{"id":7925,"date":"2011-12-22T12:10:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-22T12:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/macau-and-its-feast-of-festivals-for-2012-2\/"},"modified":"2011-12-22T12:10:00","modified_gmt":"2011-12-22T12:10:00","slug":"macau-and-its-feast-of-festivals-for-2012-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/2011\/12\/macau-and-its-feast-of-festivals-for-2012-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Macau and its Feast of Festivals For 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

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For an Asian centre which thrives on dishing out a few surprises, Macau knows how to turn on a feast.<\/p>\n

Firstly, there’s the annual Feast of the Bathing Buddha, a day in the northern spring where the images of Buddha are ceremonially cleansed and purified in temples throughout the territory.<\/p>\n

Then there’s the Feast of the Drunken Dragon, a strange festival compared with other major Chinese Buddhist ceremonies and dates back from the Qing Dynasty, and the Feast of Maidens and the Feast of Hungry Ghosts.<\/p>\n

And, of course, there’s the November staging of the Macau Food Festival which highlights the many tantalising delicacies of a centre which prides itself on a true mix of recipes from east-meets-west backgrounds.<\/p>\n

They’re among a smorgasbord of festivals to crowd what is a congested calendar for 2012.<\/p>\n

Beginning with the spectacular Chinese New Year holidays from January 23-25, the list also includes a few annual highly charged favourites such as the June running of the Macau International Dragon Boat Races and Dragon Boat Festival, the Macau International Fireworks Display Contest – in its 24th year – throughout September and the 59th Macau Grand Prix from November 15-18.<\/p>\n

Combine the festivals with the many tourist attractions which make up the 25 UNESCO World Heritage-listed sites and the contemporary precincts and Vegas-like shows of the Cotai Strip, reclaimed land between the Macau islands of Taipa and Coloane, and there’s much to see and do on a visit.<\/p>\n

“Whether they are of Chinese or Portuguese heritage, the people of Macau truly like to celebrate with a festival,” said Helen Wong, general manager of the Macau Government Tourist Office in Australia and New Zealand. “Prepare to feast on another year of song and dance, colourful religious parades, street markets, spectacular fireworks and plenty of sporting events,” she said. “There’s no shortage of reasons to visit Macau – throughout the year.”<\/p>\n

Away from the festivities, major attractions of Macau include the iconic 17th Century Ruins of St Paul’s, the popular Senado Square with its wave-like paving, the main fortress as well as the Guia Fortress, a sprinkling of refurbished and colourfully painted churches, and the A-Ma Temple, which existed long before the arrival of the first Portuguese sailors 500 years ago.<\/p>\n

There’s also a 20-metre statue of the Goddess of Kun Iam – Goddess of Mercy – as well as much taller 338-metre high Macau Tower, a venue for Skywalks around the perimeter of an outer rim 233 metres above the ground and a series of A J Hackett bungee jumps.<\/p>\n

Details: Macau Government Tourist Office, phone (02) 9264 1488, www.macautourism.gov.mo<\/a><\/p>\n

Save hours on your travel research. Get brochures delivered to your door for free. Digital option too.<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For an Asian centre which thrives on dishing out a few surprises, Macau knows how to turn on a feast. Firstly, there’s the annual Feast of the Bathing Buddha, a day in the northern spring where the images of Buddha are ceremonially cleansed and purified in temples throughout the territory. Then there’s the Feast of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}