Macau Bem Vido #2

Continuing from the first part, we checked into tis Beverly Plaza Hotel in the Macau town area on Day 2. The room not as grand as Venetian Macao but equally comfortable. Took a shuttle bus to the newly built Macau Fisherman Wharf & had lunch in a Shanghainese restaurant inside. Our hotel is stone throw away from all the major casinos. Here, we have the locally owned casionos such as Grand Lisboa & Fortuna. There's also MGM, Wynn, Sands - the major Vegas chains are all here. It's been years since the local government stopped the monopolization of the local gambling business from a certain Stanley Ho (one of Asia's richest men) & opened up to the international chains. No wonder tis place called Vegas of the East. Anyways, in 2007, it's reported that Macau has overtook Las Vegas as the no.1 gambiling destination in the world based on $$$ turnover.

With bro in Fisherman's Wharf

For dinner, went to tis Wong Chi Kei restaurant situated in Senado Square, which serves the signature wan tan mee. They even got their own website: http://www.wongchikei.com.hk/ The restaurant is famous throughout Macau & HK for its technique of making noodles with the bamboo sticks - a century old traditional Cantonese style. The prawn dumplings were filled with super fresh medium sized prawns. Truly delicious & a must-try for any noodle lovers. For supper deserts, we tried to search for tis "tong sui"(sweetened soups) shop. After 1 hour of walking, finally found it at secluded corner (can't remember the shop name) Here, we have their specialties; sweetened water chestnut soup, wheat, black glutinous rice, sweet potatoes & other unknown desert. It was a tantalising treat with generous servings of ginkgo in almost all soups in huge bowls. Bills came up to about RM 200.00 for 10 of us, with each bowl costs RM 15.00!!!

Braised wan tan mee with shrimp dumplings from Wong Chi Kei

Great array of "tong sui"

Beautifully lighted Macau Tourism office building in Senado Square

Day 3

We had this half day tour on a hired coach with a local tour agent with the first stop at St. Paul's Ruins, which I descibed as the symbol of Macau. With the legendary landmark as the background, photo session is a must. Nearby is the Macau Museum, which showcased the history of Macau's early days. We were then brought to the A-Ma temple, St Francis Xavier church & had Portugese lunch at Dumbo restaurant. In between the places, went to the famous Macau pastry shops, situated strategically near the tourist attractions. There are 2 household names for pastries, "Choi Heung Yuen" & "Koi Kei". You will always see the 2 shops situated not far from each other anywhere in main Macau streets. I was told almond cookies is a must-buy for souvenirs while others such as pineapple cookies, peanut candies, egg cakes are not to be left out either. Having a thing for pastries, I just can't help but to try out & buy each packet of these cookies from the 2 shops. My personal opinion is "Koi Kei" has slight edge over its rival as its cookies are more tastier & had more varieties of cookies. So, do hop over to any of those 2 shops if ur in Macau.

My one resolution before this trip is to check out the famous Portugese tarts & see if it's taste is as good as claimed. Tried the ones sold in few shops & mind u, the taste of the tart in it's birthplace Macau (i guess so) is really out of the world. The egg portion in the tart is soft & tender unlike the one sold in KL which is more like a jelly. So, when we eat the original version, it felt as if the egg melted in our mouth. Talking about the currencies used, most shops here actually accept 3 main currencies, Macao dollars (MOP), HK dollars (HKD) & renminbi yuan (CNY) & most cash registers had the daily rates set in them. So, if the price of the item costs MOP15 & when we give HKD20, we will receive changes slightly more than MOP5 based on the daily rate.

Bro & myself went out on our own at nite, setting ourselves to prowl the whole Macau streets while the others tried their lucks again. Started walking after seeing off the others in Wynn casino but we decided to go back to Senado Square for dinner in Wong Chi Kei. It was drizzling & there was a procession going on in the square since it was Good Friday. Tried my best to go in front to catch glimpses of the people but the crowd was too huge. After filling our hungers with wan tan mee, pork chop buns & sui kow soup, we explored every corner of many connecting streets around the square. Little that we realised we actually walked as far as reached the St Paul Ruins again. Truly majestic sight of the landmark at night. A must-visit place in Macau at nite. Walked back to our hotel using the long way in order to see more of the town at nite. Along the way, there's beautiful display of lights on building of Grand Lisboa Hotel & Casino, entertaining magical fountain performance outside Wynn & also stopped over for dim sum supper at a Taiwanese shop.

No photo is complete without the Macau icon at the background - St. Paul's Ruins

Stanley Ho's Grand Lisboa Hotel & Casino

Musical fountain at Wynn Macau

To be continued...

