It was sorta a last minute trip like always, haha.. we only decided where to go and booked the tickets online a week before the trip. We were contemplating between Bangkok, Phuket and Krabi but there was some political tension in Thailand, so we decided that we'll head to somewhere else.
Jayen wanted to go Hongkong again ( i wonder why he likes that place so much -_-) but we settled for Macau (which was very near HK) instead, hehe
Booked budget airlines this time round cos we were on budget, heh.
The flight timing was best cos it was 6.05am hahaa.. very early we like! Woke up at 3.20am (i was supposed to be responsible for waking boyfriend up at 3am but i didnt hear the alarm ring at all! I must be sleeping like a dead log! -_- End up he was the one who called me)
So i rushed to wash up and realised my grandma was up waiting for me! She's always so nice la.. sob sob.. she gave me an angpow hehe, for journey safety :)
Jayen came over in a cab around 420am and off we went to the budget terminal at Changi. It was our first time there... When we stepped into the terminal, we were feeling so uncomfortable cos we dont know why everybody seems to be staring at us... singaporeans really very the kaypo one leh.. keep looking and looking dunno for what -_-
We checked in, gotten our boarding passes (which look like receipts), bought insurance over at the AXS machine and went to have our breakkie at McDonalds :D The looking didn't stop -_-
So we went to some secluded area behind the terminal before it was time to board the plane.
Jayen is excited! He didn't sleep a wink, haha
Time to board the plane! We had to walk all the way out to the open and board the plane
our seats with extra leg-room, hehe... boyfriend's legs are too long, so cannot sit at the normal ones -_-
Heng we got the extra space cos the flight got delayed!! It was our first time onboard a budget airline and this had to happen :( Actually we've heard many stories about budget airlines delaying and stuff, never expected our first time to be so suay, haha
But it was not their fault. cos one passenger (an uncle) did not feel well and we had to do an emergency landing at Ho Chi Minh City.
Nobody complained cos it was a life at stake.. but after we landed and a doctor came up to check on him, we expected the plane to continue on its journey right after that. But it didn't :(
We waited for close to an hour before the pilot made an announcement...
He still had the cheek to say, "Dear passengers, this is your captain speaking. We are fully ready to take off, BUT (this is especially loud and fast -_- haha) ... we're still waiting for the Vietnam customs to clear the administrative paperwork and formalities. We can only go after the airport gives clearance."
Audible sighs and murmuring could be heard from the passengers as most of us were getting frustrated. Imagine no drinks and food provided on the plane, and the seats cannot recline so cannot sleep, worse still, all of us woke up at an unearthly timing like 3am :(
Somemore the uncle looks cheery and healthy..still can happily talk to the doctor, hmmmm...
It was such a long wait. We were supposed to reach Macau at 9.40am but at that time, we were still in Vietnam waiting for dont know what :(
Jayen and i decided to buy some food
We shared a set of curry rice, yum yum! and a can of Coke :)
It was a 2+ hours' delay and we finally reached Macau International Airport at 12pm :)
YAY
It was super, super cold! Maybe we weren't really equipped with winter clothing.. but we were thinking, 13°C cannot be so cold right?? But we were so wrong, cos the wind was super chilly!
Us in the cab, heading to our hotel
On our way, buildings along the street...
Finally we reached! :) Macau is quite small, so taking the cab isn't so expensive like in other countries.
The staff was very friendly and can understand English :)) The bellboy took us to our room which was on the 17th floor.
The room is quite big :) Though not very new, but comfy enough, hehe
They even have firm and soft pillows :D and the staff gave us a guide book and a map.
Decided to freshen up by taking a bath and this was what i saw when i went into the bathroom after Jayen had his.
YAY!!! as usual, wahahaha..... im very happy :D and he's always this sweet :D
Took a photo before heading out! No time to lose! It was only 1+ in the afternoon and we still had half a day to play, yay!
The buildings are very old and jayen loves it. He says Singapore's buildings are too new.. leaving no room for reminiscence.
:D
we went for our lunch at this eatery...
Yummy.. Hot dishes are so good for cold weather!!
