Birthday trip to Macau/Hong Kong 2012- The Venetian Macao(澳门威尼斯人度假村酒店）

Since piggy bro is able to get staff rate for this hotel, naturally we chose to stay at The Venetian Macao (澳门威尼斯人度假村酒店) Heard so much about it and finally got the chance to stay here..Was excited naturally.

1st look of the hotel

The bus dropped us right in front of the main lobby and I went to settle the check in with bro.

Entrance

Mummy recovered from the ferry ride already

The lobby was grand alright. Designed in european style. Staff was courteous and spoke good english. Check in was a breeze and we were directed to our room.

With my Mr Love

Some old looking map

We were directed to walk through a long hallway and through the casino before reaching the lift lobby. Since camera is not allowed in the casino, I didnt managed to take any photos. This is the 2nd time I've been inside a casino. The 1st is to the Genting 1.

This is like many times bigger than the 1 in Genting with endless rows of gaming tables. Hotel guests will have to pass thru there to get to the lift lobby up to the rooms. I wonder why they design it in such a way since there are family with kids.

The smoking smell in the casino is someting that puts me off big time. A 5min walk through the casino leaves me covered with smoke and as if I am a chain smoker. I worry for the health of the staff here.

Our room is located on the 23rd floor and they managed to gave us a connecting room.

The long hallway

1st impression we had as we entered the room is "WOW". I mean really wow. This is by far the biggest hotel room I stayed so far. Besides the sleeping area, it also have a some sort of living room area. Man, I was impressed, very impressed.

The Living room area

Queen bed

Based on the layout/size of this room, this can be considered as apartment suite instead of a hotel room only. There are 2 tvs in the room, 1 in the cabinet placed in front of the bed, the other 1 in the living room area where you can watch tv on the comfort of the sofa.

This is good since we watched different channels. I choose the 1 in the living room area since I would snack alot and the coffee table is just nice for me to place my food.

From the living room area

View from our room

There is also a wardrobe that is big enough for 2 pax to hang at least a wk worth of clothes inside. Not the we need it, haha but it is indeed bigger than most wardrobe provided by hotel. 1 thing I must mentioned that the bathrobe quality is really good. It keeps me warm during then night when the air con gets too cold and neither 1 of us is willing to go crawl out of bed to adjust the temperature.

Wardrobe that we didnt use

Hallway that leads to the door,bathroom and connecting door

The bathroom is again the largest that I have seen so far. There's a bathtub, a shower area, 2 sinks and a separated room for the toilet inside. On top of it, there is a huge vanity table to the right of the door. Its like a dream come true to have this kind of bathroom in your house. Just this bathroom alone is as big as my studyroom back home..

Bathroom/bathtub/shower area

Love the 2sinks cuz we need no fight

Toilet separated

TA-DAH A full length mirror

Mr love waiting for me to finish taking photos of the bathroom

The vanity counter where I can slap on my skin care

We jumped over to mummy and piggy bro's room via the connecting door. It seems like their room is slightly bigger than ours due to the twin single beds. Living room area and bathroom is of the same size. Come to think of it, this can be shared by 4 pax if you are not too big sized to share a bed.

Twin sharing room

Living room area

TV and safe

In the lift

We decided to go down to get something to eat since its already 3pm. Bro suggested the foodcourt and we are fine with it.

Food court in the hotel

1 thing we realised is that the interior of Venetian Macao is designed in such a way that gives you a false impression that it is still bright and sunny out there although it might already been nightfall already.

I guess this is what all casino operators do, main aim is let you lost track of time during gambling and will immerse in it unknowingly. Great move, but its of no use to us.

Food Court street

We found a seat shortly since it was way past lunch time and proceed to order. I ordered spicy chicken noodles which is not a bit spicy at all. Not impressed by the taste and it costs quite ex, near to SGD 10 but this is normal food court price.

My spicy chicken noodles

Mr Love on the other hand ordered some curry chicken which looks more tempting than all our food. But the wait was pretty long.

