Two Days Itinerary in Macau (part 2)

Sorry for postponed update! So here we go!

On the second day in Macau, I spent my day walked through all the famous world heritage spots in Macau Island area. While everyone on the net recommend the route to be started from Senado Square to the lower area, I started my route backwards; from down below (A Ma Temple) to upper area which is the Guia Lighthouse.

The exact route that I’ve walked in Macau Heritage Walk plan was (in order): 

• A-Ma Temple
• Moorish Barracks 
• Lilau Square
• St. Lawrence’s Church
• Dom Pedro Theatre, St Augustine’s Church, St Joseph’s Seminary and Church, Sir Robert Ho Tung Library (they are on the same area)
• Senado Square, Leal Senado Building, Holy House of Mercy (all same area too) 
• St. Dominic’s Church
• The Cathedral 
• Mount Fortress
• Ruin’s of St. Paul  
• St. Anthony’s Church 
• Guia Lighthouse

Since I stayed in the middle of Taipa Island and I’m very lazy to search for the bus route to my first destination (actually they have bus with the route that I wanted, but again, blame the construction sites everywhere the bus stop are nowhere to be seen!) I used taxi and it cost me around 50HKD from my hotel to A-Ma Temple.

I won’t talk that much about the history behind all the sites (as it was TOO MUCH to be told), I will just focus on each place that I have visited and what’s they look like.

First one is A-Ma temple; the one of the oldest Taoist temple in Macau that dedicated to Matsu, Goddess of Seafarers.

From A-Ma temple, everything just literally GO STRAIGHT to Senado Square, which is my temporary main aim from the temple.

Once I found a path like this on the side of A-Ma temple,

I just walked straight from there and the next building that I found was Moorish Barracks; being built to accommodate Indian regiments that were being dispatched from Goa, India. Can go enter the building but restricted only to the lobby area.

Walk a little bit more further from Moorish Barracks I found the Lilau Square.

Just near the Lilau Square, is the St Lawrence’s Cathedral which built before 1580 making it one of the oldest churches of Macao. The interior was beautiful, and the garden area was so peaceful too.

Finish with admiring every single thing there, walked again until I found the next big area where Dom Pedro Theatre, St Augustine’s Church, St Joseph’s Seminary and Church, and Sir Robert Ho Tung Library gather together.

The theatre was a little bit small but still can feel its glory presence.

Next to the theatre building is directly the St Augustine’s Church,

and Sir Robert Ho Tung Library.

I didn’t literally visit the St. Joseph’s Seminary and Church as it forbids me to enter from the back door there (see photo above) and require me to go outside the area and turn around on the back to enter the church via main entrance(which is quite troublesome). So I skipped that and continue walked straight from there until I found Senado Square, finally.

Leal Building is near the area too so I entered the place real quick before stepped in to the Senado Area.

Across the street was the Senado Square, which is, too bad for me, in their very awful state in my opinion as so many Chinese new year’s decoration were present at that time which somewhat annoys me THAT bad. I want the plain Senado Square!! Seriously.

Disaster.

Holy House of Mercy. Let’s skip this quick.

Walked to the end of the Senado Square area, reached the St. Dominic’s Church.

Actually, from here, everything was kind of in the same area and near to each other, and there were so many markings that lead you to several next historical places whichever would you like visit first.

I chose to visit the Cathedral first; took photo from the yard area and directly in front of the building itself.

I rest a bit there as I feel that wow, the whole trip from A-Ma Temple to this point was quite exhausting. And it was a right decision after all; because my next decision was Mount Fortress as the next target and HOLY guacamole, the road to the top was very steep and had quite a cardio back there!

Reached the top! Too bad it was foggy the whole week so the vision range was not very good. However I can see the Guia Lighthouse from here!

Anyhow, the trip from there and on was quite relaxed. Just follow the downward stairs from Mount Fortress lead me directly to the Ruin of St Paul; the main tourist spot at Macau.

It was so crowded and was quite a challenge to take a clean shot. Here was mine (with consideration to cut the below part as to avoid people’s head). Not so bad.

