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Macau Fisherman’s Wharf

Written by Nicholas Chan on May 14, 2008 – 7:27 pm -

It’s just a little sight seeing at Macau Fisherman’s Wharf. I did not went into any of the theme park there as it’s also closed at night. Though, dad and mom wouldn’t want to go with me if it’s open. Nevermind, I’ll go to Macau again in the future.

At first, I thought this Fisherman’s Wharf was just something like Gurney Drive, for you walk along the pathway at seaside, but it’s not. It’s actually a theme park with a few little casinos. It’s pretty cool, they got a Tang Dynasty Fotress, a fake volcano, Aladdin’s Fort, downsized Colosseum. I didn’t go chance to know about it until I came back home and do some surfing about it on the Internet.

We just did little bit of walk around at the area. It’s pretty quiet there at night and it’s very beautiful and clean!

It’s right opposite the famous Sands casino, just walk across the road and you get the free shuttle bus back to Venetian Macau at Sands.

This place is one of the attraction in Macau, if you found yourself bored with casino, take a walk at here. I think it’s fun.

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Running around in Venetian Macau

Written by Nicholas Chan on May 9, 2008 – 11:54 pm -

The Venetian Macau is big, huge! According to Wikipedia, it’s the 2nd largest all in building in the world. It’s also twice the size of The Venetian at Las Vegas. Wow, that’s cool. It just lack of theme park and cinema. There have a mini golf course, swimming pool, shoppings, many restaurant and casino.

Though shopping there is a bit expensive because there have a lot of branded and designer’s brand shop. Only some lower price one like Nike, Giordano, Espirit, Bossini etc etc. Mom and dad were tired and so I walked around myself at the shopping floor at 3rd floor alone at night.

I wanted to take the Gondola Rides at first in the man-made river. From what I know is the person who is rolling the gondola is a real Italian, speaks and sing Italian. Though, it’s expensive, around RM50 per person. Mom asked me to ride alone, but then I prefer a whole family. Well, since everyone don’t want to, I just watched them pass by. They were friendly enough to sing and pose for me.

Nevermind, I’ll take the real gondola ride at Venice in the future.

After a day of work, they sing and walk back home. So fun seeing them singing. The job might be boring, standing there, rowing the boat, singing and chat with the gondola rider.

Some main attraction at the Venetian is some street performer inside. I missed the street opera which happened in the afternoon.

Somewhere somewhere in the Venetian, you will see white people standing still, sometimes move a while like a robot. You might be shocked when they moved, because some people think that they are still statue and will not move. They are good. You will also notice there’s a man in suit monitoring the white people, I think it’s to prevent passers-by to disturb them.

Cool or not?

Another nice place is the food court. There’s so many food to choose from western to eastern to local food. Price is around 30-60MOB. Still acceptable, they accept HKD too, but remember to ask for HKD change if you are going back to Hong Kong.

The whole shopping area and food court is on the third floor. 2 man-made river and many corner. You might get lost on this floor, turn here and turn there.

This is the real hotel lobby. You need to take a long walk to here, passing corridor and stairs if you can’t go through the casino.

Went outside to take some cool breeze and take some shots.

I can’t take the photo of the whole building as I need to walk across a big road to a roundabout then from there only can take the photo. Since it’s at night, I do not dare to walk alone. Hehe, it’s so quiet there, everyone went indoor.

Then, I took a long walk back to the shopping area.

Then I found this, The Manchester United Experience. A shop selling all MU stuff, MU fan sure will like this. Didn’t bother go into to take a look because football is not my type.

This attracts me more. 43k per phone. Vertu phones, by Nokia. It’s like Toyota’s Lexus. There’s diamond on it. OMG. Do you dare to take this phone on a walk in the street of Malaysia? But I think you will be safe because people here got no idea what is Vertu. Haha.

Do you have a feeling of being in Europe?

One thing, I recommend you to go there in few years later when the Cotai Strip is ready. Cotai Strip is the area where the Venetian is and it’s still in developing. In the future, this area will be something that looks like Las Vegas, a road full of hotels and casinos. At this momemt, there’s only The Venetian Macau at Cotai Strip.

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Checking into The Venetian Macau

Written by Nicholas Chan on May 8, 2008 – 11:09 pm -

I get to know about this hotel, resort, casino from Kennysia. Thanks to him, I only get a chance to visit this hotel. Not only visit, but also stayed a night at there. It’s The Venetian Macau. I guess you guys heard about it too. It’s new, grand opened last year sometime in September, I’ve forgotten the exact date. You can look up at Kennysia’s archive.

On a very fine day during my Hong Kong trip 10 weeks ago, me, mom and dad went to Sheung Wan and took the speed boat or ferry or whatever to Macau. The whole journey took about 50 minutes to arrived at Macau. I took a nap on board. Arrived straight at the terminal of the same island where The Venetian Macau is on. Macau is actually divided into 2 island, 1 is the main city and the other where the Cotai Strip.

After passing the immigration custom, we took the free shuttle to the hotel. It’s only takes 5 minutes to reach the hotel from the Taipa Temporary Terminal. Surprisingly, the bus didn’t drop us at the main lobby but at the other end of the hotel where the West Lobby is.

It takes a while queuing up for check-in. I saw a lot of Chinese there, really lot and a little of western travellers. I guess Chinese has too much of money and time in hand, but seriously they do.

After getting our room keycard, we went our suite right away. There’s even a map given. The resort is big, huge, elders or youngs might get lost. Let’s say you are stay near the North suites area, you might walk to the other end and go South suites area. Nevertheless, it’s connected everywhere, but inaccessible somewhere where the casino is, just that you need to walk a longer distance.

