Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Macau 12 to 13 Dec 2010

Checked in at Changi airport at 930 am for the 1145am flight. This time round we took the Cathay Pacific and I must say I felt better off in the SIA flight I took to HK better. Lunch was either steamed chicken with chicken rice or fish with potato. The fish with potato was a much better choice.

My agency booked the ferry to Macau at 6pm. I am glad that the staff from Turbojet was kind enough to change it to 4 pm. The staff also mentioned that there is free upgrade to super class as I had checked in online but I have already paid the $60 extra for the upgrade – what a waste!
While waiting at the airport for the ferry, Lee took the porridge. After that I bought 2 HK sim card at HK98 each.
Light refreshment was served onboard the turbojet – we had tuna sandwich with cheese cake , a red bean biscuit, orange juice and yogurt/oreo biscuit. The sea was rather choppy but thank God we did not have motion sickness. The ride was 45 mins but it took some time before the hotel shuttle bus arrived. It seemed that the shuttle bus bring the customers to both Hotel Sintra and Lisboa as both belong to the same owner.
Our window at Hotel Sintra faces the Grand Emperor Hotel – a pretty sight with all the advertisement for its artists.
We walked towards Grand Lisboa as we had already booked a table at Grand Buffet which many had claimed to be good with its 100m long spread.
On the way we stopped at Yishun milk and tried out the double steamed egg and the pork bun – my goodness it was so delicious. The papaya milk was average though. The bill worked out to be HK51.
Not very impressed with Grand Buffet and pay a hefty HK532 on it. The only outstanding dishes were the roasted suckling pig and the boiled live prawns. The queue was extremely long and the restaurant turned away many customers who did not make reservation. I still prefer the Vienna International Seafood Buffet (Novena Square) or Parris International Buffet(near marina square) in Singapore. I tried my luck at the casino but lost all my HK100.



After that we took a cab to the city of Dream where Venetian is. I was so impressed with the Marco Polo Canal – the whole sky is man-made but looked so real – seemed like as if it was still in bright daylight though it was near to 11pm. We ate the Portugese tarts at Lord Stow’s – the original creator of the tarts. The crust was so crunchy and buttery whereas the filling was so soft and fragrant. We took a cab back to the hotel and I went to the 7-11 to buy 2 bottles of milk – Kowloon Diary – wish we have this in Singapore.










On day 2, we walked towards the Ruins of St Paul's and I stopped by the tourism board t o collect some brochures and maps. I also bought some first day covers and stamps form the post office nearby. At the foot of the St Paul's ruins is a lane full of sales assistants promoting their products - they will let you sample dried meat, biscuits etc. I bought some souvenirs back from "Koi Kei" - the most popular outlet for pastry such as almond biscuits and egg rolls. Other than the fort remains, we also saw a "Na Tcha" temple. There is also this alley called the "love street" as the houses were built so close to each other and the lovers living across can just talk to each other from their house. We had breakfast at the eatery next to the famous Margaret's Cafe de Nata where they sell the famous egg tarts. I must say it did not taste as good as the ones we had at Lord Stow' bakery though the queue was so long.





There were not as many eateries here as compared to Hong Kong - just a lot of casinos, pawnshops, jewellery shops and medical hall. Many of the eateries and restaurants were closed. I learned from the tour guide later on that that life is very relaxed in Macau and many of the shops are not opened until late in the afternoon or at night. If someone is short of a player for mahjong, they will just close the shop and join the rest for the game. The citizens are well taken care of by the government who provides free education for the students till high school and the retirees are paid a sum of HK6000 every month. Many of the coastal land were reclaimed and a bridge linking to Hong Kong is under construction and will be ready by 2014.

Our tour guide brought us to the Lotus Square and the Grandpix and wine museum opposite it. After that he brought us to the Statue of the Goddess of Mercy. He explained that the statue is unique as it was built by a Westerner and the statue face landwards instead of seawards. The statue also resembles the Mother Mary statue and was known as the Western Goddess of Mercy. He then drove us to Macau tower but we did not stay long there as we did not intent to go for the sky walk.
 