We walked all the way to Senado Square which was super crowded on a Sunday!
Some Filipino helped us take a photo :)
See the striped jacket i was holding in my hand? It got lost after that!!! :_( It was new and very cute, cos got fur at the hood, wail***
Senado Square all ready for CNY :)
Went into St.Dominic's Church
i seldom get to see churches when i go travelling. Usually there were only temple visits. But in this Macau trip, we visited so many Catholic churches! :D
After that, we walked through this sea of people!!!!
There was virtually nothing to shop here! Got SaSa, Watsons, Bossini, HangTen (all found in Singapore) and most of the local shops are selling watches. We had a hard time locating souvenir shops :(
After walking through this street, my jacket got lost. I think it slipped off my shoulder and i didnt realise it.. sigh.. didnt trace back here to find it cos it was almost after 2 hours before i realised my jacket was missing! Blur me!
This was what i had been looking forward to see!
The Ruins of St. Paul!
Jayen was asking me where the St.Paul's church was, so i told him there was fire and this is what was left, tat's why it's called ruins.. i anyhow bom one.. isst correct? haha
we walked all the way up
Jayen throwing coins.. for good luck
Went to the Museum of Sacred Art containing altar pieces, statues and paintings from the 17th century..
That's St. Francis embracing Jesus on the cross..
Taking the escalator up..
YAY!
we're on the top!
Did a panoramic shot with the camera, weee~
Holding the sun with my finger, hehe
Baby took lovely photos of me up here, wahaha
we were darn high and kept taking alot of photos, hahaa
Mount Fortress provided an effective defence against the Dutch in 1624, but was taken over as the governor's residence... i copied this from the guidebook, hehe
Museum of Macau. Oh yah, one thing i wanted to say was the road and building names were all in Portuguese! It was so hard trying to pronounce and remember them...
After that, we walked all the way to yet another cathedral..
Buying a Vitasoy along the way...
There was nobody in this church, so we rested our tired legs...
And then out of nowhere popped a frail old lady who made small talks with us... and asked us to follow her to another part of the church. We followed her as we thought she was the caretaker of the church and wanted to show us around.She brought us here...
see the ahma at the left corner of the photo? That's her.. she gave me this cup of candle to put at the altar and i asked her what it was for. She said it was for blessing and we will be blessed or something like that.. and so i did.
Then she asked for money!
She said must pay 20 dollars! we were abit taken aback.. jayen took out a note and wanted to place it into the wooden donation box u see at the corner. But the ahma say must give her! We were confused and didn't know what to do, so we just gave her 20 dollars and she put it into her own pocket. After that, she asked for yet another 20 dollars from me!
But we just thanked her and hurriedly walked off.
I dont know, but we felt really cheated. Anyway, we just took it as donating money to the old lady lor.
Can't believe we got cheated in a church lor, haha.. But God compensated us in another way after that! hahaa (read on to find out!)
We walked all the way to the east of the island..
the famous statue of Kun lam..
It was SUPER DUPER cold here and it was where i realised my jacket was gone :(
we quickly left the place because the wind from the sea was darn chilly! We couldn't take it, haha
baby took this photo because he wanted to show how tiny i was among the buildings -___-
Sands Casino!!! Like the one in Singapore :)
Reached Fisherman's Wharf! Why do so many countries have fisherman's wharf? There's one in Taipei, one in Kaohsiung and one in Hongkong.
we came to this really beautiful place of which i do not know the name
baby looking really good here, wahahaa~*
Luckily i bought these heat packs from Daiso before the trip
open the packet, shake and then the pack will emit heat.. We put one of these into each of our pockets :)
Took a bus to the ferry terminal cos we wanted to go to HongKong :)
As we were queuing up for the tickets, 3 burly men walked up to us to sell us their ferry tickets because they had lost quite abit in the casinos and wanted to recoup their losses, so they wouldn't be able to make it in time for the 7pm ferry back to HK.
Seriously, we were paranoid after the cheating ahma from the church, so we were quite reluctant to buy the tickets from them. One of the men was exasperated and said he would sell the tickets to us at a discount.