From there just take a little bit walk to the St. Anthony’s Church before leaving for Guia Fortress.

To go to the Guia Fortress, I use bus directly from the bus stop super near the church, and stop at Le Jardins du Flora. I’m very sorry that I forgot which bus number that I took; it was the wrong bus after all.

I thought the bus I took will take me directly to the station itself but instead they stopped at the main terminal in the middle of the route thus I have to change bus and pay again for the rest of the route.

Once I arrived, I just walked right to the cable car station spot, bought the ticket and directly went to the top of the hill. Reached the top, it took me around 15 minute more walk to reach the lighthouse.

It was not crowded at all and wish If I had more time to spent, I can spend the whole day dozing off there, maybe.

The lighthouse itself was quite fascinating although there’s not much to be seen for overall too. It will be much more perfect if the sky is clear and the whole scenery can be seen.

Thus Guia Lighthouse marked the finish point of my whole historical trip. From there I catch the bus back to City of Dreams to watch the House of the Dancing Water show which quite breathtaking too.

For overall, the trip from A-ma Temple to Guia Lighthouse took me from 10.00 to 17.00 on one day; including around 30 minutes lunch stop and 30 minutes lost around Senado Area to find one recommended restaurant which I finally couldn’t find at all. Considering that I went alone and my frequency to take photos and maybe selfies were not that time-consuming, 7 hours were just okay for me.

My opinion is that if you go in group and wanted to do a more relaxed time to enjoy every spot, 2 days will be perfect. 1 day is a little bit tight or so I think. But feel free to try on one day (and feel the burn on your feet!) as I feel that it was not that impossible to do too.

As a conclusion, It was a very, very fulfilling trip as I'm a very outdoor person, I haven't feel such in a better mood the whole day; as I spent mostly my days indoor on my work.

I can't wait to have this kind of trip again some other time. Gotta plan some more holiday to do!

See you on the next post! 

Two Days Itinerary in Macau (part 1)

As I have been telling you guys I finally wrote a separate post piece about my two days trip to Macau. I thought I will be able to do this in one short post however looking at all the crazy amounts of photos that I took back there, 2 post... doesn't look too bad. 

My short itinerary for these two days were divided into two big parts, which is a one day trip around Taipa (or, the casinos) area and Macau World Heritage Sites on the second day.

It looked so simple (since the area were not as big as Hong Kong) however I have to say that I'm having quite a hard time to get used to the transportation system here, which most of them using bus. I didn't have any problem whatsoever with using bus daily however I realize that in Taipa area especially, so many construction sites was on place and several supposed-to-be-there bus stop which was told by Google Map where nowhere to be found, which leads to a consumed amount of time to search for the correct bus stop several times. 

Since I had hard times to get used to Macau on the first day, I only have the chance to explore the Taipa Village and area around Venetian Macau and City of Dreams on day one.

My route from Hong Kong was Sheung Wan Ferry Terminal - Taipa Ferry Terminal - Macau Ferry Terminal - Kowloon Ferry Terminal.

When I first arrived in Taipa terminal, I was confused how to get to the city without using taxi, so I blindly go to several free shuttle bus to several hotels; since I'm aiming for City of Dreams, I took their free shuttle bus. The person asked me whether I will be staying at the hotel there, I said no, but I just said that I WANT to visit the City of Dreams, an luckily in the end they let me stay anyway and use the service. 

First stop was City of Dreams, which I found it quite boring. Nothing's there except the casino which I'm not quite interested in, however this show, The House of Dancing Water catch my eye!

I read several reviews about this show on the web and it looked pretty awesome, so I decided to impulsively book the ticket for the next day (since apparently they were having off days or can't buy on the spot, I'm not very sure). And indeed it was awesome! Will talk about the detail on post 2. 

Then I decided to take a walk to my hotel as It didn't too far away from the City of Dreams, and since it passed the Taipa Houses Museum and Taipa Village, I decided to take a look too. 

The walk to the Taipa Houses Museum was just so, not China. hahahah. Well since Macau was strongly influenced by the Portuguese, so most of the building style were kind of European style too in some spots. It was a total environment change for me. Unreal.

