Macau in May

This is my 3rd trip to Macau. Nothing much has changed, except more new major Hotels coming up and the Fisherman's Wharf has finally opened. Although, to our chagrin, we found out the hard way that the shops in Fisherman's Wharf only open at 12 noon! Although many major Hotels like Wynns, Sands, Crown, Venetian have opened, and more upcoming projects like Hard Rock and St. Regis are under construction, most of Macau has not really caught up with the concept of tourism, and especially, mass tourism.

Admittedly, most tourists go to Macau for the casinos. However, the main tourist sight at St. Paul's ruins, although has an abundance of retail shops, does not have a wide choice of F&B outlets. Their widely acclaimed 'most important temple', the A-Ma Temple and Village, was nothing more than, well, a temple. To quote my Aunt, "it looks just like the temple in Kajang."

St. Paul's Ruins

Buying the famous 'Wife' and Almond Biscuits



'Three Lamp Junction' - popular local market

The Venetian Macau

What started out as a small family break in Macau (me and parents = 3) turned out to be a full fledged family outing of 10 persons! Gosh, and I ended up as unofficial tour guide. And for the first time in my life, I did not do any prior proper research, especially in where to eat. Oh well..... So we ended up eating only in the Hotel. Anyhow, it's not such a bad thing anyway, coz don't think Grandfather would have relished the idea of going out to eat much!

We stayed at the Venetian, the most talked about hotel in Macau right now. Stripping away its hype of having the biggest casino in the world, my first impression of the Hotel was somewhat of a letdown. In my mind, I was expecting it to rival Sands Casino Macau, but what I saw was just a plain big square area with not much character. The Hotel is basically a copycat of everything Venetian, without the material quality. One just simply cannot replace marble with plaster. It is just not the same. Sigh.

Boasting 3,000 all-suites, each suite room is approximately 750 square feet. However, it was another let down. With such a huge space, not much thought was really given to the layout of the room. It ended up as a brand new Hotel with an old-fashioned layout.

Connected to the Hotel and Casino, is a huge retail block, the Canal Shoppes, complete with canal, gondolas and singing gondoliers. Shops were mainly on the mid to high end, with tasteful window designs/layouts.

Pisa, Italy?

Most people's memories of their visit to Pisa, Italy will be, well, the Leaning Tower. For me, yes, the Leaning Tower of Pisa was indeed a wondrous sight but it will never beat the experience of getting there and back!

Our agenda for that day was to go to Pisa in the morning and then back to Florence to catch a train to Venice. Boy.......what an incredibly long day it became.

The journey to Pisa was uneventful enough, and upon arriving, we decided to walk from the train station. To save a few Euros, I think this was the First and Worst mistake/decision we made! Due to our slow stroll (took us about 20 mins), by the time we arrived at the Leaning Tower, we realised we had only 1 hour to spare before we had to catch our returning train to Florence.

So we cancelled our guided trip up inside the tower and just hung around outside with everyone else, and snapped some photos.

Then, to our horror, it started to rain. Of course we weren't carrying umbrellas! Luckily it was only for a short few minutes. Started our jaunt back to the train station and made it onto the platform just in time! I seriously believe I have never walked this fast in my life. Reflecting back, I'm actually quite proud of myself! Heh.

Back at the Florence train station, we collected our really-heavy!!!! luggage from the luggage counter, bought some snacks and waited for our Venice train to arrive. Came time to board and dragged our really-heavy!!! luggage up the stairs of the train, squeezed past the passengers to get the luggage rack which HAD to be at the other end of the coach from where we boarded, heaved our really-heavy!!! luggages up the rack, went in search of our seats to discover they were being occupied by a family, and after some sign language and broken English (on their part), found out to our (1st) horror THAT WE HAD BOARDED THE WRONG TRAIN!!! This train was headed for Rome.

So we made a mad-dash back to our really-heavy!!! lugagge, dragged them down, and found to our (2nd) horror that THE DOORS HAD CLOSED!!! Looking around frantically, we could not see any attendants around. This is, after all Europe, where everything is automated and labour cost is sky-high.

So, I did the only thing that I could - I punched on the emergency alarm button. And we just stood there waiting 'calmly' for someone to come whilst the rest of the passengers were looking around and wondering what had just happened to trigger the alarm! In retrospect, luckily no one panicked thinking 'terrorist threat!' Hee hee. Well, in true Italian fashion, the attendant only turned up many many minutes later. After explaining to him and showing him our tickets, he pointed out to us that our train is "there", pointing towards the next train.

By the time they got the doors re-opened, (took another few minutes of walkie-talkie communication back and forth), and we lugged our really-heavy!!! luggage our of the train, we were just in time to see our Venetian-bound train pull away.......

I think my colleague was in a near-panic stage by this time, but I was just so tired that I just flopped down on my really-heavy!!! luggage. Well, we managed to board the next train but it wasn't a direct train. It stopped on the mainland and we had to drag our really-heavy!!! luggage down a flight stairs, cross underneath to the other side, up a flight of stairs to board our connecting train. By the time we arrive proper, it was about 8pm and very dark.

The rest of the night is summarised below, but just to bear in mind, all these was done with our really-heavy!!! luggage:-

1. Boarded water taxi which did not go all the way to our intended stop as indicated on the route map due to the 'late' hour, so had to change water taxi halfway;

2. Walked up and down some flights of stairs along the bridge, across San Marco square (rather eerie and creepy in the dark to 2 very cold and hungry strangers), to our little B&B.

3. Climbed up this little tine steep spirally stairs to the reception to be told that our room is in the annexe block "round the corner".

I think it was the BEST BED I have ever slept on that night.......

I deem that day as an 'Adventure'. I mean, if we'd gone with a tour group, I would never have known that I was capable of brisk walking, sign language, lugging heavy items, and best of all, would never have had the experience of activating a train alarm system :-)

As I was falling asleep, I could only think, "Thank God for small favours. I'm so lucky my really-heavy!!! luggage strap did not break..."

Pisa, Italy?