Macau

I went on my Macau (click here for wikipedia entry) trip together with my Hubby, Grandparents & Aunt.

We took TigerAir from Singapore Budget Terminal to Macau.  The flight took around 3hrs 30mins.  My 1st thought when plane touched down at Macau was "Wah!! So hazy!".  I was seated next to the window and I could only see the ground and buildings just moments before we landed.

The hotel we are staying at is the Venetian Hotel and we took the hotel's shuttle bus from the Airport to the hotel (trip just took about 5mins).

The Venetian Hotel

Entrance to Venetian Hotel

Hotel's lobby

this is not a suite, it's a standard room! 

hotel room's toilet

hotel's food court. note: the sky is fake.

shopping area within Venetian Hotel

jackpot area

some sort of egg batter pastry we ate at the hotel's food court.  very nice.

There's a shop (Kee Wah) in Venetian Hotel that sells local pastries too.

Me looking at delicious food whilst dear hubby Alfred took this photo of me from the mirror reflection.

The Venetian Hotel is located on the same island as the airport, so if you want to go to Macau's city area, you will have to take cab/bus to Macau's main island (about 20mins by cab).

The bridge that links both island.

The most famous attraction is probably the Ruins of St. Paul's.  There's usually many tourists here taking photos at the famous steps.

Ruins of St Paul's

The back of Ruins of St Paul's

The view from the top at Ruins of St Paul's

Just next to Ruins of St Pauls, there's a small shop selling collectible toys for those who may be interested. It doesnt open until nearly noon time so don't go too early.

location of the toy shop

Boys will be boys...my hubby and grandfather checking out toys

Then from the Ruins of St Pauls, go down the steps and walk straight.  You will find shops selling Bak Kwa (Dried Pork Slices) and pastries.  Most are nice.  Many pastries comes in little individually wrapped pieces within a box so it's good to buy for colleagues and friends.

Bak Kwa

For potato lovers, there's a shop here that specializes in potato food.

In the evening, there's usually a water fountain display outside Wynn Hotel. However on my trip they shut it down due to the typhoon.

Wynn Hotel

The thing with Macau is that there's always a possibility of being caught in a typhoon.  There's typhoon signal 1, 3, 8, 9, 10.
Typhoon signal 1: Stand by (A tropical cyclone is centred within 800 kilometres of Hong Kong/Macau and may later affect the territory, or there are strong winds in Hong Kong waters)
Typhoon signal 3: Strong Winds (Strong winds are expected or blowing generally in Hong Kong/Macau near the sea level, and the wind condition is expected to persist)
Typhoon signal 8: Gale (Gale or storm force winds are expected or blowing generally in Hong Kong/Macau near the sea level and the wind condition is expected to persist)
Typhoon signal 9: Increasing Gale (Gale or storm force winds are increasing)
Typhoon signal 10: Hurricane (Hurricane force winds. Eye of typhoon may be passing directly over Hong Kong/Macau)


So on the day we were at the city area, we saw this at 1 of the city hotel's lobby.

Basically, for signal 1 & 3, there's not too much to worry about although you might want to double check to see if there's any flight changes.  However if the hotel you are living in is on the airport island (like Venetian Hotel) and you are on the city island, then you may want to start heading back to your hotel because the bridge that connects the 2 island will shut down when it reaches Typhoon signal 8.  We were lucky because the bridge shut down 1hr after we arrived back to our hotel.  Later in the evening, it reached Typhoon signal 8.

Typhoon signal 8 alert on TV

  

I was at Macau: 13-15 Sep 2009

Penang, Malaysia

Ahh...Penang. The land of good food.

Since Penang is just 1hr 15mins away from Singapore by flight, so I'd recommend taking budget airlines like Tiger Airways , Jetstar , AirAsia. However, occasionally Malaysian Airlines do have a cheap rate that's comparable to the budget airline's rates.

The Penang's airport is a small one. Just a few shops, food outlets, and a McDonald's. It takes around 30mins by cab (if there's no traffic jam) to get from airport to the Georgetown (city) area. Add an additional 20mins to reach Batu Ferringghi area (beach resorts).

As for hotels, there's 2 main areas you can choose from. 1 is the Batu Ferringghi area where there's mostly beach resorts. The other is Georgetown area which is the main city area.

Personally, I like the Gurney Hotel which my Penang friend recommended me. Affordable rates, spacious room, nice sea view and a jacuzzi jet bathtub. (No, they did not pay for me to advertise here:) ) It is located along "Barutan Gurney" where the famous open-air food stalls are located at in front of Gurney Plaza. However the Gurney hotel is located about 15mins (walk) away from Gurney Plaza.

hotel room

View from the hotel room

If you want somewhere closer to Gurney plaza, then go G Hotel. It is located just next to Gurney Plaza.

