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 with discarded decorations.

We'd been lucky to see it, but it was also nice to get to see the streets unadorned. Although the lower levels are now run-of-the-mill shops full of Western brands like Starbucks and McDonalds, the buildings in the main shopping district still have a lot beautiful Portuguese architecture on display, which had been hidden by the lanterns.