Macau 2 Days

As I mentioned sometime ago, we had plans to go China year end due to the fact that office is closed for 11 days hehe…so we left KL on 25th and came back on 2nd Jan. Kids as usual with grandma and maid. Just 2 of us, the backpackers style.

Our route, Macau-Shenzen-Guangzhou-Zhuhai and back to Macau for flight.

This post gonna be for Macau, hope I have time by this week to put on rest of the places we went…I’m so so so busy with office work :(.

We took the 630am flight on Christmas day. The flight was on time, but departed late..cause there’s a lady whom I suspect overslept somewhere in the airport and the whole plane waited for her!!! So we departed late by 15mins…See the woman in the pic that’s sleeping, yah that’s the fella lahh…The flight was pretty long and boring. I managed to nap for a while, and took some pics of the clouds…very nice clouds..all lining up in rows 🙂

We arrived at the Macau airport close to 11am, the airport is OK lah, nothing special just by the seaside, can see a lot of land reclaiming in progress. The captain that flew us there was Daddy’s buddy captain, so I went into the cockpit and took some pics hehhe…

We took a cab and head straight to the hotel, OK, it’s a 3 star hotel and it’s so so small, the only word Daddy could say is *WALAUUUU*..he repeated this like so many times!!! What to do, backpackers mah, and christmas day, they charge double price, so this the only one we could afford. I booked the hotel from Internet, and for this room size we are paying RM200 a night on Christmas Day!!

We didn’t really know where exactly we were, so we called our friend’s cousin, Yen (whom is a local there) and she told us we are near town. We got ourselves a map, and started walking. Of course first thing, food!! So hungry. She recommended a shop nearby, which has good wan tan mee. After walking for quite some distance (their road signs are pretty tourist friendly) and asking around, finally we found the shop.

Another walauuuu….you gotta take number to eat!!! So we waited like 15 mins and our turn came. We ordered wan tan mee of course :P. And pork chop bun, supposed to be Macau good food, but not from this shop, but eat lah…then we saw next table order some fish skin, we also ordered hahah…the wantan mee, yummy!! Wantan was huge, and the prawn so fresh. The noodles so fine…aiyoo…I love it. The fish skin was nice too, it’s a cold dish, eaten with ginger and some soya sauce. Very crunchy taste as well hehe..

After satisfying our tummy, we started walking around..we were actually at Senado Square. Alot of shops there and so many people. St Paul and some other heritage is also around the corner. We went to one of the Church, St. Dominic’s Church..then continue wandering around. Then saw a stall selling *Malt sweets* (mak nga tong), my childhood love :). So we bought and ate it, very nice and soft…We also passed by a shop selling crocs, they had kids crocs shoes featuring disney, so cute but expensive lah. Macau is also famous with almond cookies…we see them all over the place!!!

After walking for 2 hours plus..we head back to hotel to take a rest. Our plan was to go for tea exhibition at Lou Lim Ieoc Garden, then at night we will go for street concert at St Paul’s Ruin. We took a bus and stopped nearby the Garden, and walked there only to find out that the tea house is under renovation…grrrr…nevertheless, the garden was pretty beautiful so we went around and took some pics (the people playing chess & old lady doing taichi)..then we decided to take a walk to this place we passed by earlier where we saw the cable car…didn’t know what was it, just kepoh…

We took the cable car up, just in time, they closes at 6pm!! Well, it was another park!! Really huge right on top of the hill..and then we found out that it was actually where the Guia Fortress & Lighthouse were!! And since Daddy likes Lighthouse, we decided to go for it. It was quite far to walk at the park itself, but the scenery was breathtaking. And the lighthouse was very beautiful too hehe..worth all the effort lah!!!

It was already dark when we arrived there (winter time, day is shorter). We took a walk downhill based on the map, St. Paul Ruins is not that far..so we just walk n walk n walk LOL. Took some photos of a supposingly sports center…and finally when we found St. Paul Ruins, we were cursing one lady that gave us wrong direction. It took us like more than 30mins to walk, luckily the weather was cooling, so it’s not that bad.

It looks beautiful..but nothing much to see lah..just a ruin LOL. We thought the concert hasn’t started, so we went downhill on the way to Senado Square and had McD haha…yes, we eat McD everywhere we go, cause that’s the safest thing and they have diff menu. So happen they have this rice burger (rice, patty/beef slices, rice). Yummy!!!

After that we walked back to St. Paul Ruins only to find out that the last concert was on 24th Dec..duhh!!! So we just sat there, took some pics and relax before walking back to hotel again. On our way, we saw this shop, very famous I think (It was so so crowded), selling bakwa..they have so many varieties, even Ostrich meat!!! We bought some for MIL to try.

Took a pic of Senado Square at night..beautiful eh with the lights deco. While walking back, we stopped by a chinese medicine hall, buy some sour plum (see the pic, they are so free hoh, arrange the sour plum so nicely haha).

Next day, we had a date with our private tour guide, Yen :). She met us at the hotel, and took us for porridge breakfast, walking distance from our hotel as well. Very famous porridge slurpss!!! It all comes with huge meatball…plus other stuff depending on what you order. I ordered meatballs with egg and some pig spare parts. Daddy had meatballs only.

After that, we hop on to Yen’s sister car and started our Macau day 2 tour. We told them where we went yesterday and they were like…whoaa..you walked from Guia Fort to St. Paul…it’s bloody far!!! LOL..backpackers mah, like dat lorr..

