Wow Macau

November 19, 2009 on Day 1 in Macau

I am writing this in our suite, in view of the The Venetian’s mini-golf course and the glass behemoths of Crown, The Hard Rock Hotel and Hyatt. Crown and The Hard Rock Hotel looked like neon billboards last night, with strips of colored light streaming intermittently through the length of the buildings. This morning, they look  forlorn as their man made light-streaks compete with the coming sunlight.

We arrived yesterday after a 6-hour sojourn from Manila. My tita was complaining that the trip was beginning to feel like a tour of airports, and an immigration line marathon. We left Manila at around 11am on Cathay Pacific and arrived in Hong Kong at around 1245pm. We took our time moving around the airport and getting our ferry tickets. So we missed the 215 ferry trip to Macau. We took the 330pm trip instead.

While lining up for ferry tickets, my lolo spotted a nearby restaurant that served chinese white chicken and invited everyone to eat there. We all started laughing when we realized that nobody wanted to order for themselves because everyone started to eat from a SINGLE BOWL of wanton noodle soup. Nobody wanted to spend because the food was relatively expensive. It was hilarious. All 17 of us ate from about 4 individual orders. So classic Filipino.

As we made our way out to the ferry station, we finally understood what 10 degrees felt like. The cold was BITING, and we had to brace ourselves whenever we had to get out enclosed spaces (buildings, vehicles, etc). Our faces took the worst as the titas scrambled to get bonnets and scarves out of their luggage to warm everybody up.

The ferry trip was a comfortable 50 minute ride through sometimes choppy water. I finally got some sleep beside my lolo, and woke up to even colder weather.

We finally got our luggage and made it across the street to wait for the shuttle buses to take us to The Venetian. Waiting for three buses before boarding wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t so terribly cold. My fingers were getting numb. I never thought I’d ever get this excited about getting into a shuttle bus. Anything to get out of the cold! We piled in and the bus made its way to the other island where our hotel was located.

On the bus I understood why people go nuts about Casino Capitals like Macau and Las Vegas. I was in awe of all the magnificent buildings, enormous structures made in the most unusual shapes. But the most breathtaking was the SHEER SIZE of these buildings. I have never seen anything like it.

By 6pm we were at the front desk checking in. Our hotel is named The Venetian, and rightly so – the entire Venice can fit inside the hotel (or so it seemed). Upon entering through the Hotel West Lobby, I underestimated the breadth of the structure (I only found later on that the hotel was so huge it has 4 front desks!). Consider some facts:

• The 10.5 million-square-foot Venetian — twice the size of the Las Vegas original — is the largest building in Asia and the second-largest in the world. The largest building is a Boeing Co. plant in Washington.
• Large enough to hold 90 Boeing 747 jumbo jets
• The Venetian houses 3,400 slot machines — with room to expand to 6,000 — and more than 800 gambling tables.
• 3 indoor canals, 1 lagoon, 51 gondolas
• It has 3,000 rooms,
• 15,000-seat sports arena
• 330 stores
• 1.2 million square feet of convention space, fine dining and a Cirque du Soleil-produced show.

Then there were the suites. I’ve been to nice hotel rooms before, but this, so far, takes the cake. I’ve never seen so many Italian Renaissance-inspired pieces in one room, and the period is not exactly my taste. But our suite was GORGEOUS, with every piece of furniture tasteful and well chosen. I may have said once that luxury travel was not for me, but today it changed – because it feels good to feel like a princess 🙂 And for this trip, I certainly felt that way.

Dinner was another experience. The Festivita Foodcourt boasts of what looked like about 40 concessionaires. But what was peculiar is the entire foodcourt is al fresco – except that the sky was painted on the ceiling. The food here, however, I relatively more expensive, but not as satisfying as I expected. For dinner I had Teppanyaki Udon with Seafood, which set me back about HK$65. Food here ranges from HK$50-150, but usually they would be good for sharing. And if you’re in my family, then sharing is the only way to go.