Mr Love's curry chicken

After that, bro went to settle some work issue while mummy, Mr Love and I decided to check out the shopping area. There are quite a lot of shops here but since its an atas hotel, most of the shops are of middle to high end brands.

I was looking for a convenience shop but to no avail. Was quite upset as I was planning to get some snacks to snack in the room at night.

The Grand Canal with Gondola rides available, saw this in the Korean show "Flowers over boys" and was tempted to try hehe. But it seems like no 1 else is taking the gondola and I decided otherwise.

The Grand Canal

Finally saw someone taking the gondola after awhile

We just wandered around with no particular location in mind and took some photos along the way.

The 2 most important persons of my life

Mummy 1st time using a digital camera

Turns out that there was a link to Four Seasons hotel and we went there only to find more upscale shops there and thus we turned back to The Venetian.

Came across a cafe on the way back and saw Pork chop bun(猪扒包) on the menu and pulled mummy and Mr Love in.. Ordered 1 each and also some fishballs (鱼蛋）to try.

There is nothing fantastic about the buns served here, in fact I found the 1s we had randomly on the street nicer and much cheaper. But since its our 1st day here, we did not have the chance to venture out yet.

Pork chop bun that is too dry for our liking

Very ordinary fish balls

Uncertainty..

Few days ago, I noticed that my leg had a bruising for no appranent reason and raised the alarms..It has been quite a while since I last have blue black due to my condition and I tot I had it under control..

Turns out I got happie too fast le..Fever, rashes mid-night perspiration, all symptoms are bak..

I shd haf known, since I stopped my jogging since Feb to prepare for my Macau, HK trip and then I injured my foot when I came bak, making it impossible to return to my weekly jogs, thus I guess, all these r contributing factors..

Wat to do? I cannot be returning to jogging now becuz of my foot, thus I guess I would need to rest more and be more careful with my diet, meanwhile, I will consider going for brisk walking..

Well, waiting for results to be bak at this moment, hope all is well this time, I promise not to be so lazy from now on...

Birthday trip to Macau/Hong Kong 2012- Touching down in HKIA & getting to Macau

 Hong Kong is actually not on the top of my list for travelling. Having been here during 2008 for our ROM honeymoon, we actually did not have a good impression of this shopping paradise that many Singaporeans loved. We will choose Taiwan over HK anytime. Hehe

This time round however, Piggy suggested that we should visit Macau too since he is there for work and also we will be able to get discounted prives for the rooms at Venetian Macau.

And there, we decided this will be a family trip this year to Hong Kong and Macau for my 28th bday.

Singapore Airlines was having some promotions and thus I was able to get the tickets at 300++ which is only a little more expensive than Jetstar. Moreover, mummy only trusts SQ and thus we will try to accommodate to her if the price variance is acceptable.

Flight was empty and thus piglet got a seat too

We depart on a morning flight at 7.35am and touch down in HKIA at around 11.30am. The plan is to transfer to the ferry from here to Macau.

Ferry tickets counter

As mentioned earlier, mummy usually will not want to take other airlines, so flying straight to Macau with Air Macau is out of the question. Luckily, the ferry transfer seems easy. I was the main planner for the trip, the budget holder, the GPS and the admin all rolled into 1. The other 3 just have to follow me around. But of course, during the planning stage, piggy bro and mum did tell me of their expectations and I have to planned with that in mind.

Once we touched down in HKIA, we proceed to Transfer area E2 where there are various counters selling ferry tickets to different Mainland ports. Here, I brought the ferry tickets to Macau costing us HKD 233 each. We will also have to present our luggage tag receipt that was issued to us during check in at our departure country. They will scan the tag receipts and retrieve the baggage to transfer it to the ferry that we will be taking.

All these can be done without having to go thru the Hong Kong customs and immigration checks. Meaning to say, we will now depart to another country and Hong Kong is just a stopover.

Ferry tickets

If you had cleared the immigration and customs, I think you will not be able to come back to the ferry transfer area and thus will have to go downtown HK to take the ferry to Macau instead.