Our first destination, A-Ma Cultural Village. This is where the A-Ma statue is, supposingly the goddess of fisherman where most Macanese worship. From here, we can see the whole of Macau, since it’s the highest peak in Macau (if I remembered correctly). See the first pic, there are a row of houses by the seaside…very nice bungalow, we took a drive there later on on our way out hehe…

Next, we stopped at Coloane for some hot pipping-freshly-baked Portuguese Eggtarts, Lord Stow’s Bakery. I never tried Portuguese Eggtart before, even in KL though I’m an eggtart lover. We bought 4, and added some cinnamon powder on it. Across the road, there were actually some marble chalrs and table for us to sit and enjoy the eggtarts. Look at Daddy’s face hahaha…it’s really delicious..the egg melts in the mouth and the crust so crispy. I had 2 LOL.

Then Daddy wanted to get some salted fish for MIL, so we went to a shop nearby, supposingly all the tourist goes there for salted fish. Look at the oyster, so so huge!!! And also the stretch of salted fish hehe…

We walked around that area and there was another old heritage, forgotten what’s the name..I think it was a very old temple, like the first few in Macau. We then went for late lunch at one of the shop, famous also (see picture for the name). Ordered their kam hiong lala (macau style), salted fish steam with pork (macau style also) and steam fish and veg. Yum yum…the lala was different, more spicy. Minced pork with salted fish, very nice oso hehe…

On the way out from Coloane, we stopped by at the Black Sand beach…the sand is very black, naturally. They had BBQ seafood along the beach, I bought cuttlefish to munch (I’m eating so much aiyoo). Then we went to the Taipa Houses Museum. There were like 4-5 houses, depicting the Portugese lifestyle when they were in Macau. They also had some ceramic exhibition in place at the same time. The last pic is a photo of me with our tour guide, Yen. It’s really nice of her bringing us around. Next time she comes to KL, we must bring her around also hehe…

While we were there, we caught a couple taking wedding photos there hehe…I suppose this must be one of the good location for outdoor wedding shoot. And also a couple I think just proposed to each other!!! The girl was holding 99 roses!!! Both Yen and myself were like wahh wahh…how many roses ehh…LOL.

After that we head for our tea time snack..oops..not snack, it was quite heavy actually. Some fish soup with noodles, Yue Tong Fun. I quite like the soup, very peppery..nice to drink during winter..but Daddy didn’t quite like it hehe…besides the soup, I also ordered a bowl of noodles with pig’s ears.

Then we went to the harbour to get tickets to HK since next day we will be going there. Manage to stopped by Post Office to check out their FDC collection, but didn’t buy any though. We picked up Yen’s friend at the harbour as well (Japanese girl speaking English), and then head straight to this Church…ermm…can’t remember the name again. It was on top of the hill and we just made it before they close the gate haha…Apparently, the *Shanghai Beach – famous TVB series* was filmed here..so Daddy also did a Shanghai Beach pose..the church was where they got married..maybe??

There were also a water fountain at the foothill of the church. And of course, from there we can enjoy the scenery of Macau…looking at one of the bridge. Very nice hoh…We also passed by Stanley Ho’s house (first pic on the left) and I papparazzi-ed his house hahaha…

We head for dinner, by then I think about 8pm liao (it gets dark so early, we can hardly tell the time). The restaurant name is Hung Kee. Local foodfare.

Huge chicken wings, Pak cham kai with siu yoke, Corn soup with fish maw, Sotong with Celery (my favourite, cause I like celery hehe), Steam egg with crab meat and of course the exotic, worms cooked with dunno what, looks like omelette to me. There were 7-8 of us (whole of Yen’s family, 3 sisters), lucky thing we managed to finish the food.

After dinner, they took us to walk around Taipa Village. There were alot of shops selling food and they offer free sample for you to try. So if you are hungry and no money to eat, here’s where you go LOL. I like the jelly, very nice and different from what we have here (no photo, too busy eating).

We next head to Fisherman’s Wharf. This is the new tourist attraction spot in Macau, just opened in 2005. Ooh..I just love this place, it’s next to the Sands Casino Hotel, and the lights at night makes this place very beautiful.

It has got loads of shops depicting different designs (Holland, Japan, American, etc.). The shops were either restaurant, hotel or souvenir shop. It even has a Roman Amphitheatre. We spent more than 45 minutes here, admiring the place…love the lights and the cooling breeze.

On our way back to hotel, Yen’s sister drove pass Lisboa, the famous casino. Apparently, there will be more Las Vegas casinos opened in Macau by end of this year. One of the new one is Sands (you can see it when landing from the plane). The other ones are still in construction, but it’s huge!!! One of it has a river insider the hotel itself…whoaa…and to counter this, the old Lisboa came out with a new Lisboa haha..just opposite the old Lisboa, huge!!! The pic on top is the new Lisboa, still under construction but they already putting on lights. And on top of it, it’s a Y shape hotel..so tall!!

So that’s all for Macau. If you ask me if I’ll go back again, definitely, since we didn’t go into the casino LOL. Wait till all the new casino is up lah, then we go again hehe..with MIL maybe. I enjoyed the food there and the people are friendly too.

Next day, our destination is 1/2 day HK, 1/2 day Shenzen. Stay tuned ;).