The Kwang Yin (Goddess of Mercy) statue that face inland instead of the sea.


Macau tower
 
 Lotus square
Grandpix museum

 Wine museum
 
 
After that he brought us to the "A-Ma" temple where I bought a set of coins which shows the 12 Chinese zodiac signs from all over the world as well as sampled the famous local ice cream. After that he drove us to the custom check to China's Zhu Hai. Some of the coastal strips are so near to China that you can just swim across. He mentioned that in the past, people from mainland China would swim over to Macau but now it is the other way round. He said that near to Chinese New Year, there will be boats offering to take some of these people back to China illegally and they only paid HK500 instead of HK2000 to get through the custom.



The famous Á-Ma temple
 
Famous Ice Cream vendor outside the temple
 
 
 
We decided to go to Hong Kong earlier as there was nothing left to do in Macau. We took the 2pm ferry instead of the 5pm one. This time round, the super class is on the lower deck and not the upper deck and it was very crowded.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

meal reservation turbojet superclass

Checked in online and printed the boarding pass for both the flight (Cathay Pacific) as well as for turbojet. As I have upgraded the ferry to superclass, I was able to select the meal from the list below from Macau to Hong Kong. I could not do so for the trip from HKIA to Macau though. I have chosen the Swiss Chicken. I learned from a documentary that the chicken wing got its name when a foreigner commented that the soy sauce chicken wing was "sweet" and somebody misinterpreted that he said Swiss and that was how the name Swiss Chicken wing originated.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

JB Crown Crystal Hotel 24 to 25 Nov 2010

Reserved a room at Crystal Crown hotel via email @RM155 nett per night. Quite a breeze getting through the custom today. Our driver, William, brought us around JB after checking into the hotel at a rate of RM15 per hour -paid him RM75 for his 5 hour service. Of course that was on top of the S$50 getting us from Singapore to JB. We went to this wanton mee stall (Uncle koh) recommended by William for lunch. On our way there we stopped at a stall and bought my favourite goreng pisang. After that he brought us to Sutera Mall - nothing much there - bought the prepaid broadband card there and then went to Merlin tower to buy my medicine. After that went to taman pelangi area- a shop called "bao zi lin" for the massage and then the nearby hawker centre for dinner - the claypot rice and penang kway tiao were fantastic! Went to the hawker centre 大马花园 near to the hotel - many stalls are still closed so we took a cab to Jusco Tebrau. I bought my daily disposable contact lens - the moist type which cost $60 in Singapore but only RM90 a box over there. After that, we went to "Tang Shifu" for lunch and love it. The coffee contains ginseng and the mee sua we ordered have some sort of herbs in it. I ordered the one with scallop and abalone. Lee ordered the one with wine herbal soup. The price aren't too high either - paid less than RM50 for the 2 of us. I also bought some of the TVB series on promotion over there. Imagine buy one get one free - I paid RM39.90 for 2 TV series which is like a quarter of the price I pay in Singapore - and they are original discs! After that we took a cab to merlin tower as I need to change some more ringgit. I must say the rate there is the best so far - $100 to RM239.2. I bought some titbits from the Indian stall as well as the deparmental store. After that we went to the restaurant outside Merlin tower.. I love the "chee cheong fun" and the steam fish (thai) style. I realised that this time round -traffic was pretty bad - quite jammed along the roads. Went to Fizzio massage centre which is located opposite taman seri tebrau (大马花园) for a second round of massage. I must say the massage here is much better. After that we went to 大马花园 for dinner. Not really impressed with the food there though it seemed to receive high recommendations on the net - maybe I will try other stalls tomorrow.'

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Staff Dinner 2010

Quite a relief- my last major event as chairperson of SWC. I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the strong support by the staff, even the more senior ones, in dressing up for the dinner in line with our Halloween Theme. It was a wonderful night -I must thank the young ones in the committee- Imran, Aileen and Meiling with the planning of the activities. The food was pretty OK for the Chinese table but I heard that the Muslim food was not as good. I will have to work on the AAR soon.