In the end, we bought the tickets from them and heng, we weren't cheated, hahaa..
So God sort of compensated us after the cheating incident and we got back more than we lost, hehe
:)
Our TurboJet to HK
Yay, we reached HongKong! we should have planned to go HK in the day or something, cos when we reached there, it was already night time -_- and we can't really do much and had to go back Macau after a few hours. But this is us la, impromptu like always! heh
Had dinner in an eatery :) Their serving are always very, very generous!! We couldn't even finish half of what they cooked for us!
After dinner, we walked in the streets of HK till the wee hours before taking the ferry back to Macau for a restful night... Jayen also bought a jacket for me to replace the one i've lost.. heee..
Yeap, that's for Day 1.. what a long entry, keke..
Macau Day 2
Despite not having enough sleep the previous night as we returned back only after midnight, we got ourselves up by 8am so that we could make it for the hotel's breakfast. i woke up half an hour earlier at 730am so that we do not have to fight for the bathroom, haha..
i read from reviews that the Holiday Inn Macau serves great breakfast, so we couldnt wait to see how great it was, haha..
Just one part of the buffet..
pardon our blur just-woke-up faces, haha..
Verdict: The breakfast is normal leh... Nothing very fantastic. It was just like any other 4-star hotel's food.
After breakfast, we took the hotel's shuttle bus to the Macau Ferry Terminal to change yet another shuttle bus to the famous Macau Venetian's Hotel! :D
it was freezing! haha
The only warm places were up on the buses and inside the buildings!
Macau is divided into the Macao Peninsular (where our hotel is located, and all the other places we went on Day1 of our trip), Taipa island and Coloane island.
The Venetian hotel is situated in Taipa island, so we needed to cross the bridge to the island in order to reach the hotel.
Taipa island
There were alot of hotels in the midst of being constructed on the island.
Finally reached Venetian Macau-Resort-Hotel!
Wahhh.....
looks like i've stepped inside a piece of gold bar :D
Love the ceiling!
The casino
One last photo before the security guard came over and said no photography allowed.
Everybody who knew we went to Macau asked the same question, "Got gamble or not?"
Yes, we did. haha.. Tried our luck with abit of money.
My conclusion: You always win at the starting (like 5 rounds), and after that will lose back (next 5 rounds)
so, my stand is, after 5 rounds of winning, LEAVE with the small winnings and be happy.
Too bad jayen's mindset isnt like mine, hahaa
He said it's okay to end up not winning as long as you get the experience and enjoyed the process. Like if you set aside 50 dollars to gamble, that 50 dollars u have to be prepared to give up.. for the experience. Yupp, it's quite fun to play, i admit.. but seriously, if i can play and get a little win, why continue? i can take the money to go shopping, haha
So.... never mind, haha
we just have differing views :)
This is the famous gondola ride in Venetian. Everything reminds me of Marina Bay Sands. Except that i personally prefer it here, haha
The sky with lovely clouds is painted!
Nice right??? :D
The gondoliers sing with powerful voices! Like the ones in musicals, i like!!!
This was a souvenir shop in the hotel. They were selling keychains, gambling chips, lighters, etc. All not nice in my opinion! i was trying to find girly stuff but there wasn't any! :(( haha.. anyway, i only spotted ONE shop selling girly stuff throughout the entire trip, and i made sure jayen bring me back there on the last day so i could buy something nice for my 2 readers, hehe
Then, we went outside of the hotel.. Love the sight that greeted us! i love lake :)
but it was freezing as usual.... brrrrrrr*
We took self-timer shots! hehe and i love them all!
Then, we proceeded on...
Everything about the architecture is so nice and exquisite! No money go Rome, come Macau also can, hehe
:)
After that, we reached this place.
i think it was some cultural place or casino.. Many buildings there look like that and i thought they were shopping malls! wahaha, but apparently, there are NO shopping malls in Macau :(
candid
:)
It was some casino -_- but we didn't go in. We just went in to thaw our frozen bodies and use the restrooms, hahaa
Walking on... is this your kind of shopping? :D
not mine
But almost everywhere looks like that, haha
We finally came to this place for our lunch.. The food is quite yummy in my opinion. We ordered 2 sets of curry chicken and rice.