Macau Bem Vido #1 - A Venetian Dream

Blogging about recent trip is not easy really...first, u wouldn't know how to start & normally too many good stuffs that left u spellbound & not knowing how to describe the great experiences. better start writing or else, the memories could start fading away with time, especially for ppl with short-term memories like me. It happened last year with my Chiangmai & HK trip. Okay, been to tis Macau & Zhuhai (thank you Air Asia)recently with parents & bro and 18 family frens. But first of all, one special thanks for Tony Fernandes for making tis trip possible for all eheeheh... I will definitely recommend u to be the next Transport Minister in the 13th General Election!!!!

Day 1

Upon arrival in the Macau airport, weather were chilly cool & averaged bout 15 degrees. We were transferred to this Venetian Macao resort, situated in this reclaimed island of Taipa. This is the first integrated casino-shopping complex-hotel resort in Macao. Managed by the prestigious Las Vegas Sands, it covers over thousand of hectares in the Cotai Strip with all its designs are based on the Italian Venetian theme. Check out the website: http://www.venetianmacao.com/en/home.aspx One look at the overview designs of the whole area, u can safely conclude this is the closest version of Venice town u can get. We checked into the 75 square feet Bella suite room, which has 2 queen size beds with any 5-star facilities u can think of in place. Boy..it has 2 LCD TVs & that too Sharp Aquos brand!!!!! Upon checked out the bigger-than-usual size bathroom, Dad loudly announced "I'm not leaving this room !!!"

No wonder Dad dun wanna leave here

Still not had lunch, we (Dad followed as he need to satisfy hunger too) quickly changed & went down to check out the food eateries. All of us stood still on the 3rd floor, not knowing there are about 30 food outlets serving all different fusions u can think of. Settled into tis local food court & ordered wan tan soup noodle and "yin yang" drink (mixture of coffee & tea for those who dunno). Not bad for a starter, with those fresh prawns-filled"wan tans". Love those HK style wan tan mee...Once finished, took my bro wif me for our own tour of the whole town. First stop is the Grand Canal Shoppe, with shopping outlets with the man-made river in between. There are total of 350 outlets to be exact.

Grand Canal Shoppe along the river...

Taste of local beer is a must. Smooth but not much umpphhh

Be mindful, we're still being indoor & the whole area are closed with Sun an unknown entity. One look at the outlets' name & u know they are untouchable. Gucci, Fendi, MNG, Tiffany's etc...u name it u got it. One great attraction is tis Venice-style gondola ride along the river with singing boatmen...Mind u, they probably hired Italian soprano singers to man the boats!!! Each of the boatman will sing thoughout the boat journey & those peeps dun need mikes for their voices to be heard aloud. Actually the indoor area played a part as well, with those sound-proof walls & ceilings intact.

Gondola ride with singing boatman

Every single detail in the resort is precisely taken care of & ensured to be of 5-star Venetian standard. On one walk along the lobby to the casino, u just have to stop, look 60 degrees up & marvel at the beautiful Italian drawings on the ceiling. Along the street in the shopping area, several buskers were seen strutting their stuffs and a group of soprano singers showing their vocal prowess. Not sure if they're singing in Italian or Portugese,but what the heck, their voices nearly cracked my spec glasses....

Entrance to the casino

Fantastic piece of art on ceiling

One of many Italian artpieces

Me and Captain Hook with a soprano voice

Went back to the room to have rest & out to the Taipa town to check out the local seafood restaurant. The owner swears by his specialties chicken & fish dishes but they were only average at best, with only small portions served for 20 of us!!! Went back to the hotel for 2nd round meal & ordered shrimp noodles (which at least tasted better than the seafood earlier) While Dad & Mum went to the casino together with the rest, bro & I went outside the hotel premise for some photo shooting sessions. It was truly spectacular Las Vegas-style scenery outside with great display of lighting effects highlighting the main hotel building. Nothing to shout about the casino actually, with typical scenes of players screaming in joy & despair over multiple types of games. Nowadays, those mainland Chinese certainly can afford to throw their money (in chips form lerr) across the tables and putting thousands of dollars at one bet.

Typical Las Vegas-style building at nite

The hotel entrance

Day 2

Went to "yam cha" HK style (that's means having dim-sum) in a Chinese restaurant in the casino vicinity. We have to wait for a while for our food since the chefs practice "steam-as-u-order" system instead of the normal pullcart found in many dim-sum restaurants. Clearly one of the best "ha kao"(prawn dumplings) tasted so far with medium sized juicy prawns filled. Char siew pau & chee cheong fun are good too. Coupled with the perfectly brewed "pu er" or "poh lei" in cantonese chinese tea, dim-sum breakfast is never this satisfying....

Perfectly steamed char siew pau with freshly made dough and tender meats inside

The others went for last hurrah in trying their lucks in the casino before we checking out & transferred to Beverly Plaza hotel in the town area. With the published rate of HKD 1,600.00 per nite (that's the cheapest room at RM 800.00), it wont' do any harm by pampering ourselves in a Venetian dreamland. But of cos anythin more than 1 nite will bound to burn our pockets....

To be continued...