Macau, Macau, it’s a wonderful town

Yes, we finally made it back home to Taiwan, the land that flows with green tea and papaya milkshake. Again the trip was easy-piecy — all of us slept most of the time. In Taiwan there is no need to fire up the sauna since sauna services are provided free of charge where ever you go. It’s like walking into a musty wall of wet heat as soon as you leave the airplane.

A particular highlight on the way home was a stop-over in Macau. Yes, that’s that little town on an island next to Hong Kong that the Portugese were in charge of for some 500 years. Most people go there for the casinos but we go there for the food and the shopping. They serve the greatest bacalao in sweet-n-sour sauce and in contrast to Hong Kong there are no bland malls selling international brands but instead lots of small boutiques hawking “Asian jam.” They even have shoes that fit my feet.

Macau is a very jolly place, full of gorgeous Portugese buildings, mosaiced town-squares and broad sidewalks with beautiful Chino-Latino women. It’s old Europe and old Asia at the same time — like Tintin’s Shanghai in Le Lotus Bleu. It’s an ideal place for a self-confessed Orientalist like me.

Macau, Macau, it’s a wonderful town

Yes, we finally made it back home to Taiwan, the land that flows with green tea and papaya milkshake. Again the trip was easy-piecy — all of us slept most of the time. In Taiwan there is no need to fire up the sauna since sauna services are provided free of charge where ever you go. It’s like walking into a musty wall of wet heat as soon as you leave the airplane.

A particular highlight on the way home was a stop-over in Macau. Yes, that’s that little town on an island next to Hong Kong that the Portugese were in charge of for some 500 years. Most people go there for the casinos but we go there for the food and the shopping. They serve the greatest bacalao in sweet-n-sour sauce and in contrast to Hong Kong there are no bland malls selling international brands but instead lots of small boutiques hawking “Asian jam.” They even have shoes that fit my feet.

Macau is a very jolly place, full of gorgeous Portugese buildings, mosaiced town-squares and broad sidewalks with beautiful Chino-Latino women. It’s old Europe and old Asia at the same time — like Tintin’s Shanghai in Le Lotus Bleu. It’s an ideal place for a self-confessed Orientalist like me.