Sofie Hofmann dot com

After taking pictures of the dramatic facade with its 66 Stone Steps and simply looking tirelessly at the Ruins of St. Paul’s during our Macau Day Tour on May 30, 2009, we continued our walk. Along the way, we saw a nice fountain and a church at Largo da Sé.

The church building was so simple and there were not a lot of people and tourists around the area unlike at the St. Dominic’s Square. We had no idea about the church but eventually learned upon entering the church that it was actually the Macau Cathedral.

read more »

After visiting St. Dominic’s Church at the Historic Centre of Macau in Macau Peninsula during our Macau Day Tour on May 30, 2009, we went to the St. Paul’s Ruins or the Ruins of St. Paul’s. St. Paul’s Ruins refer to the facade of the original St. Paul’s Cathedral which was built in 1602 adjoining the College of St. Paul of the Jesuits.

St. Paul’s College was built by the Jesuits to further strengthen its role as Catholic missionaries in Asia. The College of St. Paul was the first Western college in Asia during the 16th century.

read more »

One of the churches at the Historic Centre of Macau in Macau Peninsula that we visited during our Macau Day Tour on May 30, 2009 was the Convent of St. Dominic’s commonly known as St. Dominic’s Church or Sto. Domingo Church. St. Dominic’s Church is located at St. Dominic’s Square or Largo de São Domingos.

St. Dominic’s Church is a place of worship of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary which belonged to the Convent of St. Dominic’s founded in the late 16th century by the Spanish friars who arrived in Macau from the Philippines in 1587. The Spanish friars were soon replaced by the Portuguese clergy.

read more »

Early morning on May 29, 2009, we were supposed to go to Macau, also spelled as Macao, but we postponed it because it rained so heavily. At that time, I was quite craving for some dim sum dishes, so we decided to have Yum Cha at Federal Palace in Citygate. After Yum Cha, we went shopping at Citygate in Tung Chung.

After shopping, we went back to my sister’s place, and eventually went to see the Big Buddha in Ngong Ping Village in the afternoon. After our tour in Ngong Ping Village, we had dinner at Golden Siam Thai Cuisine in the evening.

The next day we went to Macau for a day tour. We wanted to see how Macau changed since 1993 and 1994. Hub went to Macau in 1993, and my mother, my sister and I went to Macau in 1994.

We took the TurboJet fast ferry boat from Central, Hong Kong to Macau. The boat left Hong Kong Macau Ferry Terminal at around 9:15am. We arrived in Macau at around 9:16am. Traveling time from Hong Kong to Macau with TurboJet was only about an hour.

read more »