Grand Lisboa Hotel, Galaxy Hotel, and other random hotels

Moving on from Wynn hotel, we decided to visit the other surrounding nearby hotels by foot since the night was still rather young. Apparently there were well built underground tunnels but we took the longer away by crossing across roads and alleys.




Money changers are everywhere in the streets of Macau

Our first stop of the night was Hotel Grand Lisboa. If my interpretation is correct, this is a new hotel built to complement the aged Hotel Lisboa which was located next to it. As usual, the interiors and exteriors never fail to amaze me.








On our last day at Macau I also headed to the Galaxy Hotel after a long walk from Venetian Hotel to board a free shuttle bus to nearby St. Paul's Ruins and subsequently passed by a few hotels. It is worth noting that the 'bus station' at Galaxy hotel provides many free shuttle buses to most of the tourist attractions in Macau.





The 'bus stop' at Galaxy Hotel

This post has been edited by zstan: Nov 21 2013, 11:18 PM

mind if i ask you, what lens are you using? Very sharp and nice lighting

ps: maybe u can pm me. Thx

This post has been edited by Intrigue: Jan 20 2013, 11:43 AM

tamron 17-50 & sony a77

Among these hotel, which is more worth to stay?

MGM , Grand Hyatt, Conrad & Galaxy/okura

in terms of luxury, i'd go for Conrad for sure

Anyone know any local agent who deal with booking of City of Dream packages?example MOP 1698 for one night stay at Hard Rock Hotel with 2 tickets to The house of dancing water?

I dont know any but you can try emailing COD for queries, they are very responsive. I am interested to know where can I get some discounted tickets too.

This post has been edited by Human Nature: Jan 21 2013, 12:30 PM

Thanks - was wondering if anyone had experience with local agents which might offer cheaper / better rates.

Was informed by someone there's a travel agent in Macau that offer cheaper rate but must be booked at their outlet in Macau - no online / phone booking and must deposit via cash at their outlet

Mind sharing what is the name of the travel agent in Macau?
Thank you.

Ok.. i have decided! Tamron it is 17-50.

lol... i was deciding on canon 15-85 and tamron 17-50.

ps: offtopic though

Well sometimes I wished I had 2 more mm while taking shots of the buildings but the f2.8 aperture really helped a lot in low light.

Meixi Royal Stone Archways Tourist Area （梅溪牌坊)

Upon crossing the crowded border, we finally arrived at mainland China! Zhu Hai was one of the earliest province/city (unsure about the correct term here) to be opened to the world by China after all their restrictions to the foreign world (after the revolution if i was not mistaken) over the couple of decades. This place was one of the first to be developed and many investments were brought in. Alright that's about enough for history lessons.



The first place that we stepped in the was famous Gong Bei Underground Shopping Mall which I shall elaborate more on a separate post. From there on our tour guide led us to the bus station which was beneath the mall and we were brought to the first destination of the day, Meixi Royalk Stone Archways Tourist Area. Yes its a really bloody long name in English but basically its the residence of the guy who first developed Zhu Hai.



The guy's name was Chen Xi Ru who was born in Hawaii and a Yale University graduate. Long story short he felt the need to contribute back to his country and came back to develop this place. His residence is really impressive I must say, not expecting any less though considering the amount of money he had. I lost count the number of wives and children he had as well.










And finally, my first taste of China's food! It was pretty decent I must say. Some of the dishes were nice. Kinda exceeded my expectations. Not forgetting they always serve beer at meal every time. Beer is so cheap in China =_=.






This post has been edited by zstan: Nov 21 2013, 11:38 PM

City of dreams have a good routing also i think:they even go to macau tower.but we didnt know and end up taking the public bus round macau lol to go there!
And there is this cotai connection shuttle bus that ply between galaxy,COD,Venetian (all the resorts around cotai)

Mermaid Statue (珠海漁女)

Another main attraction at Zhu Hai is their Mermaid Statue which is located nearby the famous Lover's Road. Lover's Road is basically a long stretch of road beside the sea and got its name by some big shot in a government who was bringing his wife while officiating the opening this road. Well, walking along this road on a breezy evening with the sunset in the background with your lover does indeed seem romantic, hence the name. On a side note, mermaid statues seem to be very popular all around the world. I remember seeing one in Songkhla, Thailand and I believe there is another famous statue at Denmark.



Unfortunately the weather on that afternoon was not very forgiving despite nearing winter. We left after taking some pictures for memories sake.





This post has been edited by zstan: Nov 21 2013, 11:51 PM

Jingshan Cableway (景山三特索道)

From the Mermaid Statue at the Lover's Road we then moved on to Jingshan Cableway for a trip up to the mountains for a bird's eye view of Zhu Hai! Although they call it cable way, technically its a chair lift ride. From the base of the mountain, it's a good 5-7 minutes ride up. There was no crowd on that day so we didn't had to wait too long for our turn.













The view atop the mountain was pretty decent and it will be even nicer by the time the sun sets. Not a bad place for a date as well. There are many souvenir stalls up here for tourists to do some tiny bit of shopping and I got myself a hand made handphone keychain which costed only 10 yuan.

In my opinion, the most interesting thing to do here is going downhill. There are three ways to do so, one is to walk, another is to take the chair lift down, and the last is to take this ride:



am not sure how do you call this ride but this is something like a roller coaster that only goes down hill. The ride was really intense with all the hard cornerings and the wind blowing hard against the face. On a sad note the person in charge did not allow me to video record/photograph the whole process of going down hill but nevertheless it was an exhilarating experience!






This post has been edited by zstan: Nov 21 2013, 11:52 PM

This is cool! Like Jackie Chan's CZ12

I'm wondering how much is the current price for a tin of Koi Kei Almond cookies now in Macau?

I just got 1 from 1U herb store for RM35/tin.

Jiuzhou Port (九洲港) to Hong Kong!

As mentioned in my earlier post that I have one free day in my itinerary so I decided board a ferry to Hong Kong instead! According to the ferry's schedule, the earliest ride to Hong Kong (China Ferry Terminal @ Tsim Sha Tsui,Kowloon) was at 8a.m so I wasted no time to get there from my hotel with a taxi.



Prior to this trip I have booked the tickets online at their website to ensure that I get seats since trips to Hong Kong are rather popular. To my utmost horror, the person at the counter told me I could only redeem the tickets at the Hong Kong office at not the ferry terminal. D: In my opinion this is quite stupid considering that the website offers sales of tickets of many places outside of Hong Kong and the only places to redeem those tickets are at Kowloon, Central (中環) and somewhere in Shanghai =_=. Without a choice I exchanged my Hong Kong dollars to Yuan with a shop to buy new tickets (175 yuan for 2 ways). The exchange rate was probably terrible but I didn't have much choice Thank goodness I was able to get a full refund when I arrived at Hong Kong. Quite a shocker early in the morning.





After settling my tickets I then proceeded to have my breakfast, at KFC. And yes I was looking for pork related food again =P



Along with a cup of soya bean, the whole set costed 17 yuan. I then proceeded to the departure hall to wait for my ferry. The entire set up and design looks pretty like an airport.









The ferry is huge!! Accommodating more than 300 people should be off no issue here. There are 3 types of seats available here, depending on the ferry company - normal, VIP and first class. I am guessing food and personal in-ferry entertainment will be available for those paying more. Hong Kong here I come!

This post has been edited by zstan: Nov 21 2013, 11:51 PM

I also curious to know the current price for handmade-almond (standard original) from koi kei.
Last time I think is is HKD80 per box, or HKD150 for 2x boxes.
Want to ask friend to buy at Macau soon.

Hi all,

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5 days sales ending 22/2.