TravelingWithYU: 09/20/13

Known as the Vegas of Asia, Macau came to my list as a must see out-of-the-country trips. Doing my research about Macau, I came across about traveling the whole Macau City and Taipa within a day, therefore going on a short vacation is not as cost effective as my travel budget logs shows. So we (Rica “Ikay” P., Jonathan “Kambal” R. and I) added Hong Kong to the trip list.

Things I have noted when I get to Macau:

Their money is called Macanese Pataca or Pataca (MOP).
Pataca and Hong Kong dollars are almost the same in value 1 MOP = 1.01 HKD.
Services and products are higher if purchased at night. They have night rates.
There are 2 main islands in Macau, including their wildlife reserve, Macau City and Taipa.
Most of the tourist spots and main casino were in Macau City.
Venetian Hotel is in Taipa.
There are 2 ferry stations in Macau, the Ferry Terminal in Macau City and the Taipa Ferry in Taipa. Both have trips through and from Hong Kong and China.
We stayed in an area they call villas which shows old Chinese like district.
Macau Mandarin is not exactly the same as Hong Kong Mandarin.
Do not ride a bus if you don’t have a ticket. <the driver will scream at you in Mandarin that you don’t totally understand unless you have learned the language>
I love their Beef Bakkwa especially the spicy pepper. <yum yum>
Touring in Macau City is all good by walking. <it’s not to get some exercise too… hehehe>
Transportations are bus and taxi.
Taxi plug down rate is at 15 MOP.
Driving wheels are at the right side like Thailand. <as people leaving in a left driving wheel, you might get disoriented for a bit and worry not seeing any person on the left side of the cars, it was not just the car driving. J>

We left Manila around 9 PM <our flight was late> and arrived at Macau International Airport around 11 PM. Our hotel (Man Va Hotel) is located 7 km away from the airport so we took a cab costing us about 90 MOP because of the added tax at night. <so this tells you that there is an addition to you cab rate at night, even the food>. Most of the streets were named in Portuguese but most Macau people understood the Chinese writings faster and know exactly where it is.

Arriving at our hotel, I did not expect more for a 2 star Man Va Hotel, it is an old hotel which nestled at the Villas area near the Senado Square. After putting our bags we did not waste any time and we went out to see the lights of Macau. Why we did so, because we will be leaving to Hong Kong the next day around 7 PM. Our taxi driver before getting to Man Vah Hotel was talking in Chinese about the LISBOA which we don’t understand and just said “so this is one of the well-known casino in Macau, yes we will go to that later… :D”. It seems that we understood each other. <hehehe> So after unpacking and freshening up, we walked towards Avenida de Almeida where we saw a plaza with a huge Chinese lantern that looks like a house. We really did not know that we were in the Senado Square by those times we just saw the big lantern and it’s a good scene to capture. There are old buildings around the plaza including halls, church, and the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau of Macau City just across the street. After taking numbers of pictures, we walked down southeast trailing Avenida de Almeida before the roundabout. Grand Lisboa is noticeable due to it lights and a humongous tulip like structure. The big bulb shows moving ads if you wanted to get a bigger view. You also know that you are in Grand Lisboa if you have seen most of the flickering lights just like Vegas. Then we moved towards the rotunda and saw Wynn and MGM on the left side and took a picturesque view of their bridge going to Taipa. After which we retreat to our hotel where we met our Kababayan’s, Kuya Robin, Kuya Aries, and Kuya Ronald whom we asked where we can buy some bottled water and when we got back to where they are drinking, they invited us for few drinks. I just knocked down 3 Tsingtao cans. This is going to be good for a first in Macau. Ikay and Kambal had their cans too and it was fun talking to our kababayan abroad especially the new heroes of our country, the OFW’s. We heard some of their stories, like Kuya Ronald have his daughter finished college and now working. Story about Kuya Robin’s experience about getting pirated AUTOCAD software installed in his machine and him being an Architect working as a driver in Macau. While Kuya Aries who is working as a supervisor in a hotel we went to take photos earlier. They all did. It was fun and sad to know this things and how our New Heroes feels every time Filipino tourist come to Macau and careless about them.