Hong Kong to Macau to Zhuhai - Day 22

May 17, 2014

Yet another early morning because we would be leaving #Hong Kong to take the ferry to #Macau. I think we woke up at approximately 8AM and got ready to leave by 9AM. Once we checked out, the hotel staff went up to our room to check the supplies, and they told us that we had to pay for the 2 bottles of water that we drank. ARGH. Expensive. We left the hotel and headed straight for the ferry terminal @ Tsim Sha Tsui. 

Once we got out of the station and walked towards the habour... it was a nice view. We thought we were supposed to go to the "Ocean terminal" to take the ferry, but this was not the case. There were no signs indicating where to go. We were lugging our luggage back and forth in the heat. My mother asked a worker and he said to go straight but we still couldn't find it... ends up it was quite far away... not at Habour City/Ocean Terminal (this is a mall/hotel). It was another 10-15 minutes walk away (we followed a bunch of people with luggage).

View from Habour City.

We needed to go to the Hong Kong- China Ferry Terminal to take the ferry to Macau. Well, once we got inside the building, we stood around trying to figure out where to buy the tickets. We also needed to know which area of Macau we wanted to go to since the ferry takes you to different points in Macau. There was a guy who was walking around and selling tickets on hand, kind of sketchy, and asked if we wanted to buy it and so we did. Each ticket cost $172 HK (~$30CND) for the turbojet and the ride was around an hour long. We were exhausted so we fell asleep on the ferry. Oh, by the way, there's no room to place your luggage beside you so you have to place it at the back of the ferry. Once you get off the ferry, there are a lot of "special buses" that brings you to the casino/hotel. You can just hop on anyone of them for free so that you can go to the city.

The first stop is the Venetian Hotel in Taipa? You can store your luggage here for free, you do not have to be a patron. It's gorgeous inside with plenty of luxury boutiques that we cannot afford to shop at.

  The shuttle bus drop you off here. - crazy artwork on the ceiling

 Venice in Macau! - a little embarrassing to be on the boat ride with spectators taking photos of them

 Upstairs of the hotel is a mall for RICH people.

Later on I went to the washroom and told my mother and sister wait for me, but they left. So I had to wonder the mall by myself searching for them. They went to buy food, the least they could do was inform me. Flabbergasted. I walked through the same hallway 6 times and I think the employees standing outside the stores recognizes me. Anyways, they went to by those famous Portuguese eggtarts at Lord Stow's Bakery and Cafe; it was good, but I like regular egg tarts more. It was on the pricey side, but the drink they bought there does not taste good (watermelon juice- tasteless).

 Famous Portuguese eggtart - had to eat this outside. It was very windy out, but at the same time, it was super humid and hot.

Here's some outside views of the Venetian; very nice architect.

Our next stop was the "Grand Lisboa" . To get here, we had to take the free shuttle back to the ferry terminal and then take find the free shuttle to the Grand Lisboa Hotel in Macau. WOOT WOOT for free shuttle buses. Once inside Grand Lisboa we headed for the luggage storage area which was beside casino area in the lower level. The Grand Lisbao is truely GRAND.

 The foyer of the Grand Lisboa has a lot of sculptures and statues, even jade.

 

I believe a gold coloured car to be won.

Casino Lisboa - looks gaudy. - EWWWW.

We walked from the Grand Lisboa to the "Senado Square" and the "Ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral". It was a long and tedious walk with the sun blazing and mobs of people walking together. TORTURE.

 Senado Square looks like a Victorian painting

While walking from Senado Square towards the Ruins of St. Paul, you have to go up a narrow street and there would be MANY people handing out samples of beef jerky and other food. There were many people buying beef jerky here since Macau is famous for their jerky. People literally had bags and bags of beef jerky and the stores are jam packed too. But I got to say, the journey up the hill to the ruins was a tough one; so many people to push through.

OMG, do you see what I see? Those two guys look quite suspicious! The guy on the left seems to be looking at the hand of the guy on the right and wondering if he can hold it. From the back, I think they should be quite cute! My crazy mind.

 Ruins of St. Paul's cathedral

 Climbed to the top of the ruins

The back of the ruins.

There's quite a lot of stuff to see at the ruins. Behind the ruins there's a mini exhibition "Cripta Crypt" that is free of charge. There's a lot of monuments (religious?) inside - quite interesting.

Next, a couple of minutes away from the Ruins of St. Paul is the "Na Tcha Temple" which was built in 1888. The temple was built to honor the deity, Na Tcha, for protecting the citizens during the time of a epidemic that engulfed the community.

After this, we just walked around the city exploring. One of the employees in the Grand Lisboa hotel told us that we should visit "Hotel Grand Emperor" because Jackie Chan owns it and there's a lot to see. Well, there wasn't much to see OR it's just that we went through the wrong entrance? I used their washroom and wifi. heh heh heh.

