the Cotai strip. In these big casino hotels. Right now, I am in the
Venetian Grand Canal Shops. This is probably my favorite
place for shopping in Macau. Why? Because you can shop and
walk along the Grand Canal and see gondoliers, that sing, sometimes, she must be tired. The other one is singing right now though. Around the Portuguese square, there's a lot of, like, souvenir
shops, things like that. But if you want luxury
shopping, Cotai Strip. Something you should know about Macau, is that lots of Macau, outside of the casinos and the commercial, like, Portuguese district,
kinda feel a little empty. Like, this is the Fisherman's
Wharf Shopping Mall. This was like a very ambitious project. They've, like, created different
scenes around the world. Walking around here at 1pm
on a Monday, it is empty. And a lot of the shopping areas in Macau kinda feel that way. This one maybe in particular cause it is just off the beaten casino path. But where is everybody? They are either seeing
the Portuguese sights or they are coming here for
intense sessions of gambling. If most of the visitors to
Macau come from mainland China, and they come almost only to gamble, so that's where they'll be. When you come to Macau, if all
you do is go to the casinos and go to the Portuguese center, you will think that
it's either really cute or really ritzy in the whole thing, I would encourage you, if you
want to see the real Macau, get off on some of the side streets. Like, take a look at some of these wires. I mean when this was a Portuguese Colony, it feels a bit like its
a little bit of a place that the land time forgot
or governing forgot. And it is all within the
shadows, take a look up there, of the casinos, that's
the Grand Lisboa casino. And just two blocks from it are these really unpainted
apartment buildings. Hmm. To continue your exploration
of the real Macau, just there from the shadows
of the casino Lisboa as you're walking around, make sure to check out the city's churches. This is the ruins of St. Paul. You can't go inside, but
most of the city's churches you can still go inside
during daylight hours. But Macau's a really interesting cross between Christianity and Buddhism. And so there's many
temples in this city too. Check out the churches and the temples. Its a pretty interesting walk to do the church and temples walk through Macau. Boy, and let me tell
you, if you like incense, (inhales) the smell of incense, the look of incense, or pictures of incense you will love the inside of some of these temples. So when I said you
can't go in this church, I mean you can go in the ruins, this is the ruins of St. Paul, there used to be a church here. It burned down three times
and that's all that's left. That's all that's left. This is a classic sight in Macau. The best place to take
that Instagram photo, or if your getting engaged to take your engagement photos here too. Before you go to Macau you
should know about the food. Traditional Macanese food a fusion between Portuguese food
and Cantonese food. Dating back over 400 years of history, it is often considered the
world's first fusion food. Of course you will find a lot of good high-end Chinese
food here as well. You will find those in the casinos. Mmmm, I am drinking Hong Kong milk tea, a lot of influence from Hong Kong but definitely when you
are in the old city center, the old portuguese part, check out some of the Portuguese-Cantonese
fusion restaurants. Something super popular to get in Macau is the pork chop bun. If you were getting this in Portugal, it would be called a bifana. We have had them in Portugal, but here is how they taste here, there is a bunch of little
stalls that sell these, the one we are at is
called Tai Lei Loi Kei and it is right in front
of the Ruins of St. Paul. This one is on a regular
Portuguese-style bun. They can also do it on
a croissant, right here, or they can do it on a pineapple bun, which is a Hong Kong specialty, but they were sold out of those, so lets give this a go! Mmmm. That's pretty good. Its a thin slice of pork chop, the pork chop is lightly breaded. Its a nice fluffy bun, it's hot. Pretty delicious. A good afternoon pick-me up. Around a bunch of super touristy things around St. Paul's. Check this place out. When you come to Macau you need to get an egg tart, or known as a Nata. A Pastei de Nata, it is a
portuguese colony after all! And these are Portuguese egg tarts. If you have been to dim sum
restaurants in Hong Kong, or dim sum restaurants
in the world you will see egg tarts sometimes referred
to as dan tat, egg tart. But they came from here,
they came from Macau. This is what popularized it. There's two stores that made it popular, Lord Stow's which is the original, and right now I am at
Margaret's Cafe e Nata. Husband and wife team. The wife runs this store now. And you get these egg tarts, they are hot, they form a long line, this
is a busy popular place. Don't come on Wednesdays, because they are closed on Wednesdays,
And you can, mm, get a fresh flakey egg tart out on the street. Mm. See how flakey it is, its fresh. And if you have egg
tarts that aren't fresh they kinda all stick together, but mmm, a hot fresh one, mmm, kinda taste like an egg
custard in a crispy croissant. Definitely worth your time. And the wait? We only waited, mm, five,
seven minutes in line, but just know how many you want to order when you get to the front, they really want to keep that line moving. 10 Hong Kong dollars of Macau pataca each, which is about $1.25 US. To taste some of the original
original egg tarts in Macau, visit Lord Stow's Bakery, its right there. That's the original location. We are not there, we are
at the Venetian Hotel where they have a location
with the egg tarts. These cost a little more
than at the other place, these were 12 Macau patacas. There's Lord Stow right there, he looks like a pretty
friendly guy doesn't he. With a lot of egg tarts. So lets give these a try
and see how they compare. Warm, buttery, flakey. I feel like this one might be a little bit more buttery
than the other one. Its a little warmer, but
if you blindfolded me and gave me a taste test, I am not sure that I could tell the difference. I will give Lord Stow's a plus because the location is nicer. And if you take a look over there, it's in the Venetian,
and you can actually see the Venetian shops off in the distance. A little bit nicer than that middle of Macau weird, apartment
complex eating area. Before you go to Macau, you
should know about spitting because many of the
visitors will be here from Mainland China you will
here a regular (spits). You might hear that right into your neck, you might see that right into a trash can, But if you hear (hacks) it's a sound you will here quite a bit cause they're just spitting, it's okay. It happens all the time in Macau. In Hong Kong they're not to happy if you do that on the street,
but you will hear it here. And the last thing to know is that we've got more videos if your
coming to Macau or Hong Kong, you'll find links in
the description below. Or you can click this one or this one to watch some more of our
videos from this series. Are you still rolling? Are you still rolling? I think we're done We're done.