Cold weather eat spicy food, BEST!
The curry has a slightly different taste from our local curries though.
Jayen found it TOO spicy. He was perspiring like nobody's business.. so he bought a beef patty burger after that to rid that spiciness..
and it was not enough! He ordered another chicken burger after finishing the beef burger!
i've never seen him eat so much before. Even though he's a guy, he doesn't really eat a lot. Usually, we eat around the same serving.
And after our lunch, we came out of the stall and realised the stall is famous for its curry, haha.. no wonder -_-
we took an old, old escalator up to an overhead bridge...
to take photos, haha.. Oh yah, jayen has a bag of Macau's traditional Almond Cookies we've bought for our folks in his hand :)
On the overhead bridge...
hehe..
candid shot of jayen, haha.. He loves the graffiti behind.
He also loves the OLD OLD building behind -_- haha
Sometimes i wonder why he likes all the old, old stuff.
I did ask him before if he would love me more when i'm old and wrinkly next time.
i forgot his answer.
We reached yet another casino!
i secretly took a photo of jayen playing at the "Big"/"Small" machine, hahaa
we also played poker card (21 blackjack?) at the table with a croupier and some other locals. It was really fun, hahaha
Well, i did enjoy myself.
After a few games (there was nothing to see or shop in Macau, so we visited quite a number of casinos), we took a bus randomly and reached Avenida General Castelo Branco. This is a place where dogs race. Yes, not horse racing but greyhound racing. We didn't go in as we thought it would be quite bo liao, haha
We walked along the old streets and came across this Traditional chinese medical hall.
We drank a glass of Chinese herbal tea each.. It was good stuff! cos it isn't diluted like the ones we buy in singapore, haha.. Very thick and bitter one! There were even haw pieces for you to chew on to rid the bitter taste in your mouth after that, hee..
Old versus new
This is yet another casino -_-
i'm actually getting abit bored of casinos, haha.. Gambling is just not my cup of tea
we found a handphone shop selling phones designed to look like cars! Jayen likes them. He wanted to get the Ferrari, heh..
Soon, it was evening.
we walked all the way back to our hotel :)
i changed into tights as it would be colder as night falls.
Dinner was at this eatery just opposite our hotel...
As usual, we couldn't finish the food.
They are really generous! The prawn-fried omelette there contains more than 30 over fresh prawns! There were just so many inside! Not like in our hawker centres. The hawker will count and make sure not one more extra prawn is accidentally added -_-
Can you spot the lighthouse on the highest point of Macau? :) It has a cross beside it, haha
jayen used this lighthouse as a guiding light /direction to move around Macau. I'm really bad at directions. I just follow him blindly.
Grand Lisboa Casino at night.
I wanted to come back to Senado Square..
Unlike the daytime weekend crowd on the first day, Senado Square is much more peaceful on a Monday night :)
We found Ireland's Potato! Recommended by kaya during our trip to KL last december. And i also think it's these fries that made me and jayen ill the next morning, haha.. Heaty!
It was also a souvenir shop where we bought alot of souvenirs. But they were all keychains and lame stuff, but we still bought them as it was not everytime we come across shops where we can shop in macau! haha
After that, we sat at the almost deserted Senado Square fountain to eat our Ireland's Potato fries and enjoyed each other's presence. It was nice..
and what happened after that was history, haha
Time to upload the photos for Day 3! Photobucket is driving me nuts! I don't know what's wrong and i can't copy and paste the photos in. Had to type in all the html of the photos myself! Hopefully, it gets itself fixed soon!
Such a rainy day and it's making me so sick, haha..
Macau Day 3
Since it would not be too long an entry for the last day, might as well complete it, hehe..
Day 2 is below, by the way :) i've just finished it an hour ago, haaa..
photobucket is okay already so i've uploaded the photos, yay!
but i'm still cold from the rain. It has been raining non-stop for the past 3 days and it's making everyone cold and sick.
i'm still coughing sigh....
