Rock n' roll!
Trip Start
Apr 19, 2010
1
5
Trip End
Apr 23, 2010
Where I stayed
Macau, China
Friday, April 23, 2010
I purposely booked into a high-end hotel for our last night stay of our honeymoon after 3 nights of staying in a low-budget hostel back in Hong Kong. So I chose Hard Rock hotel at Macau for the last night of our honeymoon. City of Dreams actually consist of 3 hotels - Hard Rock, Crown and Hyatt and are located at Taipa island off the main Macau island. There are 2 casinos altogether. After we checked in, we went directly to our room. It's very cozy and modern as you can see from the pics and what really caught my eyes was the 42inch flat screen TV welcoming us using my name. There was Elton John's costume being displayed at our 21st floor. Hard Rock is full of wonderful memorabilia of the various bands and singers. There is also one particular attraction that really caught our (and everyone else) eyes are the "almost real-life" topless mermaid that swam around a virtual fish tank. It's freaking realistic.
There is no where else to eat, so we went to have our dinner in the casino. The food is quite affordable (mainly due to attract gamblers) and to our surprise the food is actually quite good cause our impression is that the food will be lousy. There are a few restaurants in the casino, but we chose Thai restaurant. Felt eating something hot. We ordered fried rice and tom yam. Well I can tell you, the tom yam is as good as in Thailand. It's fantastic. The casino is new, but what I really like is that they play rock songs in the casino. Too bad photography was not allowed, would have taken loads of photos cause there lots of memorabilia.
After dinner, we went around the 3 hotels and took lots of pictures. We even went outside of the hotel and it's an amazing scene. It's so beautiful with all the lights, and in front of City of Dreams there stands the majestic Venetian hotel. It was also freaking cold outside as it was extremely windy. Never experienced before such a strong wind back in Malaysia. For those who are wondering, no, lady luck was not on my side as I lost RM300 at the casino.
Sightseeing, Food Hunting, Souvenir
We know we have a short period of time to do sightseeing and shopping, so we decided to check-out earlier. We took a cab to the Macau Ferry Terminal as we wanted to keep our luggage first. It cost us a whopping HKD$60 for a short distance. *Never take a cab in Macau as it's super expensive. After we have kept our bags, we took the local mini-bus that is located outside the terminal. Not knowing if the bus go to the famous landmark of Ruins of St. Paul, we asked the bus driver if he goes there. He said yes, and immediately we hop on. The ride only cost us HKD$3.20 for two person. Along the way, we saw the MGM, Sands, Lisboa hotel casinos, and also the Kun Yam statue. We haven't got the time, so we did not alight. When we reached the destination, the bus driver dropped us at the main road, and asked us to walked straight alongside the row of shoplots and we will reach the Ruins. After 15minutes walk, we finally reached the Ruins of St. Paul and there were plenty of tourists taking photos with the landmark synonymous with Macau. Our initial plan was to walk the UNESCO World Heritage trail, but due to time constraint we have to cancel it. We will only do that when we go back Macau in the future. After taking photos, we go around the area shopping and bought the famous almond biscuits, egg tarts, pork bun and some souvenirs. We also walked until the Seando Square to take some photos. After that, we quickly walked back to the bus stop because we need to be at the terminal latest by 2pm (to check-in), and coincidentally the same bus that took us there came back to pick us up!
Airport
Since we are departing from HKIA instead of Macau International Airport, we need to travel back to Hong Kong. (see Travel Tips under our main blog page.) However this time we used the TurboJet that allows us to check-in our bags at the terminal and the boat will directly go to the HKIA's "sky-pier" that allows us to just hop on to our plane! Talking about efficient transportation! Our boat depart at 2.30pm and the trip to the airport took 1 hour. Once we reached the sky-pier, we checked in again at the airport.
After checking-in our luggage, we proceeded to the the airport shuttle that will bring us from the sky-pier to the main terminal building. From there, we proceeded to the departure hall. We started to feel hungry cause we haven't eaten our lunch yet. So we had our lunch at the departure hall, and there is this Japanese restaurant that located together with a food court-like stalls. We ordered a Hong Kong specialty - beef noodle and chicken feet and also curry spaghetti (that comes with salad) from the Japanese restaurant. Again, we are surprised with the delicious serving, assuming that airport food will not be as good.
In the plane, we managed to snap a sky view of Disneyland (the airport is very to Disneyland)! Too bad the picture is covered with clouds, but it's a real bonus to have manage to see the view. I took another great shot of the sunset with another airplane in the picture. What a perfect way to end our honeymoon holidays!
