Tuesday, July 31, 2007

The long awaited post... My Macau - Zhuhai trip!!! (Part 1)

First stop: Changi Budget Terminal...


My very first visit to the budget terminal... Looking fresh and awake...actually I only slept for 2 hrs the previous night...is not the excitement that kept me awake through the night but the last min packing I had to do...hee...



Lucky Gate 9, we are a few steps closer to Macau...Yeah!





Looking at our happy faces, work is long gone and off our minds, haha...

There's our plane...if you think it's big, it is not...haha...


There's little red dot from up above...don't ask me which part of Sg is this coz I have no idea...come to think of it...now I'm not even sure if this is Sg, our dear little red dot, hehe... But who care, it's the view from up high above la...haha...

2nd stop: Macau...


Yes! I've reached Macau and is on my way to my hotel...Metropark...N bcoz the taxi auntie dun understand English n refuse to look at the map n kept insisting tt she know where it is...we ended going to the wrong place n had to 游车河, haha... But nvm coz we are in good mood...hee...


We have reached our hotel n are busy doing our research on how to get to our destinations n as there was a delay in the arrival time...we had to replan our iternary for that evening...so like my poly lecturer used to say "anything can go wrong will go wrong" so must always have contingency plan which me n eileen are busy working on, haha...although a bit last min but nvm...better late than never, haha... Side track a bit, the information counter of Macau Tourism Board not very helpful, most of the questions asked got no answer for us one...

By now, we have settled on our plan, so is take picture with our lovely hotel room before we dash out to have fun.

We are so hungry so we decided that the first thing we do in Macau is to eat...so following our itinerary, we went to Red Market for makan. Yes, Red Market is really red, haha... We thot Red Market got food to eat but guess what we found there?

Red Market turned out to be really a market, haha... N Catherine is not cooking tonight! Hee :p Though the market look similar to our local wet market, the market has 3 levels: 1 level for veg, 1 level for seafood, 1 level for meat...very organised right? We also discovered something interesting...see below


There is a priceboard stating the price of every item so no need to be afraid of the seller overcharging you!

View of the residential area... It's quite different from our HDB flats.



Before your eyes falls onto the Mac ad, there's a shop that is crowded with people called "come buy". Guess what are they selling? It's actually a Taiwan Bubble Tea shop so I guess the bubble tea craze wind had blown to Macau.

Our first dinner place in Macau...we are so hungry that we decided to settle our dinner at a nearby eatery around Red Market. Not sure if the food was good but we took our chances n the food was great! It could be that we are too hungry but as long as the food taste good...the reason for the good taste does not matter.


Yes, wanton soup, pork chop in claypot with ham and egg...every bite of it tasted so good...yummy yummy...


There's no more red bean so I settled for coconut milk with grass jelly. It wasn't fantastic but still decent...


You guys might not have any idea of where this place is. It's the hound racing turf but unfortunately we missed the hound racing...It was damned disappointing as we weathered through the confusing bus journey and hot weather but we didn't get to see the hound racing.


But there's a saying "塞翁失马, 焉知非福" so although we couldn't catch the hound racing, we discover something else instead...pasarmalam aka nightmarket n there were some yummy food, hee...


I called this the macau version of yong tau foo...tasted a little spicy with a little fragrance of curry...there were so much variety, we were spoiled for choices!



Well, macau is famous for being a popular spot for gambling so we definitely will not miss visiting the casinos. It was an eye opening experience though the smoke was too much for us to take...2nd hand smoking...sucks!

Alternate choice of experiencing the nite life. We wanted to go clubbing but after all the travelling n walking around, we were all too tired to travel to the nite spots of macau thus we decided to settle for 5 star hotel cafe in Grand Lisbao called the "round the clock coffee shop". But as you can see, it is a much classier coffee shop than our kopitiam, haha... comfy seats n air-con plus some background music, we are satisfied!


Their cakes look really nice rite? It tasted quite good too. Best of all, it's not as expensive as we thot, around TCC or Coffee Club pricing though I wun recommend eating cakes at coffee club.
Our first selection, cherry passion fruit drink wif vanilla ice cream...refreshing

Next on our menu, rose tea mousse cake...pretty n tasty...
Lastly, the nourishing steam milk with bird nest...good for skin sia...
Zzz... n it was my 2nd day in Macau!
Breakfast at Metropark...if u think tt's all we ate, you are wrong man...we ate more than these n all are very nice. From the fact that we got engrossed in our food n forgotten to take more pictures, u should know the breakfast was good.
That's not Macau Airport behind me, it's the ferry terminal of macau. Alot of pp travel btn HK n Macau at this ferry terminal. You also get to see many many many buses of the different casinos awaiting for their potential suckers here. I'm here to go on my half day tour in Macau, it was a frustrating experience trying to book a half day tour the day before, in the end we were directed to many different tour agencies. In the end, we should had to go to the ferry terminal to book the tour on a first come first serve basis... The agencies are forming cartel (economic term I learnt in econs) for the half day tour as all of them are charging the same rate and allocating different days for each agencies. There is no competition at all.

As there is still some time before the tour start so we decided to jalan jalan around the ferry terminal...
We always hear in the HK drama tt people who are living at "ban shan" are rich people. See the yellow house behind us, tt's a ban shan house...it will make a nice summer resort for us, haha...
Opposite the ferry terminal is also the F1 race course but the race track are the normal road "ma lu". It will only be converted into race track when a F1 race is on. As you can see from the banner, 15 - 18 Nov is the F1 race. Anyone going Macau during that period? My half day tour will be starting very soon...the pictures below were taken during my half day tour
Portuguese interpretation of Goddness of Mercy...



It's scotching sun out there and most of us were wearing shades n caps. There are lots of people carrying umbrella. But guess what we saw, a man carrying a minnie mouse umbrella...major mismatch!