After dinner, I went my own way and roamed around until my feet hurt – and I still wasn’t able to cover the entire hotel. The place was too huge for words. As one blog described it – even getting to your room is challenging, since it takes 15 minutes to get there from any point in the hotel.

I thought the venetian canals were just there for display until I saw gondolas parked along them. Later on, I saw a costumed gondolier row guests – as he serenaded them with Besa Me Mucho on the top of his voice. He saw me and gamely posed for the camera.

I shopped for pasalubong at Kee bakery where they sold all these cute looking snacks. I did not know if they were really authentic chinese/macau, but they were worth taking home to friends.

I got a little fed up with the shops (there were 330 of them) and found myself at the main lobby admiring the architecture again. I knew they weren’t really authentic Venetian, but the whole grandiosity of it all was just worth immersing myself into. I was surrounded by luxury, and I enjoyed it.

I braved the cold outside and got my picture taken in front of the hotel. The entire facade wouldn’t fit into the frame.

I plopped into bed around 10pm. My sister arrived at around 11pm and still had the strength to explore Macau nightlife. She told me about the bar she went to that night where they would stop the dance music for what looked like “intermission numbers” performed on stage. I imagined it to be hilarious. She said it was.

November 19 – Day 2 at Macau

Breakfast was again at Festivita. Since i spent a small fortune on dinner the night before, I tried the MOP39 offer by one of the cheaper concessionnaires. For that price, I got a plateful of sauteed noodles, congee, and some pork dish. It was huge, oily, and bland. It really was just something to fill my empty stomach.

First stop for the morning was The Ruins at Senado for standard photo ops, second hand luxury bag shopping, beef jerky and portuguese tart.

En route to Senado, we had to go to the other side of Macau and got dropped off at the shuttle terminal. We heard cars zooming by, only to find out there was a grand prix that day. Very exciting.

I saw more of Macau by walking around – the street art, public transportation, design and architecture. There was no doubt that the place was clean and progressive. Remnants of their history were preserved, but most of the country was covered in building and hotel. The “backstage” of Macau looked like Binondo, but cleaner.

I loved the porcelain street signs and the cobblestone streets of Senado. The building architecture was preserved and modern restaurants such as McDonald’s had to go along with that. Walking further, we were met by vendors hawking all sorts of jerkified meat – beef jerky, pork jerky, chicken jerky, even baboy damo jerky. The great thing was they were giving free bits of jerky to taste. There were so many free samples some of us ate our breakfast in jerky. Haha.

As soon as my titas were pried out of Milan Station (second hand luxury brand bags), we headed out to The Ruins for photo ops. After picture taking we ended up having snacks of corn and squid balls.

As lunchtime neared, my mom asked a pinay who seemed to be living in Macau where the best place to find Macanese food was. She was referred to building by the entrance of Senado where McDonald’s was located.

We headed there as instructed but couldn’t find the restaurant we were referred to. We went up to a chinese restaurant at the second floor, sat down and prepared to order. As my parents (family official designated orderers) went through the menu, they decided it was way to expensive for something we could experience at home, and recommended that we transferred. So all 17 of us stood and went for the elevator. The disappointed head waiter charged us MOP30 for the nuts and hot tea they plunked on our table. It was a little embarrassing, if not funny, but it was better than regretting we didn’t make the most of Macau by settling for an over-priced chinese restaurant.

With several of us starving and a little cranky, we all headed to MGM by foot, since my lolo wanted to see the casino. Thank god for the jerky my dad and some titas bought that tided our hunger. If not for that, there would have been some major freaking out.

On our way to the hotel/casino district, we passed through tunnels where we found flyers of prostitutes selling their wares! I found it quite interesting. I just hope the girls are as pretty as their flyers say they are.

Hotel district interesting sights include the Grand Lisboa, MGM and Wynn. The building was art in itself.