Tomorrow is another interview which i'm crossing my fingers for. However, I'm abit daunted but i pray God can grant me lots and lots of courage and wisdom!
i know i won't be able to ace through it without divine help!
okay, back to Day 3, haha
We woke up feeling under the weather :( Sore throat and feeling really cold.
i washed up and woke jayen up but he wanted to sleep in. So i also went back to sleep and we missed breakfast that morning. Woke up only at 10.30am and feeling a little more energetic, we packed our luggage as we needed to check out by 12 noon.
We took a photo like always, haha.. last day must take photo in hotel room
i took a photo of myself too, hehe.. the lighting makes photos turn out great, wahaha~
together :)
kiss shot, hehe
we were actually giggling, but act very 投入, haha
No time to lose! We left our baggage at the reception and off we went for our brunch.
(talking about brunch hor.. i got one classmate who didnt know what "brunch" is, wahahhaa! he still could ask us where the place is -_-)
we love eateries like this! Very HK movie kind, heh...
i was telling jayen he looks like Naruto in this photo, haha.. maybe cos of his black gloves with the orange cup!
our food
this time round, we managed to finish everything!
After that, we walked around, took random buses and reached here :)
The Golden Lotus Flower of Macau. This was a gift from China to Macau after Portugal returned its sovereignty over Macau back to China.
I wanted Jayen to bring me back to the shop i was telling u in the last post. heh..
This was the only shop that was worth shopping in at Macau, hahaa.. besides the big departmental store (New Yaohan)
i bought these lovely hair pins for my readers (the 2 girls who won in my mini-contest, haha.. and they are both so nice people) heh.. i really hope they like the pins!
and that's it, haha.. i did not even buy any other stuff for my friends or folks.
i saw lovely mirrors but they were so expensive :( haha
Walking on...
Jayen buying bird's nest beancurd! wahh... it was nice!
baby mixing it..
he says it will be good for my throat (which was sore at that time :( and complexion) Anyway, the cold, cold weather was good for my skin, haha.. I didn't have whiteheads for 3 days unlike when i'm in singapore!)
okay, i look retarded posing with my mouth open -_-
slurp!
spotted a huge dog, hee
Reached this place which we did not know the name
we passed by a candy shop and bought 50+ dollars worth of candies back home for family, friends and his colleagues! hahaa..
No, i didnt take any photos of the shop or the candies we bought. But there were condom-chocolates, sanitary pads-marshmallows etc! hahaa..
sitting outside Grand Lisboa..
candid photo of me rubbing my eyes.. feeling very tired and cold
It was the first time we wanted to go back to singapore cos we just hated the cold weather, haha..
I mean, cooling is okay, but
not freezing.
we went back to our hotel around 3.30pm to collect our luggage and head to the airport at Taipa island.
There was a 1.5h break before our flight at 6pm..
i was sulking.. haha u can see i didnt really smile for all the pics cos i was feeling so ill :(
Macau International Airport..
we spent around half an hour sleeping at the seats downstairs, haha.. cos there was nothing to do at the airport..
Jayen checking in. We're taking JetStar back to Singapore. Hopefully it doesn't delay like Tiger!
After we checked in, we waited at the viewing gallery for our flight. A plane ready to take off, hehe
Soon, it was our turn, haha..
Took this from the airplane.
JetStar seats were more comfy in my opinion! Can recline abit and can sleep :)
We ordered 2 sets of Hainanese Chicken Rice for dinner. It costs around 24 SGD for our dinner.
The rice was not cooked throughly. Sad. I did not enjoy the dinner as i was falling sick. Having flu, sore throat and fever :(
Thankfully, we are flying back to Singapore. I can't imagine being sick in Macau! And during winter! sure feel like dying, hahaa
i just want my warm bed and blanket :((
Sunset is such a beautiful sight :)
yeap, that's all for our short getaway in Macau!! It was lovely after such a long time since boyfriend and i had a trip overseas. He said it was a dream come true, hee.. i really hope we would have more of such trips in the near future!
yeap, and thanks for reading! :p
CNY is coming in 3 days! YAY
I know you all are excited! hahaa