Autumn Colors

Last week, Gen had a business trip near Osaka, then they took a trip up to the mountains after the meeting. This was at a temple called Koyasan. The gates are called torii.

The leaves haven't changed in Tokyo yet. I read that they won't change until late November or even December. My brother is coming for a visit and we have a couple of trips scheduled, one on a mountain west of Tokyo and one for a little town north of Tokyo, so hopefully we'll get to see some of the leaves.

This is my favorite picture of the ones Gen took on this trip.

This is Gen's favorite. He said that tree was so yellow in person that it didn't even look natural.

A-Ma Temple- Macau

This is the entrance to A-Ma temple. Man, it was so hot.

A gift shop. Shopkeepers are pretty aggressive over there. You can't appear to be too interested. When I was looking for jade in Hong Kong, one of the sellers grabbed my arm and put a bracelet on, then tried to cut the tags off and charge me. I didn't even like the thing!

There were lots of people there. Mostly Chinese. It seemed like most of the Westerners spent their time in the casinos.

There were lots of little buildings. I think this one was the main one.

It's built on a little hillside, so you have to do some climbing to see everything. I didn't mind though. The higher up you get, the more breeze there is. Did I mention it was hot?

One of the small shrines.

These are incense coils. Some of them have trays under to catch the ash (on the right side), but I stupidly stood under some that didn't. I got ashed! It hurt a little.

A-Ma is the goddess of the sea and seafarers. This little boat was inside the main temple.

These are fortunes. In Japan, you normally just get a piece of paper. These were so pretty and they sounded like little bells or windchimes.

A famous restaurant in Macau. We went here for lunch after the temple. It was really good. I had some kind of chicken dish cooked with turmeric and coconut milk and Gen had grilled fish with herbs. Another yummy Portuguese/Macanese dish we tried (not at this place) was called African chicken. I am going to make it my mission to figure out how to cook that. Unfortunately, the only Macanese cookbook on Amazon is something like $80.

Leal Senado- Macau

This is the restaurant we ate at the first night on Macau. It was fantastic. I love Portuguese and Chinese food, and Macanese food is basically Portuguese mixed with Chinese. Many of the restaurants have English menus and I can figure out Portuguese from my Spanish. We had a fantastic dish here- it was called Duck Rice, Macanese Style. We like duck, we like rice, so we tried it. It was seriously fantastic, cooked in some kind of rich gravy. Gen liked it so much he wanted to see if we could duplicate the recipe. After much online research, I found out that the "gravy" is made of duck's blood. Ewww. But it was good. But I would never have ordered it if I had known what was in it. Ah, the conundrum. Needless to say, we will not be attempting to make Duck Rice, Macanese Style any time soon.

These are just some of the pretty buildings near Leal Senado, the old town square. I like the colors.

The streets are lined with shops and some restaurants. A delicious snack we discovered by accident was the pork bun (sometimes spelled pork bum- hee hee). It's just a small pork chop cooked with onions on a Portuguese roll. Portuguese bread is the best.

This is a church in the Leal Senado. It is very Mediterranean style, lots of bright colors, even inside.

Most of the buildings were yellow and white, but there were a few bright blue and red, as well.

I think this picture is funny. Look at the white sign at the top- Medicine No Fakes. Ha! This is the street leading from the ruins of St. Paul's down to the Leal Senado.

Happy Weekend!

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've had some visitors- Lindsay and AJ were here for 2 weeks and just left yesterday.

I still have some more pictures of Macau, and then I'll post some from the past 2 weeks, but to tide you over, here's my favorite site in all of Tokyo. This is the best way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

Nice pink Caddy. They must only trot this out on special occasions. And now, so you can really understand the awesomeness of Yoyogi Park on Sunday...

Mount Fortress

Gen with the cannon at the top of the fortress near St. Paul's.

This is the entrance to the fortress.

See the cannons at the top of the wall?

A cool picture of the ruins surrounded by the more recent building boom. This is near a residential area. Those are mostly apartment buildings in the background.

The fortress walls. We liked it up here because there was a of of shade and a nice cool breeze. Macau is hot.

This is kind of cool- there was a little park under the fortress and this tree was filled with birdcages.

Pet birds are really popular in China, especially among older men. We think that this group took their birds out for a walk. There are a bunch of hooks in the trees so the men can chill under the tree and hang the birds up for some fresh air. Funny!

In and Around St. Paul's- Macau

The most famous (non-casino) sight of Macau are the ruins of St. Paul's. It was burned down and rather than rebuild, they just preserved the facade. It's the most-photographed place in Macau.

I think it's very pretty. It was built in the 1600's and burned down in the 1800's.

Here's the back side. There is a set of stairs and you can climb up and look through the second-story windows.

This is the Na Tcha Temple, built in 1888. People came here to pray for an end to the Plague. It's located right behind St. Paul's. The gray stone wall to the right in the picture is part of St. Paul's.

This is next to the temple and is a part of the old city wall. Probably dates from the 1600's. I find stuff like this so cool. So much of Tokyo was destroyed during WWII that you don't get as much of a sense of history, even though much was rebuilt.

This is the back of St. Paul's. The glassed-in squares protect remnants of the church's foundation. The picture was taken from where the entrance would be, and the altar would have been at the back of this picture, where that gray brick structure is. That now houses a small museum and a crypt. Morbidly, we rather enjoyed the crypt. It may have been that the air conditioning was on full blast.

Gen at the facade. It was also used as a boy's school.

A view of the street leading to the town square. This was taken from inside the facade on the seond floor. There were a lot of Japanese tourists here.

A close-up of the entrance. It was built by local craftsmen and Japanese Christian exiles. There's an interesting mix of European, Chinese, and Japanese styles on the facade. Because of the Portuguese control, Macau was used as a refuge for Christians from many Asian countries. The crypt holds the remains of Japanese and Vietnamese martyrs.

Macau

After 4 days in Hong Kong, we took the ferry over to Macau. It's about a one hour ferry ride. Macau was a former Portuguese colony and now it's known as the Las Vegas of the East. Above is the Venetian casino and hotel.

And then there's this. This is part of the old Senado Square.

Then you go back to this. This is part of the new City of Dreams casino complex. It's 3 huge casinos and hotels, shopping, and a big theater where they have a nightly dragon show. I have no idea what a dragon show is, but the posters looked exciting.

Street signs are in Chinese and Portuguese. I thought that the Portuguese presence here was more pronounced than the British presence in Hong Kong. Maybe because Hong Kong is so much bigger, so everything is more disparate.

Gen with the Golden Panda at the MGM Grand. There's a little strip of restaurants and bars close to this, and after we walked around the casino a little we had a beer at a sidewalk cafe.

The ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral.

And another casino. The juxtaposition of the new and the old was so much fun. We really liked Macau; it was a lot of fun. In other news, there's a typhoon now and I'm afraid my balcony and internet connection are going to be blown away at any time.

Some of the old buildings near St. Paul's.

That's Gen's favorite casino in the background, the Grand Lisboa. We never went inside, but the way it lights up at night is so deliciously tacky.