Hong Kong - Day 5 (Macau)

We kind of regretted this short trip to Macau as it was too short and Macau is huge but nevertheless, there's still something to write about :)

We woke up later than scheduled and went for the porridge at the nearby market again. We just could not resist and had to return and have it. Also tried the cheong fun (char siew and shrimp) this time, not that bad just that the flour was a bit thick. There is something special about the soy sauce in Hong Kong... not too salty and had this fragrant slightly sweet taste :)

After breakfast, we took MTR to Tsim Sha Tsui and had a short walk to the China Ferry Terminal located behind the Marco Polo/Marco Polo Prince Hotel/The Gateway/Harbour City stretch. There was also an Esprit Factory Outlet nearby :)
This building is kind of confusing at first, the ticketing counters and departure was located on the 2nd floor. Upon reaching level 2, there were a lot of ferry's going to Macau and a lot of other places in China! We looked for First Ferry Macau counter and bought a return ticket. The ferry ride was pretty long... around 1 hour 15 mins including waiting time... We would like to recommend that you bring along some motion sickness pill in case of sea sickness :)
Upon reaching, you will be able to see a very impressive museum and Sands Macau:

Now... word of advice: Macau is not that tourist friendly as compared to Hong Kong... the place is huge and people there sort of gives you the feeling that you are some kind of "water-fish"... i.e. tourist = $$$... not meant as an insult to anyone, just personal experience with cabs especially...
After arriving at the Macau Ferry Terminal, there was tourist center on the right as you walk towards the exit/entrance of the building. You can grab some maps, though they are not that useful, at least there is something to refer to :)
Getting to Senado Square was not pleasant. There is a bus/taxi stand just outside the Ferry Terminal. The more economical way to travel without being conned is by bus, but remember to bring lots of small change, else you will end up like us taking a very expensive taxi ride to Senado Square...
It was China National... what you can see is only people... people and more people...

OK, I am going to quit complaining for the time being and start to enjoy the trip... Macau's building architectures are very unique, being here is like being in a more modern Malacca :)

We had our first prok chop bun from an unknown shop... when we say pork chop bun we really mean it. It's just a piece of fried pork chop in between bread which tasted a bit like French loaf... be careful of the bones when you feast :)

I don't know why but I have problems reading the maps... they are inaccurate and the scales are pretty off... Anyway, it took us quite some time find out where the Ruins of St Paul were, but we made it... along the way to the ruins, there are a lot of shops selling local Macau delicacies like almond cookies, dried BBQ meat, candies, etc. Now, the Ruins:

We took quite a lot of photos here :)
After all the walking and hot sun... felt kinda dizzy... maybe a little sun burnt too... we saw this crowd of people queuing up for some Taiwanese ice dessert, it was really hot so some ice was irresistible :)

The outlook was appealing just that it was not as tasty as we expected... we ordered the Mango flavoured one, it tasted like... iced Mango syrup... oh well... at least it cold :)

We headed back to the main road and wanted to go to Coloane Island to look for lunch. There was this famous Portuguese Restaurant called Fernando's featured in almost all the Macau tour books and a lot of websites. We even over heard some of the foreigners asking for directions to this island when we arrived at the Ferry Terminal earlier :)
According to Google map, Praia de Hac Sa (aka Black sand beach) was not that far:

We decided to wait for a bus heading towards that direction... after half and hour... still no buses... hungry and slightly frustrated due to the hot weather, we took a cab instead... We passed by the Macau tower while going across the bridge... seems like we were on the right direction:

The taxi ride was was like... man! almost 40 mins! Plus it costs us slightly more than MOP100! We will get to the part on why the price and the duration later...
Now, the restaurant seems pretty normal at first glance, but inside is like... wow... another place with difference ambiance and feeling:

The patrons consist mostly of foreigners... The menu is just Portuguese and Chinese... from my research... the place should be famous for grilled food so we ordered a grilled quarter chicken and a grilled fish. Each customer is given a big bun with butter, it tasted like French loaf (I personally like French Loaf) but the skin was a bit hard:

Frankly, we think that the food was not that great... maybe we did not order correctly because the grilled chicken was like... Nando's without the Peri Peri sauce... the fish was just grilled with salt... not to say the food tasted bad but it was... normal... maybe we set our expectations too high after reading all those reviews on the net :)
Nevertheless, the environment was great, quiet with some soft music, you can feel some cooling sea breeze, it would be a good place for a gathering with some friends, some wine would go great! :)
My wife finished earlier and took some photos of the place :)

The place is really huge as you can see that there are a lot of different settings for different occasions, we reckon that this would be a really happening place at night :)

The meal costs us slightly less than MOP200 as we shared a Coke. We planned to take a bus back to town and since its not here yet, we took a quick stroll to the famous Hac Sa Beach :)

And yeah... the sand is sort of black :)

As promised earlier on the reason for the expensive and long taxi ride... we took a bus back (23A if we remembered correctly) and realized that the taxi actually took us for almost a round (maybe half) island trip! The bus took a shorter route back, passing by Coloane town where the famous Lord Stow's Portuguese Egg Tart Bakery is located.

We have no idea where the place is exactly even with the help of Google Map... we coincidentally saw the shop when the bus passed by a roundabout. We actually overshot and had to walk back. To the left of the shop is (i think...) Coloane Village, unfortunately we did not have the time to venture further...
We forgot to take a photo of the egg tart as we were rushing to get another bus... the pastry is crispy and the filling is smooth unlike those that we had back in Malaysia... it's a little bit on the sweet side (even for a sweet tooth like myself), but overall it's better than the one we had in Senado's Square :)

We initially planned to go to the famous Venetian Hotel, we did not have time and also wanted to find the famous Ruo Do Cunha street for dinner... we seriously walked a lot and the maps... crap... the scale is something they should improve on... totally different from the maps we had in Hong Kong... anyway, here are some photos to took on the way back... very nice architecture :)
Macau is filled with Hotels and Casinos, nothing else...

Above is the Venetian... side view i think

We took another bus back to the Ferry Terminal. It was getting dark and along the way, some of the hotel lights were on, it was a beautiful sight :)  Unfortunately the bus was pretty packed and we had no chance to bring out our camera to snap photos :(
It was a tiring and hot day so we took the earlier ferry back to Hong Kong. We spent some time at the Esprit Outlet just next to the Ferry Terminal. We think that the selection here is a lot newer compared to those in Tung Chung :)

We had dinner in one of the shops in Tsim Sha Tsui, quality was acceptable. We shared  seafood hor fun and a bowl of wan ton:

The seafood hor fun only had salt taste... it did not have that wok taste we expected... yup, acceptable :)
The wan ton was quite fresh but we preferred the one we had in the morning, it had more prawns :)

After dinner we strolled around Tsim She Tsui, enjoying the night life and view. Initially we hesitated going to Arena of Stars as we were really drained... but, it's our last night in Hong Kong, so... what the heck, we decided to go ahead and man, we didn't regret that decision :)
Too bad we were not good in night photography... even with a tripod, most of the photos are blurred due to the strong wind...

The Peninsular Hotel, very grand :)

Well, thanks for viewing, it has been a long day, back to our hotel to rest... it's not pleasant having the thought that we will be leaving the next day though...