Ferry schedules

There are 2 ferry companies plying the route to Macau from HKIA and both have different timings. Since we have luggages to check in, we will need to arrive at least an hr before the departure time, those without check in luggage will be able to buy the tix up to 30min before departure.

The nearest departure timing is at 12:00 operated by Turbo jet but we are not able to check in due to time constraint. Instead, I brought the next ferry at 13:15 operated by Chu Kong passenger transport （珠江客运）. Trip to Macau is around 50min.

Chu Kong transportation webpage:
http://www.cksp.com.hk/eng/skypier/timetable/main.html

Turbo Jet webpage:
http://www.turbojet.com.hk/en/routing-sailing-schedule/hk-airport-macau/sailing-schedule-fares.aspx

We only need to check in 30min before departure time and thus we hang out awhile in the transit lounge while I went in search for some coffee as the craving was kicking in.

Piggy bro surfing net with free wifi in HKIA

Tired out by the morning flight

Mummy was excited about the trip

And the SGD 6 coffee I brought

There will be a staff there prompting passengers to check in as per ferry's departing time and we went thru the gates after showing her our ferry tickets.

Map of the Sky pier facilities

Turns out that Sky pier where we are supposed to board our ferry is a distance away and thus we will have to take a short train ride there.

Sky train to Skypier

Inside the tunnel

The pier is pretty empty except for passengers awaiting to board the ferry. There is a 7-11 there and nothing much else. We were observing loading of the passengers' luggages onto the ferry and was told to board shortly.

The pier

Ferry that will take us to Macau

Interior of ferry

Weather was consider gloomly today and thus sea is a bit on the choppy side. Mummy who suffers from sea sickness isnt taking the ferry ride well. She keep maintaining that she is ok, but I had to hold on to her while disembarking as she is walking unsteadily.

Mummy look sick here

We reached Macau's Taipa Temporary Ferry Terminal after 50min. The terminal itself seems to be sparsely furnished. Not that they need a very atas terminal but the 1st look of the terminal is not very impressing. This is afterall the 1st gateway to Macau, 1st impressions are usually important. As they state that this is a temporary terminal, I guess they must be builting something more grand somewhere. Oh well..

Customs clearance was relatively easy and we proceed to a small area to wait for our luggage. Its just a counter where the staff will randomly place the luggages. There is no checking in place to ensure you are collecting your own lugagges so must be pretty careful not to let others claim urs.

Lucky for us, I cleared the customs pretty fast and was 1 of the 1st few waiting for our luggages there. Also, we did tie ribbons on the luggages to mark it and I locate them in no time.

1st look of Macau

Since we are staying at Venetian Macau and the hotel does provide free pick up service (in fact all major hotels do that), we need not have to worry bout how to get to our hotel.  You will just have to locate the bus of your hotel and board it, there is no need to show any proof of booking.

So, those who didnt have a booking can also randomly board any bus to get to the hotel before finding your own around Macau.

Macau Airport

At last...

A short post after a long day..Today marks the end of the rental to our tenants after a 4 good years..It earned us quite a decent sum but we spent it quite decently too..heheh..

Finally got the hse to our own, but the 1st thing is to do major clean up..I think the maid had been quite busy the past 2 wks to do cleanin, thus the floor is like agggrrrr...

We threw watever we deem to be useless, which is quite a lot..and we r only half done..The store room had yet to be open..hehehe..

I've been busy packing too, and finally got to shift the boxes to my spare room which will not be touched (except painting) during the reno..it will served as a storage room instead..Thank god for big hse (4 bedrooms) heheh..

Anyways, I can safely say that the task of cleaning (sweeping, mopping) is offically Mr Love's duty!!!yeahhh....Cuz we brought the 3M mop which needs to wash the cloth after a small area of cleaning and he noes I cannot come into contact with detergent tat often becuz of my sensitive skin and so, its his duty..Muhahahah how good is that??

Hopefully, it can stay this way, else, I would have need to come up with some thing else to gain sympathy..shhhhh,,,