Well, by this point we didn't know what to do so we decided to go back to "Grand Lisbao" and gamble. Initially, the security guard didn't ask for my ID when I went in the first time, but after I went out and decided to go back in he asked for it. I showed him my driver license and he was like ??? and he asked his partner, "What is this?" so I took it back and showed him my passport. My mother was lining up to get our luggage and once she got it she went to the washroom so I was waiting for her outside. She thought we could go in the casino with the luggage but apparently we can't so my mother had to line up again and place it back in the luggage storage. LOL. We were playing the penny slots with $30HK and when we won a grand total of $50 HK we quickly cashed out. Profit = $20HK. We forgot that $50HK was only ~$7-8 CND. Hate those large currency.

After this, we decided to head to #Zhuhai as that was where our hotel was. The hotels in Macau was just TOO expensive. The Grand Lisboa provides free shuttle buses to Gongbei (border gate between Macau and China). I believe we started lining up for the bus at around 6:00-6:30PM and the line was SO TREMENDOUSLY LONG. It was crazy. I think we lined up for an hour and a half since it was passed 7:30PM. It wasn't that long to get to the border though. Macau looked very pretty during night time. Our goodbye to the city of lights.

Once at the border you have to line up to cross. There was one line that said it was for "diplomats." - only one person come by every now and then. There was one guy who lined up there but got shooed away after the guard saw his passport lol. You no diplomat, go back to the regular folks line.

 Gongbei Port- border between Macau and China

The "Gongbei Port" has a great underground shopping mall. There's cheap food, clothes, shoes, toys, and the mall is very very big. They also sell beef jerky here too. My mother got some. We also grabbed dinner here; dinner cost $78 RMB/ $15 CND. And by this point we almost had no more China currency, only HK.

 I enjoyed my drink, green tea slush with red bean, though the drink took a long time to come. I already finished half the rice already.

One bit of caution is that outside the Gongbei Port, there are a lot of sketchy and suspicious people asking where you are going. If they see you with luggage, they will try to get you in their car by following you. DO NOT GET IN. We had to avoid around 4 of these guys in the span of 5-10 minutes. We crossed the street to wait for the taxi and there is a specific waiting area for taxis and it was again, A SUPER LONG LINE. I think we had to wait almost an hour, so by the time we reached the hotel it was passed 10PM. Anyways, back to the part of waiting for the taxi, well, there's this hobo who would try to get you to give him money by opening the taxi doors for you and attempt to help you with your luggage. Oh, right, and those illegal drivers would come up to people lining up at the taxi area and ask you if you need a ride. From what I saw, the "taxis" are just normal looking small cars but when you get in, the person who asked you if you need a ride would bring you to the car and he would get in too, there's a separate driver.

We booked the hotel at the last minute while in Hong Kong. We stayed at " Baili Hotel" in Zhuhai, Jida District. We booked the hotel through agoda and we wanted a 3 person room but there was no option for that, so we booked two double bedrooms. Wasted money. I hate how they have the 15% service charge. For two nights it was over $200 CND for two rooms so that was around $50-55+ CND per room per day ($100+/day). Also, you need to give them $150 RMB deposit but they will give it back after you check out. We had NO "RMB" so we gave them 600 HK instead.

I had this standard twin bedroom to myself. My mother and sister had another room that they shared. The room had this funky smell inside plus the hygiene stuff they have in the washroom, you must pay to use it. Good thing our rooms were right beside each other; I had to go over there and tell them that you must pay to use the toothbrush and toothpaste. And because I had the room to myself I could turn up the AC. OH YEA.

Hong Kong - Day 21

May 16, 2015

We woke up early and got to the mall at 10AM, but the stores were closed. It seems like the malls open late and close late too. A great tip to remember. Our final day to shop, but the mall is closed....

So we went to the "goldfish street" in Mong Kok (walkable distance from our hotel). There were a lot of signs stating that no pictures are allowed. We also wanted to go to the flower market but didn't because we couldn't find it? It was supposed to be very closed by, but I guess we took the wrong turn... Yea, and then it started raining...

OMG, we saw this hardcore grandma lugging and pushing all those supplies by herself. Crazy. It was raining too. I can't even imagine how heavy that could be. There were cars beeping at her cause she was moving so slow. So heartbreaking. 

It was so hot, I didn't want to eat anything for lunch so I just got a red bean milk drink ($12 HK). We did a lot of outdoor shopping on the streets near Mong Kok and my mother and sister bought some shoes, only I did not - so small! Where are the size 8s! The best deals for shoes are away from the tourists areas. So after lunch we went back to the hotel to put our stuff down and then headed back out again. Can't waste our time chilling.