The first thing that strikes you when entering the Wynn Macau are the brown Rolls Royce limousines. Steve Wynn’s extravagant taste is evident in his choice of a giant blood-red chandelier that greeted at the lobby. Straight ahead are serene pools of water line by exotic-looking camel statues. Very sensual. Makes for beautiful pictures too.

We made our way to the the hotel coffee shop Cafe Esplanade to rest. Surprisingly, the menu was not as pricey as we expected (almost same price as Festivita, with WAY better ambience), AND had the Macanese dishes we were looking for. We finally decided to have lunch there.

Macanese offers included Deep -fried Bacalhau, Pan-Seared Sea-bass, Stir-fried Minchi. The best was the sea-bass. The minchi was similar to our giniling, and the much-hyped bacalhau came as rolls of cheese, potatoes and touches of bacalhau. Something tells me that what we tried wasn’t exactly traditional.

Happy and full, we headed home in a taxi after some more picture taking.

At the hotel, we picked up tickets for ZAIA! of Cirque du Soleil. I was sooo excited to see another Cirque production. I’m glad we didn’t pass up on this one. Zaia was all dreamy and beautiful. I was brought to tears. Oh and the remarkable thing? That’s right, the theatre is INSIDE the Venetian as well!

Tip: We got a good discount by signing up for Cotai Rewards for FREE. Just register at the Cotai Rewards booths scattered all over the hotel (a lot of them at the casino floor). We saved MOP88 per ticket. We bought 4.

After the show, we sampled more noodles at the restaurant located in front of the Zaia theatre. The restaurant offered discounts for Zaia ticket holders. At the restaurant, we watched this cosmopolitan looking gay guy play pool with another white guy. Gay guy was making sure we were served. We spent most of the time there figuring out if he was Pinoy or not because he already looked so polished and almost mediterranean. We figured he was Pinoy. A band was playing really good music. Of course, THEY were pinoy.

Since moving 19 people (with my sister Via and my cousin Paolo with us) was just taking waaaay too long, I was contemplating going to HK ahead of all of them just to make sure I get my shopping done. But I decided against it, thinking I’d miss the fun. I’m glad I decided that way.

Back at the hotel room, we started packing for a quick check out the next day.

Next day for HK and the Search for the Elusive Portugese Steak

The following day, I found out through my sister my other cousins checked out the meat market (prostitutes) hanging out all over the hotel. They didn’t get anywhere, but I heard the bargaining was fun 🙂

As expected, checking out just took waaaay too long, and I tided my hunger with Milo and rolled cookies with pork floss (which was supposed to be pasalubong). While waiting, we also tried the taiwanese pepper sausages being sold outside the hotel. They were yummy 🙂

We took a quick peek and took pictures at the Four Seasons Hotel which was adjoining The Venetian. The place was beautiful and manicured and…quiet. The Venetian was much more fun.

When everyone was finally assembled, we all headed out to a Portugese restaurant at Taipa, recommended by one of the hotel staff (taxi driver? pinoy?) to my lolo. Apparently the place was recommended for their Portuguese steak. The directions were scribbled in a small piece of paper in chinese characters and we were supposed to show that to the taxi drivers and they would know. It was a bit of a challenge getting the right taxi drivers. But we got there.

And when we did, surprise, surprise, the restaurant (O Santos), was closed for lunch! Apparently, we visited on their 20th anniversary and they restaurant was closed for they day for private guests. Oh joy. But thankfully the Filipina maitre d (not sure if she was the wife or co-owner) directed us to another Portugese restaurant nearby. The Filipino staff (more Filipinos!) were having lunch when we barraged inside. But we all got served pretty well.

A Petisqueira offers wonderful choices including portugese paella, clams in garlic butter, portuguese fried chicken (a MUST-TRY), portugese rice, ribs, fish, and of course, portugese steak. I forgot the exact names of the selections but everything was good.

After a very satisfying lunch, we made our way back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and headed to the terminal and caught the 3pm ferry to Hong Kong for another adventure. 🙂