Zhuhai Shopping

Zhuhai is a good place to go shopping from Macao. Unfortunately, knowing how to read and speak Mandarin (or Cantonese) is essential to exploring the area. This is what you will see right after you exit Chinese customs. Note the red arrows below, which will lead you to the bus stop.

If you want to buy some delicious small mangoes without traveling far, walk in the direction of the market. You can also buy vegetables, fruits and cheap accessories there. Bargaining is necessary unless you wish to pay an exorbitant price.

If they refuse to haggle, try paying the equivalent amount of Renminbi as Macau Patacas or Hong Kong dollars. [This may not work for long as the renminbi keeps appreciating.]

Warning: The Macao authorities do not like you carrying fruits and vegetables into Macao without permit. Raw meat is definitely not welcome. Pirated disks may also bring trouble. Check the law before importing anything.

If you wish to travel by bus, go down to the basement floor and head in the direction of the red arrow. You will find a nicely hidden escalator to an even lower floor.

Hint: Behind the red arrow are many small shops which seem to sell various goods, but are actually money changers in disguise. They will change money with you at a better rate than the shops and the bank. Be wary of counterfeit currency though!

After you head down the escalator, if you wish to travel within Zhuhai, then go straight. If you wish to travel to other cities, then turn to your right. You can buy tickets to travel to other cities. If you cannot pronounce Mandarin or Cantonese properly, it is best to write the Chinese name for the cities to give the note to the receptionist.

If you go straight, you will enter a dark and noisy place. This is the bus stop for local buses. Have Renminbi $1 and 50 cent notes or coins ready as other currencies are not accepted. The bus fare is usually RMB$1.50 for non-airconditioned buses and RMB$2.50 for air-conditioned buses.


The Number 2 sightseeing bus is popular with many tourists because it reaches many tourist attractions.

As you travel, you will see many other bus stops with signs. Unfortunately, the signs are mostly in Chinese. [Note: The van in front of the bus is a postal service (邮政) van.]

Wan Jia Bai Huo (万佳百货) is a good place to shop. They have big juicy Fuji apples at a reasonable price. I bought 5 of them for RMB$10. They also sell many groceries, drinks, clothes, equipment, cooked dishes, such as take-away meals.


If you don't mind some exercise, you only need to walk for around 5 minutes of walking down the big street directly in front of the Gongbei border. This is the view right in front of Wan Jia Bai Huo (万佳百货) leading to the border. The red building with the pointed roof is the Gong Bei (供北) border building.

Bus Route 2 also goes to the Bai Lian Dong (白莲洞) park. I like the water paddle boat but the rest of the park was not that interesting to me. [High voltage lines are running over the lake and spoiling the scenery, but as you know, this is China.]

After traveling past many places on Bus Number 2, you will see the Wan Zai (湾仔) bus station. This is the place to buy many computer parts cheaply.


Along the way, you will see some beggars such as this lady who wrote her life story in front of her. She is a Primary school teacher who came to this place to work in a factory. Her husband left her and her children for another woman. Now she needs money (RMB$280) to travel back home. Would kind people be willing to help?

I am aware that it is likely that these are frauds who are deceiving people. But if you have a kind heart, what to do?


There are still many places in Zhuhai I have not been to, including the Lover's Lane and Fisher-Maiden statue. I regret that I did not have the time to visit them.

Cheap Food in Macau (San Ma Lo)

Scenario: You wish to find cheap food and are near Macau New Central (San Ma Lo), which tends to have more expensive prices.

No problem. The market in Central is a tall 6 floor building near to the Post Office and fountains. In the picture below, this is the view from the street just before you turn right (-->>).

Shortly after you make a turn, you will notice this building on your left.

There are a few floors in the building. On the first floor, you can buy eggs and fruits. The cheapest price for the apples and lemons I got was $10 per 6 units.

Oh, by the way, they don't accept credit cards.

These are samples of apples available from the stalls. I prefer the Fuji apples (the 3 on the left). They don't seem to have nearly as much wax on them.

As you go to the second and third floors, you will be greeted by rows and rows of stalls selling meat. The place is usually very busy in the morning - the photos are taken around 2pm in the afternoon.

You can go up a few more floors where they sell vegetables. You can buy carrots, lettuce, leeks - just look and compare instead of buying from the first few stalls nearest to you. Sometimes stalls with the best business mark up their prices a little bit.

If you are hungry, you can look around for this nice hawker centre on the 5th floor. The prices there are comparable to Singapore, making it a great bargain. You can get a decent meal for MOP$16 instead of MOP$30 elsewhere. The only catch is that they list everything in Traditional Chinese.

After visiting the market, you can look around for other nice things to buy in the roadside stalls, like clothes and accessories.

There is a stall nearby that sells cheap and durable airline cabin size luggage bags (around MOP$120 to MOP$160). Look for the wheels to ensure that they are not made of rubber that can come off, but a single piece of thick plastic.

The ruins of Saint Paul are only 5 to 10 minutes walk away from this area. Follow the signboards if in doubt.

Go Daiso for cheap shopping

If you are coming from Macau Ferry Terminal, you can take bus 12.

If you are coming from the Blood Transfusion Centre near Kun Lam Statue, you can also board bus 8. Beware of taking bus 12 here - there are 2 versions, one of which goes to the Ferry Terminal!

The bus will travel up a fly-over and will pass by an old pink building called the Former Government House before reaching this bus stop.

