Finally arrived!

22 Nov 2005

We queued up for immigration and I handed over my passport and the arrival card. I thought I was getting really familiar with the procedure already, well almost! That was until I was told to hand over the departure card as well. As we first stepped out of the immigration area, we saw a man waving at us with a sign. We didn’t notice the sign with our group name until they called for us. We were surprised that they could tell that we were from our school until I realised we had the green sticker on our shirts.

Oh well…

Then the man who looked European handed us a map. We waited for our friends to assemble. Thereafter, we went onto our respective coach. It appeared that our bags were too big for the bus (perhaps the bus was smaller) to carry that they had to transfer some of them to another coach. As the bus drove past the night scenery in Macau, we caught glimpses of the Macau tower and the neon lighting of the casinos. It was really spectacular! It was unbelievable how we had virtually spent our whole day travelling to Macau. We were heading for our hotel. The guide missed my number and I had to reconfirm my room number which hardly got into my head either. Room 3-06. We reached Sintra hotel and checked into our room. There I was reunited with my room-mate! We got down by 7.15pm for dinner and walked to Metropole Hotel. It was like a banquet dinner with rice and 9 dish course. We were really full after the meal.

Thereafter we explored the area… there were many shops selling almond cookies. There was one shop where the retail person kept speaking us in Cantonese and we just smiled politely to whatever they are saying as none of us understand the dialect. It was really awkward. We went into Esprit and I was so glad I found an affordable top. I did not really bother to try the size as I wanted to break my note so urgently. Along the way, we bought milk pudding at HK$14.50. It tasted nice and sweet like some custard.



As I had read about this really spectacular place called Largo Do Senado in some of the travel books, I was hoping to find the place. As lady luck was on my side, we were naerby the area and finally got there and took many photos there. The distinctive architecture and wavy design on the pavement were the highlights.

 We also discovered a narrow alley lighted up so beautifully, aligned with a straight row of flower pots. It was a really beautiful aisle! As we continued our walking tour, we found many familiar brand names Giordano, Sasa (they have many Sasa shops… 3 in the same street!), Levi’s, Adidas, Samuel and Kevin, McDonald’s and Häagen-Dazs.



We came across one shop selling pick-and-choose candies and preserved snacks. We discovered another local dessert called Serradura. I tried asking the locals in Mandarin. It turned out they could not speak very fluent Mandarin. However, we bought the cookie and cream dessert and it was nice. It was all cream based but as it melts and it goes into the mouth with these crispy mashed biscuits on the bottom, it just tasted good.

Later on, my two other friends and I went searching for convenience stores; 7-11.We tried seeking help from the local policeman but still could not find the shop. I never knew it was literally translated in Mandarin there ("qi shi yi"). We eventually gave up and went back to the hotel to abide the 11pm curfew. I was never an early sleeper so I invited my girlfriends over to my room and we were watching TV till 12 plus in which we saw our local actor Adrian Pang in it… an Aladdin show but I could not recall the title.

 The room was rather spacious and comfortable but I wasn’t really used to such a stiff bed. There were so many layers of blanket. We slept with the lights on. Though we turned off both the air-con and heater, the room was already cold enough to cause me to have flu. I dozed off while watching the MTV... Jay Chou, Tanya Chua...