We didn't know where to go next so we just hopped on the train at Prince Edward station and got off a various stops and then check out what the station has to offer (usually there is a map indicating what kind of attractions are near this station). The tourist attraction information is within the gate so you don't have to scan out, save some $$$ yo. We did this with 4-6 stations. When we got to Tsuen Wan station, we saw that there was a mall so we headed out.

The "City Landmark" mall in Tsuen Wan was pretty and big with some luxurious stores again- can barely buy anything. Oh, and it was also pouring, no umbrella. My mother bought some $100 HK worth of books here... and then we were looking at luggages and the sales lady was SO PUSHY. We bought the luggage from her for $599 HK, now I feel so ripped off. The saleslady kept on emphasizing on the quality and the brand - Samsonite. The luggage we got was just the rubber kind, it wasn't the hard ones, which would obvious cost more. So after a lot of verbal exchanges back and forth between my mother and the saleslady, we bought the luggage, but we didn't want to lug it around the mall so we asked if we can just leave it here for now. The saleslady said yes, but we had to pay in full first. So we did and then left, and when we came back the luggage was in the same place it was when we left. Tsk. These salespeople get commission, they have a calculator ready in their pocket so that they can bargain with you. Yes, we had to lug the luggage back to the hotel again.

Miffy @ City Landmark Mall

The final destination of the day was to my grandma's sister's apartment. My grandma and aunt went to Hong Kong 1 day later than us and they stayed at my grandma's sister's apartment. We had to take the MTR from Prince Edward station to Kwun Tong station? and then from there we enter the "Lamtin Bus terminus" to wait for the bus. Well, when we got there we didn't know where to take the bus and which bus to take so we asked some people, but honestly they were not helpful. A lot of people we listening to music, on their phones, etc. We were in line for almost around 30+ minutes and the line was moving SO SLOW. My mother than asked a middle age man how to get to a certain address, and the man told her "why don't you take a taxi, you don't know where you are going and there's three of you so it's better if you took a taxi. It's not that expensive." Real helpful dude. So we got out of the line and just lined up for a taxi instead. Nobody seemed to want to help us. Once we got in the taxi, he drove for a long long time. I believe it was around $100+ HK... smh

When the taxi driver dropped us off, we got in the building and walked towards the elevator. The address we have said that she lives on the 37th floor, but once inside the elevator there was no 30+ floor. So we had to look for help, and apparently there's two elevators, so yea.

So high up, so scary. 

Once we got to the apartment number, the maid opened the door. It was so hot inside the apartment, they only had the fan on. I overheard that the maid they hired for my grandmother's sister is actually quite expensive, even though she barely clean and cook. They had to pay for her plane ticket to and from Hong Kong every year, dental and medical expenses, living expenses, food, and salary. The maid is from Indonesia but she can speak Cantonese really well. My grandmother's sister has memory loss or that's what they say, but honestly I think she is just old and due to her bad hearing she can't understand those around her. My grandmother gave her sister loads of money in the thousands (CND), but her sister kept on saying "I have no money." Now, I don't want to be suspicious but because my grandmother's sister is dependent on the maid, the maid could easily steal those cash, especially if she has troubles with her memory.

I think we were at the apartment for 1 hour or so waiting for the rest of my grandmother's sister's family (son and daughter and their kids). We all went downstairs to a nearby restaurant to have dinner. I thought the one who was ordering the dishes would be the one to pay but I GUESS NOT. My grandmother's sister's son (middle age) was ordering all these expensive dishes such as shark fish soup (yes, so sad it's not banned here), piglet, shrimp, lobster, crab, etc. TBH, this is the best dinner I've ever had on this trip. The piglet tasted so good, I only had 2 pieces though - it was soft yet crunchy. We were still eating at the restaurant when they closed. They were clearing the tables and wiping everything, but they didn't say anything to us probably because we ordered so much expensive food - Big customer. When the guy who was ordering the food got up to go to the washroom, my mother thought he was going up to pay, so she told my aunt to go get the bill. My aunt ran quite quickly LOL. When the guy came back he said he just went to the washroom; actually, I don't think he intended to pick up the bill anyways since it was us who invited them to the dinner. Well, in total the dinner cost almost $500 CND. Thank you very much. There were a lot of leftovers, especially lobsters, rice, and tofu. We told the maid to pack it up so that she can bring it back home and she said she doesn't want it. OMG. What a waste. Who knows if she will dump the food when she gets home. Their attitudes and personality isn't really what I thought they would be like- my impression of them is leaning towards the negative, except for the grandma.

After this we took the bus home, and yet again, I really had to go to the washroom, but I held it in for at least 2 hours. There was like nobody on the bus at 9PM so it was great. It was another double Decker bus and we went to the upper deck to sit. There's a LCD television at the front, but most of all, the view is nice from the top.