Note down this bus stop, because it is where you will drop off.

To make sure that it is the correct bus stop, you should see a bridge in front of you. Note the McDonalds and KFC fast-food restaurants on both sides of the bridge.

Turn left and head into this street. Travel all the way up to the other end of the street.

You will be greeted by a construction site with 3 smiling, flying cats. The Chinese words mean "the cats on the walls of Paris". [Update: The cats no longer exist in April 2009.]

Turn left, and you will go down a very busy street.

Watch out for the Daiso sign on your right side as it is easy to miss. The huge Daiso superstore is underground.

In Daiso, things are sold according to Japanese Yen. To know the price in Patacas, just divide the number on the price tag by 10. If the price is not indicated, then the item is MOP$10 each.

The items they sell include Egyptian figurines, baskets and a plastic wrapper that can compress your winter clothes. Happy shopping!

China Shopping Hazards

If you are going across the border to China to do some shopping, be careful, and be prepared.

1) Pickpockets

There are many pickpockets, including children. Never show your cash, and keep them separated in a few places. Be especially careful when you are seated on a bus. Never leave your luggage or bags unattended too. They tend to disappear.

No one will help alert you to the pickpockets or help you catch them. For some reason, the Chinese in China have became numbed to petty crime.




Sometimes you may see pickpockets in action on the bus, cutting out the pockets of unsuspecting passengers. Being the good Samaritan you are, you stop them. And being the good ruffians they are, they will wait and bash you up later with their friends.


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2) Fraud & Deceit

There are many products and practices in China which are downright unethical.

Rat meat may be sold for pigeon meat. Watermelons may be injected with artificial color and sugar water to enhance their taste. There were many food scandals in the past, such as fake, no-nutrient milk powder and poisonous rice. If possible, bring your own food along.


Learn how Chinese Renminbi looks like. If you look like a foreigner, you may be handed Taiwan money, which has about 1/4 the value of Renminbi. A simple rule is if you see Chairman Mao on the note, it is definitely Renminbi. There are also notes which are in cents (jiao), not dollars (yuan). They are legal currency too.

There are a lot of fake $50 and $100 Renminbi, and smaller amounts of other fake denominations. I always bring along a ultraviolet detector just in case. I am a victim of a fake RMB$50 note (probably from a money changer) myself. Here is a tutorial on how to recognize fake Chinese money.


You can buy a 8GB thumbdrive for RMB$120, an insane bargain in 2007. It will format and chkdsk nicely in the computer, but it won't work when you try to put real files on it. Your files will be randomly corrupted instead. The thumbdrive will report that it is full after you copied a few hundred megabytes to it. The same goes for the 8GB imitation iPod players.

Don't buy anything that looks too good to be true. Stick to products which have a warranty and more reasonable prices. Avoid buying from stalls and buy only from shops, as stall owners can just disappear whenever they like.


I was also cheated by a prepaid phone dealer. She claimed that the China card has RMB$200 of value, and she is selling it to me at a discount of RMB$100. It turns out the she has stuck the price stickers on the words that read "RMB$55 value, uniform pricing for the entire China". When I found out I was furious.

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3) Dangerous Taxi Drivers

Never ever take an unlicensed taxi. Not only will they charge exorbitant prices, they may also drive you to a place where the rest of their gang lies in wait to rob you. Always take a real taxi that charges by the meter.

The unlicensed taxi drivers are those people walking around busy areas with holding a bunch of keys. They often solicit customers actively.

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4) Bargaining

Unless you are very rich, bargaining skills are compulsory for shopping in China. Cheap as the goods may seem to richer countries, it can be cheaper.

For clothes, asking for half their quoted price and then pretending to walk out of the shop will often close the deal. Electronic items, however, may not enjoy such a large discount.

Many sellers are known to use strong and highly persuasive techniques to get you to buy from them, much like hard-selling. [You will know what I mean when you meet one of them.] It is important to learn to say 'no' to them.

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5) Language

It is rare to find Chinese shopkeepers who speak English, or any other foreign language. If you do not know Mandarin, or the dialect being spoken in the area, then it will be much harder to bargain and shop. In Zhuhai (bordering Macau) and Shenzhen (bordering Hong Kong), the dominant dialect is Cantonese.

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6) Beggars

There are many beggars in China, and it is very hard to tell which are genuine cases and which are just out to earn money.

At one time, I saw a young teenage girl knelling on the street, with the words "Need $10 to take bus home" scribbled in front of her. I decided to let that pass.


Another time, an adorable child pestered me singing Chinese songs wishing me good luck in a sad and tired tone. It was hard to resist ignoring him. I decided to give him some sweets and a RMB$1 coin, causing another child to appear. They asked for me, and I gave a MOP$1 coin to the new child.

Both of them are obviously from the family (or syndicate). I told them to share the sweets and I don't have any more to give or I can't take the bus home. They ran off happily, perhaps because they don't have to give the sweets to their "supervisor". All this time, I was watching my bag to make sure that their tiny fingers don't touch the rest of my money.


If you want to give to the beggars, be discrete and quick. Otherwise, a crowd of beggars (and potential pickpockets) will mill around you asking for donations.

HKD$ = MOP$ on price quotes

If you are a new, unsuspecting tourist, you may think that if prices are quoted in HKD, it means that you need to pay in Hong Kong dollars.

Not so. If you have Macau Patacas, you can pay at the same price, and thereby pocket an unstated 3% discount.