Our days in Hong Kong had passed much quicker than we thought, but instead of going back to China we decided to check one more Special Administration Region – Macau. Much smaller than Hong Kong, this former Portuguese colony welcomed us with fabulous narrow streets just like in Porto or Lisbon, great coffee shops and some European architecture. After handling to China (1999) Macau became even more gambling oriented and now is the world capital of casinos.

Just by a nice coincidence (many of those happen when you travel), we met Mica – a Portuguese photographer living with his family in Coloane – an Island being a laid back part of Macau. We were invited to stay in their place and very quickly felt like at home.

After months of being almost constantly on the road, being able to stay in Coloane was a big relief. We could enjoy the Island and a quiet life of a small Macanese village.

Mica was about to start a very interesting project. He was responsible for preparing and coordinating an unusual event – great chess game, between Garry Kasparov and Xiong Junyang. We had a chance to be helpful and joined Mica in the preparation. During the game, Ania had a very important role – she was responsible for handling the wooden chess figures removed from the table by the players. Mat was taking the pictures.

The chess set was very special – it was carved in wood by artist Konstantin Bessmertny. The effect was spectacular!

Here we are with the boss:

And this is the artist:

After almost a week of preparation and the final game we were exhausted but happy. It is definitely good to work from time to time while travelling! And who knows maybe we will have more opportunities to attend some nice projects during our trip.

We said goodbye to the family and headed towards China, being excited and well rested.