Doing What Tourists Does Best

Visiting a fort is not something to shout about. When someone says they're going to see a fort, you don't see them jumping up & down with joy.

But for us both, we were on a holiday in Hong Kong & Macau at that time, & when we're on a happy holiday, everything was interesting, including an old fart... I mean fort.

I wasn't sure if the atrium & the guest rooms were part of the fort. It seemed more likely that they were an extension of St. Paul's Ruins.

This is Monte Fort, the oldest fort in Macau.


It was built in 1616 to protect St. Paul's Church from the sea pirates.

As you can see, it's strongly fortiefied to hold out against any attacks. The sea pirates must have been very ardent church-goers.

The fort even has something like a secret underground passage or backdoor escape route, just like in the movies.

There's actually nothing much impressive about this. I've got one on my backdoor also. In fact, with the ridiculously high crime rate in Kuching, everyone's house is gonna look like this soon.

Oh look. I never thought we'd do something like this. It's called a milder form of camwhoring.

We were trying to capture that Korean romantic TV series Autumn in My Heart feel. But it didn't work cos both of us never watched a single drop of Korean series & we didn't know what we were doing.

These are the steps which lead up to the fort.

You do this everyday, & you will have very big & healthy legs.

And when we reached the top, we realised that our lungs had grown bigger.


I've said it before, & Ill say it again, I think Hong Kong people are slowly getting over the wild dog-eating days. I think they don't see dogs as food nowadays.

Okay, we had to a bit of the touristy been-there, saw-that, touch-that shots.




Now, I'm not a guy who knows much about Feng Shui, but my gut instinct tells me that a canon pointing to a casino building is not very auspicious.

Lilian Too would freak out if she sees this.

This is the entrance to the much more private confines of the fort.

I'm sorry I could not get rid of the tourist guy in red.

I was stumped for a while with this.

These looked suspiciously like canonballs. I was wondering whether they had anything to do with going to the toilets. It was one of those moments in a foreign country when you're not sure whether you're missing a point.

These stairs lead to the highest tier of the fort.

And this is the Museum of Macau.

And it had an entrance fee.

And being true to the blue, pure bred Malaysians, we opted for the other mini-museum underground.

Which was free.

I think if there were more Malaysian tourists like us, Macau would never make any money, even with more Airasia Kuching-Macau direct flights.

And being a free museum, the only thing they had on display were broken stuff.

And second hand stuff.

But these personal artifacts were interesting because you were able to get a sense of what life was back then.






Oh, they even had a kitchenware section. That's Nee's territory.

There's something about women looking at plates in museums. Their shopping instincts kick in easily & they start forgetting that they are not in a departmental store.

So when Nee started taking out her credit card, I had to remind her that she was not at Parkson, or Sia Huat.

This is the Musem of Macau.