St. Paul's Cathedral is Ruined!!!

Heheh. That was just little attention grabbing headline...

Ok, so we're guilty of doing the super touristy spots. If you're in Macau, you'll probably end up at this place. This is called the Menado Square, where the people gather, events are held, & things are happening.

The square is part of the Historic Centre of Macau, which is a World Heritage Site. Don't play play.

It is fundamentlly a long stretch of sometimes winding streets, narrow alleys & squares, which include "the world's oldest western architectural heritage on Chinese soil today".

We had a tourist guide map with us that day, but did not make the effort to seriously map out what we wanted to see along the way, partly because we had already found food.

And because we had too much food, we had to detour somewhere else instead as our immediate destination...

Yes. You got it right. McD. It had the least dirtiest, & most accessible toilets that we could find.

Don't laugh, I had a bad time there holding it in. The Steamed Milk Custard which we had a while ago was screaming to get out, but I needed a calm environment for this activity. Only people who bake can understand this. You need the most optimum condition to make good cakes.

After the ordeal, I became more calm & more aware of my surroundings. It quickly became apparent that Macau is just like any other cities in Malaysia with a strange mix of colonial & Chinese architecture.










There are many famous buildings along the Historic Centre route. We did not get to see everything but this is one of them - St. Joseph's Seminary & Church, established in 1728.

I wonder if they had clean toilets in there.

If you do not have enough time to see everything like us, then you could do the shorter trail from Menado Square & ending up at The Ruins of St. Paul.

You'd know you're getting close to the Ruins when the shops on both left & right start selling BBQ pork.

Now, I don't think there is any historical correlation between BBQ pork & St. Paul. I think it's just one of those things that's just there.

For us both, the combination of food & sight seeing always makes the perfect holiday. We brought some home for the Chinese New Year. So folks who came over to our house during CNY actually had imported Macau BBQ pork. YEAH.

Oh, we bought some Macau biscuits too, but the photos could not be found.


This is what you can see along the wide steps that lead up to the Ruins.

Macau, like Hong Kong, is such a dense place. People are just living next to historical monuments.


I don't know if St. Paul's evangelical effort ever paid off, cos there's this little temple right below it.



I don't think this was a statue of St. Paul. It looks like something that symbolises the assimilation between Portugese & Chinese cultures - sort of like the Admiral Cheng Ho Friendship Park in Kuching. We have a huge Cheng Ho statue there, & the funny thing is that he never even set his foot in Kuching.

Behold! The Ruins of St. Paul.

What's left of the Ruins was only this facade structure. The rest was engulfed in flames.

Endless enovation work is still being carried out.

Oh, Nee got her must-have tourist fridge magnet souvenir.