A lemon tree of our own

A noisy curry

One of the funniest nights we had out in Macau was at the Aruna curry house. It is on Taipa island, and had only just opened up. In fact, when we visited, it wasn't yet officially open, but was having some 'trial' nights. We'd only been sitting for a couple of minutes, and had just ordered drinks, when this unholy racket started up. Banging and crashing above us, we could barely hear ourselves speak. Our hostess came over to our table and explained. It was the old lady in the flat above the restaurant, she said, who had taken a...

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A day trip into China

Early on during our visit to Macau we decided we would visit mainland China. This means applying for a visa a day in advance, so we headed to an internet cafe on Macau that sold them. They also offered so much in the way of bootleg and pirate games, DVDs and music, that you did wonder if you were going to get a genuine visa, but after an hour's wait we emerged triumphantly clutching our piece of paper. The border between Macau and China is marked by a Portuguese monument, a symbolic gate. This is now dwarfed by the industrial...

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Welcome to the McOlympics

With the recent scenes of protest in Tibet, and the interruption to the flame-lighting ceremony here in Greece, much of the focus on this year's Olympic Games will be to do with Chinese politics and the China's appalling human rights record. Which means that, for a change, attention won't be focusing so much on the commercialisation of the Olympic movement. There was something slightly sad about being in a culture as potentially deeply alien to us as China, and finding that McDonalds was the official fast food of the Olympic games. Despite that, the American athletes are still bringing their...

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Where did the decorations go?

We arrived in Macau shortly after the Chinese New Year had been celebrated. This meant the streets were decorated for the festivities. As well as red lanterns everywhere, roundabouts and every bit of public space you could find were decorated with cartoon characters. They were in the shapes of the animals of the Chinese zodiac equivalent, but with great prominence for the rat - this year's lucky animal. We saw all this on our first visit into the main part of Macau, and were really lucky. Just a day later it was all being torn down. The streets were littered...

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The lemon tree survives and thrives

Although I've mostly been writing about Macau the last few days, we did in fact arrive back in Crete a week or so back, and today we will be at the Greek Independence Day parade in town. Now, I know the most important thing you'll want to know is how the lemon tree got on whilst we were away for a month. It was last seen looking rather bedraggled and sorry for itself in our front room, as we tried to protect it from the rest of the storm that had basically de-nuded it of all its leaves. The good...

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Tombs of the fighting crickets

Without a doubt one of the oddest displays in the Macau museum was that of the fighting crickets. Now, who knew that cricket fighting used to be a big sport in this area? Apparently huge sums of money changed hands based on the outcomes of these mighty bouts between the insects. There were some video clips of the battles in action - basically two crickets stuck in a bucket whilst men jabbed at them to rile them up so that they would fight. Fortunately, it seems the crickets were too stupid to realise that they could team up and form...

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No Easter for us. Yet.

So, if you were wondering whether you'd get pictures this morning of our annual pilgrimage to Chania's cathedral for the Easter candle-lighting ceremony - think again. The Western and Eastern churches follow a different way of calculating Easter, and every now and then they are waaaaaaay apart. This is one of those years, and Greece doesn't celebrate Easter until the end of next month. Diamond Geezer in London has the details on just how rare it is for the Western Easter to fall so early in the year.

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16th century Tower Bridge in the Museum of Macau

We went to the Museum of Macau, and there was a whole wall dedicated to an interactive display illustrating the extent of international trade in Macau's history. Although, being British, I tend to have a Western European-centric view of geography, Macau was far better placed than many European ports to reach India, Africa, China, Japan, Australia and beyond. The map showed many traditional views of the 16th and 17th century shipping trade. It was all images of wooden boats, sails unfurled, sailing into wooden harbours. Except for London, which was shown to feature that well known 16th century construction, Tower...

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You wanna drink my sweat?

Another one for the cultural misunderstanding files. I understand that it is a sports drink, because of the 'Ion supply' claim on the packaging, but it is slightly odd to name a drink after the body fluid you are aiming to produce. No thank you, I'd rather not have a can of chilled 'sweat'.

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The sad story of the Toy Story shop

So, maybe it turned out that putting all of your toy shop branding eggs into one Toy Story shaped basket wasn't a great idea after all. It isn't exactly the most fashionable animated franchise anymore.

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The Ruins of St Pauls

Probably the most famous view of Macau is from the bottom of the steps leading up to the ruins of St Pauls. From a distance it looks like a ceremonial gate, but in fact it is what remains of Macau's largest church and monastery after a devastating fire in the 1840s. You get your first glimpse of it after emerging from some hustling streets, and the approach to this old monument has some very new figures to pass along the way. Some, like those celebrating the Chinese New Year, are temporary. Others, like this rather oddly posed young lady, are...

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The sweet meats of Macau

Our first walk through Macau was one dominated by the smells of food stalls, and by the free samples that kept being pressed into our hands. We quite like some of the cakes, although we know from previous experience that we are not so keen on Chinese sweets. One delicacy that people kept on trying to push into our hand was their sweet meats. If you imagines the sweetest sweet'n'sour sauce you've ever had, applied to some dried meat, that gives you an idea. The delicacy is available in all sorts of different meat flavours, which makes for impressive shop...

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Keep your valuables on view

We've been in Macau, a 'Special Administrative Region' on the South coast of China fr a holiday, We arrived via Hng Kong, and the first of many cultural misunderstandings was in the Gents toilets. 'Keep your valuables in view' isn't quite the phrase I'd use as an anti-crime message for men standing at urinals or sitting on toilets.

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The owl house at night

A little while ago I posted a couple of pictures of the 'owl house' near us. Here is a shot I took at night using a long exposure time. It looks a little too Blair Witch for my liking.

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Calimero! Calimero! I feel like chicken tonight!

One of our favourite bands are Welsh outfit Super Furry Animals. We've been to see them lots in concert. Well, we did when we lived in the UK, anyway. Despite having all of their albums and most of their singles, they often used to play this one song live that we didn't recognise, as it was on the b-side of one of the few CD singles that we didn't own. Finally, at one gig, lead singer Gruff explained that it was called 'Calimero', and was named after a cartoon they used to get in Wales in the 70s which featured...

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Not so cute graffiti

When we were strolling around the beach the other day we spotted some graffiti on the abandoned Aptera Beach apartments that we hadn't noticed before. Ahh, look at the cute cat faces, we thought from a safe distance. It was only when we got a bit closer that we realised they weren't quite so cute after all...

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We loved this painting

We spotted this painting in an office the other day, and really liked it. It depicts the clock tower in Chania's central park, opposite the sports stadium complex. It looks a little like the style of the Tintin books to me. It was painted by Κ. Σπανακης.

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Vintage Greek jukebox in Vouves

As part of a 'tourist train' trip we did last year, we visited Vouves. This has what is reputed to be the oldest olive tree in Greece. However, it was another antique that caught my eye. In the little shop where you could stop for some refreshments, they had an old jukebox which featured some Greek 45s.

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