I have 2 good friends from Penang and they bring us around to eat where the locals eat.

Char Koay Teow. I eat that at least once every day while at Penang. My personal fav is the one by the roadside along "Jalan Mount Erskine". Granted, the place looks kinda run-down, however, the food is good.

Another of my personal fav is the Hokkien Mee. In Singapore, we call it Prawn Noodle, but in Penang, it's known as "Hokkien Mee". The soup is thick, spicy, flavourful. It usually comes with a spoonful of chilli paste. Even if you don't mix that chilli paste into the soup, the soup is already spicy.

Other must-try Penang food are:

And...not forgetting....

Haha. Yes, I'm one of those who makes it a point to visit an A&W's everytime I visit neighbouring countries (since Singapore doesn't have A&W's anymore). I visited the outlet at Gurney Plaza.

As for local products, me and my friends went to Ghee Hiang to buy some traditional Penang biscuits (Beh Teh Saw). Good for buying to share amongst colleagues since they come in little packets within 1 box.

In the evenings (every day), you might want to take a walk along Batu Ferringhhi where you will see many stalls selling cheap stuffs (kinda like the Pasar Malam we have here in Singapore).

For those who planned to visit Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion (also known as the Blue Mansion), there's tours conducted within the mansion, however photography is not allowed, even if you are on the conducted tour. You can only take photos from the outside.

I was at Penang: Aug 2009 & Mar 2010

Goodwood Park Hotel, Singapore

 Saw a good deal for Goodwood Park Hotel in May 2010, so we had a short weekend stay there.

Hubby rummaging the mini-fridge.

Day 23 (14/4/07): Amsterdam

breakfast area at the hotel

Bicycle park

On our way to take the train for Keukenhof Park

 Keukenhof is the world's largest flower garden and the best time to see the Tulips is around mid April (which happens to be the period when we are in Netherlands).  On this free day in Amsterdam, while the rest of the contiki group explores more of Amsterdam, we decided to make our own way to Keukenhof together with James, Zhoushang and Jiawen instead.  Keukenhof is only open for 2 to 3 months every year but Amsterdam will be available all year-round...so we went Keukenhof :)

Wikipedia entry for Keukenhof.

Keukenhof's official website

Anyway...back to our train journey starting from Amsterdam...

After a train ride and a bus journey later....we are at Keukenhof!

Since there's too many photos to be squeezed into 1 blog post, so I've dedicated a separate entry for Keukenhof.

Just some of the many pics taken in Keukenhof

sitting at the last row of the bus on our way back to train station after Keukenhof. 

sitting at the last row of the bus on our way back to train station after Keukenhof.

!!!

train station

BURGER KING!

Lunch on the train journey back to Amsterdam

CHICKEN FRIES!!!!!!!!!!!

 Back at Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Heading towards Red Light district to have a better look in the daytime.

sex shops in the Red light district

not sure if these are space cakes....but be careful of what you eat in Amsterdam...in case you eat space cakes unknowingly.  "Space cakes" are a term for food products with cannabis.

Red light district in the day

Still in the Red Light district

Glass windows where prostitutes will be at during the night times to try to get customers.

more glass windows at the Red Light district

Amsterdam's coffeeshop is not the usual coffeeshop or cafe we are used to.

out of the Red Light district and back to the main streets of Amsterdam

erm...turd (shit) figurines

more turds

we tried to take the local bus back to our hotel since we had missed the contiki bus set off time from Amsterdam to Hotel....however the local bus's waiting time took too long and we had to be back to hotel in time before the Contiki bus leaves hotel for our optional dinner (which we already paid).

So...we took a cab back to hotel.  We sat silently throughout this trip and watched the numbers climb.  

The cab we took 

 Heading for dinner at a restaurant in Volendam.

Wikipedia entry for Volendam

We made it on the Contiki bus :)

Volendam

we had our final dinner of the Contiki trip at this restaurant

This soup is nice

love the fish

 Miss ya all....

what Alf had

what I had :)

strolling back from restaurant after our dinner to our Contiki bus

Sunset during our bus journey from Volendam to Amsterdam

 Back to Amsterdam....heading for our evening Canal cruise

I think this bottle is still sitting somewhere in my cupboard right now

think he's getting tipsy... :)

Jodie :)

Everyone's going nuts on the Contiki bus ride from Amsterdam back to hotel after our evening cruise since this is going to be our last evening together.  The tour will be breaking up on the following day since some people will leave the group at Amsterdam while most of us will be heading back London.

dancing Paul

People started dancing...

Then everyone started dancing....