Saturday, August 13, 2011 | By: purple taste

Macau - 30 July 2011

We're getting lazier day by day. On Day 3, we woke up later, as we'd only be starting our day at 10+am. This day, we'd go and try the famous egg tarts! Going to Margaret's Cafe e Nata at Edificio Kam Loi. Why? Simply because it is touted as #2 famous egg tart in Macau after Lord Stow's by foodies, and it is also near our hotel. Hahaha!

Grand Lisboa, daytime

will be walking past these buildings everytime we're heading towards Senado Square

nice tiled walls

go through some back alley

our first destination, breakfast!

early morning customers

Here's the ordering system. To order sandwiches, go to the sandwich counter, place your order and take the item(s) and pay at the cashier. Order your drinks and egg tarts at the cashier too. If you had ordered egg tarts, show the receipt to the staff manning the egg tart section and she'll pick it out for you. Return to your seats with a queue number tag and your drinks will be sent later.

take queue number and your drinks will appear later
flaky buttery crust, still warm
nice soft sweet egg
egg sandwich @ MOP16
very milky tea, lukewarm

The egg tart (@MOP8 per piece) was a bit smallish in size, tasted sweet (but not overly) and buttery. Nice when eaten fresh and warm. The milk tea did take some time to appear. Did not add any sugar and it was smooth. But a little too milky for me.

After breakfast, we walked to Senado Square. Noticed that the scooter seemed to be a very popular mode of transportation. Quite rare to see a motorbike.

rows of scooters
The weather was good. Bright and sunny.

Senado Square

this alley seemed to be a popular spot to take photos
Holy House of Mercy




Next, we headed to the Ruins of St Paul.

sculpture of man and woman

approaching the ruins
been here since 16th century

doves
lots of tourists on the grounds of the ruins

We explored the World Heritage site for a bit. There was also an underground chamber.

underground tomb
paintings

Then we proceeded up to Mount Fortress (大炮台). Had to walk abit and climb some stone steps up the hill. *pant pant*

Mount Fortress
canon
view from the fortress

Macau Museum is located at Mount Fortress but we did not go in. Instead, we found a mini museum inside an underground chamber.

we went down here

artefacts

The weather by then had turned dark. So we got down the hill but it started drizzling. Waited for abit before continuing our walk back to town area. Next stop, Hac Sa Wan (黑沙湾) or in Portugese Baía de Hác Sá, located at Coloane island. We took a bus there. Can take #26A, #25, or #21A. The bus fare was MOP6.40 flat fee. I think we took bus #26A.

The bus ride was quite long.. probably more than half hour. And our bus driver actually made a wrong turn at the round-about and he got shouted at by the passengers who alerted him of his mistake. And then, he got shouted again when he reverses his bus while there are cars coming from behind. Such dangerous act.


Hac Sa beach, where the sand is black
black sand



For lunch, we ate at Fernando's, which is nearby. No reservations, so we had to wait. Third name in the queue. Waiting time was about 20 minutes.


Should try the grilled chicken there. Very nice. And sangria too. 


sangria

grilled chicken, a tinge of spiciness


After lunch, we went to Coloane village and explore abit before settling down for pork chop buns. We were still stuffed from lunch but still, must try the pork chop bun from Tai Lei Loi Kei!


pork chop buns are sold here
tender pork chop bun


After stuffing our stomachs, we went casino hopping. We walked to Venetian from Coloane village. Took us some good 15 minutes under the hot sun to reach there.


Venetian Hotel
inside Venetian


Spent some hours travelling from casino to casino. Been to Venetian, Sands, and Wynn. Liked Venetian best because it still has a lot of shops for shopping. Didn't try my luck though.


It's tiring to stand whole day in casinos... 


nice lights and water display

Decided to keep my last morning in Macau, lazing in bed. Too tired to go Macau Tower the next day. Hence, my Macau adventures ended here...
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 | By: purple taste

Macau - 29 July 2011

Day 2 of our Macau trip. Woke up early to catch the 910am shuttle bus to ferry terminal. We're going to Hong Kong today, yay! Morning news stated that typhoon level 3 has been lifted and was heading towards Hainan Island. Hmm... Looked out of my window and weather seemed fine.

nice weather
Waited outside the hotel to catch our shuttle.

outside of the hotel

Very soon, we saw our ride approaching....(although it was late by 10 minutes...)

to the ferry terminal
We hopped onto the bus and began our adventure for the day!

think this is the town center....
Our ride was uneventful and we reached the ferry terminal in 10 minutes.

time to alight

Bought our tickets (economy @ MOP160) and got our passport stamped for departure to Hong Kong.

buy from these counters
Turbojet ferry

let's go HK!

comfy seats

It took an hour to reach Hong Kong island and we disembarked at Sheung Wan. We exited the building and found the MRT station.

