Hong Kong, Day 3, Where's Macau?

After lunch, it was time to head to Macau. Yey. We took the MTR to the Sheung Wan station then we headed to the Hong Kong-Macau ferry terminal. It was inside a mall but I can't remember the name. Originally, we wanted to take the ferry to Taipa (it's a place in Macau, I believe). But we could not get tickets with decent schedules. The return flights were either too early (4:30 p.m.) or too late (1 a.m.).

We found another agency with acceptable schedules. The Turbo Jet to Macau was leaving at 2 p.m. and we got return tickets for 11:30 p.m. Or so we thought. When we were about to go back to Hong Kong, we found out that 2 tickets were for 11:30 p.m. while the other 3 were for 11:45 p.m. Hehe. Naisahan kami ni ate. But we were lucky because our return tickets were for business class. We paid HKD350.00 for each round trip ticket. The trip to Macau took around an hour.

It felt surreal to be in Macau. Rhuel has this old joke about the place. He would always ask me, "Where's Macau?" And I'm supposed to reply, "It's in mah barn, beside mah horse." I'm supposed to say that with some cowboy accent. Hehe. So it was really nice that we finally saw where Macau was. =)

It was raining when we got to Macau. Boo. We couldn't find our way. We saw a Pinoy who greeted us "Hello, kabayan!" and offered to tour us around Macau for HKD50.00 per person, including transpo. By the way, Macau has its own currency but its equivalent to the HKD. The stores there accept both HKD and MOP so no need to have your money changed. Going back to kabayan, he was creepy because we felt like he was stalking us. Hehe. Another Chinese guy tried to make the same offer although his rates were steeper at HKD200.00 per person. Tsktsk. Good thing we didn't fall for these offers. Apparently, you can get free bus rides courtesy of the hotel buses. Sus. Traffic was quite heavy though.

First stop was at The Venetian. It was lovely. I would love to stay there next time. Hehe. I finally fulfilled my long time dream of entering a casino. We stayed in the casino for about a minute I think. I just wanted to see it. Hehe. The sky replica was really cool. If it were not raining outside, we would have been easily fooled that it was real. Hehe.

I had a nice time checking out the shops.

They have this replica river inside and you can ride a boat to cruise the river, accompanied by a singer. We heard one sing a Filipino song. Coolness.

At around 6 p.m., we decided to move to the Senado Square. It's similar to Intramuros with its ancient architecture. But it's well-maintained and well-lit. And it had a lot of decors and shops. We visited the Ruins of the St. Paul Church. It was nice.

We hopped from one pharmacy to the other to check if they had carminative oil for Tita Aging. Unfortunately, the vendors could not understand us. They didn't know what we were looking for. They gave us other kinds of oil.

We tried the beef jerky from one of the stalls because the vendor was bolera. She called Trish (of manila and beyond) and Barn (blogless) maganda. And when Rhuel and I dropped by, she told us "Tikim, tikim."

We also bought egg tarts and brought them with us for dessert. Yummy. Para ngang egg pie. =)

Dinner was at the Macau Recipes. My brother was looking for Lutong Macau so we picked Macau Recipes. Hehe. The building actually had 4 floors of restaurants. One was for Portuguese dishes, the other for Chinese, and one for Japanese. They served Portuguese dishes because Macau used to be a territory of Portugal. It was handed over to China in 1999. A lot of the signs in Macau are still in Portuguese.

Rhuel and I ordered Roasted Duck with rice. It was not good. I only ate half of it. Parang malansa. Good thing we had egg tarts for dessert.

After dinner, we walked to the Wynn Hotel to ride the bus to the port. The Wynn Hotel had a dancing fountain. Nakakatuwa. I loved the lights. =)

We also checked out the other hotels.

After going around Wynn, we headed to the ferry terminal. It was only 10 p.m. then. We were still early for our trips. We tried to ask if we can be chance passengers on the earlier trips because we had nothing else to do. Well, turns out that other people had that in mind too. The lines for the stand-by passengers were really long. It was actually exciting because the ferries leave every 15 minutes and each trip had a line for stand-by passengers. People were running around like crazy. We lined up at the 10:45 p.m. trip. But we were not able to get on the ferry. We decided to move to the line for the 11:15 p.m. trip. We needed 11 slots so all of us can get on the same ferry.

The running around and lining up made our night interesting. We were not bored at all. And we were lucky because we were all accommodated in the 11:15 trip. As a bonus, we got seats in the business class. Zozyal. And as if the wide seats were not enough, they even fed us. Haha. They served us ham and cheese sandwiches, Oreos, and orange juice. My siblings and Trish didn't eat their food. Hmpf. Barney and Trish brought home their share. Rhuel and I, well, yes, we finished everything. Hehe. Dapat sulitin.

Macau was nice but Rhuel and I agreed that an overnight stay there would be enough. Of course we were not able to see the entire place. It's too bad we were not able to visit the Macau Tower which is a Space Needle replica.

But we're guessing that majority of the place would be casinos and hotels. We're more interested in the Senado Square-like places. Hopefully, we'll get another chance to visit Macau. P.S. The comfort room in the ferry station was dirty. Eeww.

It was around 12:30 a.m. when we arrived in Hong Kong. We were afraid that we won't make it to the MTR's last trips so we decided to take a cab. Good thing their cabs can accommodate 5 people so we all fit in 1 cab. In Macau, only 4 persons are allowed per cab so we had to take 2 cabs from the ferry station to the Senado Square.

It was sleeping time when we got back to Yiu Fai.