From the lobby to the suites takes a while too. Passing cafes, restaurant, shops, walkway, and the 15000 seats capable Venetian Arena or stadium. There’s actually a short cut, but I am the kid with my mom and dad and kid doesn’t allow to pass through casino, so we have to walk around the casino to reach the suites.

Casino doesn’t seems very crowded with people. It’s not so happening as I could felt that.

For security purpose, preventing stranger going up to the room. There’s a security guard standing post at every suites lift area. You will need to flash your room card key to him only then he allow you take the lift. Not bad. During the onling reservation, I request for a room at a higher level and so we got a room at th 30th floor. So high!

I just love the room, no it’s suite! It’s the cheapest of all suite, around RM790 per night. There’s 2 big bed, 2 TVs, many pillows and best of all is with free high speed wireless connection in the room. Yay, I got to go online there easily instead of looking high and low for open network in Hong Kong.

This was my first time staying at a so expensive hotel, but I must say that this is a must do once in a life time. I got to stay 1 night there was enough for me, I am very happy already.

There’s even a printer provided for work purpose, but I got nothing to bring. If Malaysian goes there, I believe they will play with the printer, print something out even got nothing to print. Talking about me? I made a photostat of something and threw it away. HAHA.

Another view of the room. Spacious.

And here’s me and my mom. =))

p/s:I booked the room via AsiaRooms.com, it’s cheaper from booking through the main site.

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Sightseeing in (Oh Moon) Macau

Written by Nicholas Chan on April 8, 2008 – 11:10 pm -

Oh Moon is how you pronounce Macau 澳门 in Cantonese. Let’s go for some sightseeing in Macau. Actually, there’s nothing much in Macau. Don’t have a lot of high rise building, office building and whatsoever. It’s mostly consist of flats, old shop lots and casino!

Life there is pretty peaceful and quiet. Not like Hong Kong very fast moving and noisy.

So far, I hear no shopping mall or cinema there.

The city is quite small. We only took a cab to Ruins of St Paul then later we were on foot walking around. The teenager culture is much alike like Hong Kong where you can see students in uniform walking everywhere. Not like Malaysia, all the kids so lucky where their parents so free to drive their kids to and fro school causing massive traffic jam. XD My mom is one of the parent. Hehe.

Maybe it’s because of spring, night falls quite early at 6. The sky began to turn dark by then.

Grand Lisboa. The famous casino of Macau where you can always see it in TV. The old Lisboa is under renovation.

1 day in Macau I think not enough. In the future, when The Cotai Strip, the Las Vegas liked place is ready, and when I am legal to enter the casino, I’ll gonna go visit Macau again, few days, not just one. =D It’s pretty cool there too. No hot. Yay!

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The Wall in Macau – Ruins of St. Paul’s

Written by Nicholas Chan on April 1, 2008 – 10:55 pm -

Anybody that goes to Macau definitely for sure will visit the Ruins of St Paul’s Catheral Church. It’s like a symbol for Macau, if you didn’t visit there, more and less means that you didn’t went to Macau before. I’m sure everyone know about this place, you see it in the TV, newspaper, books, poster, net, my blog.

To save cost, we took the shutter bus from The Venetian to Sands Casino then from Sands, we took a cab. It took about 10-15 minutes to arrive at the Ruins of St. Paul’s. The city is quite small actually and there’s not much high rise building.

Here’s the church. No, it’s a wall. There’s nothing left, a flight of stairs, and the a piece of wall of the church. So you can’t really say it’s a church because it’s not an enclosed building. It was a church, it is a wall.

Nothing you can do there except snapping photos around and looking at people. Walking down the stairs will bring you to a street where you can do some shopping.

You see, in Penang, when kids are free, after school dismiss, they hang out in the shopping mall. Though, in Macau, don’t surprise to see teenagers at the Ruins of St. Paul’s. Eating burger and talking. I wonder why?

Oh, actually at the bottom of the wall. Down the street, it’s actually a shopping district. There’s no shopping mall in Macau, but there’s shopping street.

There’s Giordano, Bossini, Quiksilver and many shops there.

There’s so happenings. Tourist and locals can be seen everywhere. I don’t like quiet city. I love fast moving city, where there’s people everywhere.

I can say they do their tourism well. Unlike here, people didn’t demand for the best but just at the satisfactory point. Like “Got can already, no need to make until the best”.

I bought nothing there. Just walked around with mom, she bought something but not me. Haha. I got no idea what to buy that time, so just snapping around with my camera. But Ruins of St Paul’s was fun even though there’s nothing to play, but we did window shopping and ate the portugese tart there. Delicious!

Posted in Lifelog, Macau, Travel | Comments

eu estou no macau / I am in Macau

Written by Nicholas Chan on March 12, 2008 – 12:44 am -

The weather here is almost the same as in Hong Kong. It had been warmer lately, like 22 degree celsius, it’s only feel cool when the winds blow. Staying in The Venetian Macau, an intergrated resort.

Portugese and Chinese word is every where and so eu estou no macau (I am in Macau). Haha, I translated on the Internet.

Went St Paul Church Ruins, ate Portugese Tart, walked around The Fisherman Wharf and shopping in The Venetian.

Fun, but my legs hurt now. Photos is coming soon when I get back home. Stay tune. =)

Going back to Hong Kong tomorrow so expect more photos from my phone to come.

Posted in Macau, Travel | Comments