Shun Tak Center

Sheung Wan Station
let's go take train~

But of course, gotta buy us some tickets first!

not all machines accept notes, probably just 2 out of 5 machines

single journey ticket (insert and retrieve)

We're just going to Central (中环) and it's one stop away from Sheung Wan.

inside MRT

guides to help tourists enquiries

So we got to Central quite fast, and out of the MRT station we emerged!

purple windows~

construction going on

walking towards Lan Kwai Fong, in search for our lunch place

For lunch, we had Yung Kee roast goose. A rather expensive affair, I'd say.

roasted meat on display at Yung Kee
expensive meat platter

roasted goose

After lunch, it was decided that we should visit Victoria's Peak. But got one tiny problem. Our group leader (who has been to HK before), has forgotten how there from Lan Kwai Fong... so, he volunteered me to go and ask for directions since I can speak Cantonese. Alright.

Spotted an 'ah sir' who has just completed his 'beat'. A man was asking him something so I waited patiently for my turn. After the man was done, 'ah sir' took out his little notepad (like we always see in TVB police drama) and jotted the time he completed his 'beat' (I guessed only!). Gingerly, I approached him and started speaking in Cantonese.

He was helpful and provided three methods in getting there. So we chose one and proceeded towards our destination. Taking tram to the Peak. But first, to find where's the tram station. Police officer said it's about 15 minutes walk from our current position.

passed by this
saw a tram

and passed by this...
huge huge HSBC bank building

After walking about 8 minutes, we kind of lost our bearings, and had to ask for directions again. This time from a kindly security uncle who works at some building. He was very nice and walked out abit to show us where to go next.

if you see this, it means near the tram station
just needa cross this road
ta-dah~ Peak Tram station

Madam Toussad's

waiting for tram to arrive

it's here, and many many people waiting to get in...

Waited about 10-15 minutes for the tram. Limited number of passengers allowed inside at any one time.

inside tram

for standing passengers, need to bend the knees when going steep upslope

looking out for the view, inside the tram was hot and stuffy

Was relieved when finally reached the Peak. Finally some air and breeze. Woohoo! Went exploring and took some pictures.



eagle spotted

Unfortunately the sky turned dark soon after...

dark sky approaching..

And a few minutes later, it rained. No.. correction, it poured! Heavy sudden shower, so had to seek refuge at a nearby cafe before I get completely drenched (no umbrella, what to do).

After waiting for like 10 minutes (and the cafe service crew warned us refugees to stand by the side as not to block their business...), I got tired and was getting colder by the minute as water was splashing onto my jeans. So decided to drink a cup of coffee while waiting for rain to stop.

cute cup, smooth milky coffee

Finally rejoined with my group (had to waste SGD$2+ for a few seconds phone call!) and off we went to explore somemore after the rain had slowed down.


bus models

Spent 2 hours at The Peak, then off we went to take Star Ferry to Tsim Sha Tsui. We went to the ferry terminal by foot and it took us 20 minutes...

Star Ferry Terminal

token for ferry ride

towards Tsim Sha Tsui

It was a short 10 minutes ride to Tsim Sha Tsui. Our next destination is Avenue of Stars.

nice clock tower

Hong Kong Museum of Art
notice the bird perched on her forehead? That's a real birdie





Bruce Lee

Strolled around the place for a good 15 minutes and then headed to Yau Ma Tei. Was tired and needed some rest. So we made a pit stop at Hui Lau San, a dessert shop.

my friend had this combo

cold bird nest soup with suet-kap (snow jelly, hashima or plainly dried fallopian tube of frogs.. eeeek!)
After refreshments, we roamed the streets. It was like 'pasar malam' (night market). Neon lights, crowds, vendors hawking their goods etc.



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getting more and more crowded when night falls...


We went round and round into the alleys selling mostly similar touristry stuffs like t-shirts, handphone covers, accessories, underwear etc. There are lots of regular shops and eateries around these alleys and lanes. Passed by a stretch where all the eateries are small Japanese shops. Cool! We also saw lots of sportswear shops.

We walked for about 40 minutes before dinner. Went to a random dim sum shop called 'Hei Wan' or 喜运. Their chicken steamed rice looked and smelled good! But we didn't order any. Had dim sum and porridge instead.

some of the dim sum items that we had
charsiew cheong fun

pork and century egg porridge (this one was very nice)
fried beancurd roll


After dinner, we walked somemore and bought some yummy authentic (only liked those from Yuen Long) wife's biscuit (老婆饼) before heading back to Macau.

Unfortunately, our ferry back to Macau had some problem, so we were asked to change ship even though we were already seated. The seats were actually more comfy than our morning ferry too!

So all in all, we ended reaching Macau near midnight. It was a tiring, tiring day. And also a day, where our passports got stamped many times.

night view at Macau ferry terminal