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