But yet everything was so pretty and properly placed. Love that.

Continued my walk to the Taipa Village area which I didn't had chance to explore much, since I still carry around my luggage and raining quite bad that time.

The stairs to the Taipa Village area were beautiful. 

The area filled with quite a lot of shops which sell several souvenirs and famous traditional food, such as the Portuguese egg tarts! Didn't bought a lot though, as I don't want my bag to get heavy before I move again to Kowloon the next day.

Once I reached my hotel, I'm quite drop dead tired as I have walked to a pretty hilly road on museum area, plus a little bit lost worsened by a quite hard rain. But once I went to my room I definitely whooooo!!-ing over my room. 

Look at the queen size bed!! All for myself! and WTH with the see-through bath room! 

Excited to the maximum but quite sad also since I only will use this room for one night.. But I was more than satisfied!

After having a quick rest and tidying all of the mess in my baggage from Hong Kong (thanks to the BIG room space I can just took out everything in my luggage and re-pack it.. how happy I was at that time..) I decided to go back to City of Dreams area with bus, and took a direct walk to the famous Venetian Macau since the area were close to each other.

I had to admit, the interior is just WOW.

Still hard to believe that all of this were the creation of a man. It was amazing.

The shopping area itself consist of several area with several different interior theme. All of them was just as mind blowing as it can be.

Yet at that time I realize the more mind-blown I am the more I think that all of these were such a vain; all of the rich people came here throwing their money in casinos and everything; surrounded by all the branded stuff and luxury goods, etc. If they already have everything and can do everything, do they have any life purposes after all of this? I wonder.  

There are people so rich they just stomp several hundred thousand dollars on the casino table (I saw that by myself when I visit the casino) yet on the other part of the world some people even having hard time just to feed their own mouth. What kind of world we live in.

That's all. Sometimes my mind is just being a little bit philosophical.

Getting stoned just by seeing all of this weird life phenomena I found here.

After I'm getting bored and bored by all of this stuff (and before my head getting anymore weird), I decided to just walk around the outdoor area a little bit and call the day off.

Went to sleep that day with a little hope: that the second day will be much more of a "realistic" trip  and more exciting than today's one.

Will post on part 2 soon!

Fujiko F. Fujio Museum

Recently since one of my friend had a holiday and had a chance to visit me here in Japan, I had a chance to go with her to one of the famous tourist spot in Japan known as Fujiko F Fujio Museum.. or most of us called it Doraemon Museum!!

It was located in Kawasaki Area (about 30-40 minutes train plus bus ride to the place) with Noborito Station as the nearest station from the main spot.

I was astonished by how cute the bus to the museum itself (it was all decorated with all Fujiko Fujio thingy, illustrations here and there on the bus wall interior etc) aaand I forgot to take the photos. Damn sad.

However, reached the place, camera is ready!

The staff there guarding the visitor's flow based on the time of entrance. Since my friend and I visited other place in the morning we picked the last entrance time, from 4 to 6 p.m. 

Have to pay attention though, that several points in the museum were closed even before 6 p.m. for example, the cafe last order was on 5 p.m., so have to be very careful on time management since several spots will be very crowded such as their infamous photo spots and souvenirs shop.

When we were waiting for our turn to the main entrance, I managed to take several photos of the figurines that were displayed there.

below is so cute OMFG.

Then before we enter the main museum we were gathered in one spot to be briefed about the do and don'ts. Some spots were prohibited to take photos because several of Fujio's real artwork were shown there. It comes with English subtitle too so no worries :)

The main purpose of the museum is indeed to be dedicated for Fujiko F. Fujio who dedicated his life to create artwork that can be enjoyed both from a kid's POV and from adult's POV.

Doraemon, is just a tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiny bit of Fujio's whole artwork. 

That's why some of the tourist were disappointed with what's inside; they expect it will be some kind of museum that really explain all of Doraemon's magic tools etc, but in the end what they see is different from their expectation.

Most of the things showed here (to give you a brief image) are something like sketches of Fujio's art, his technique on drawing his art, his life and his family, etc. (Come to think of it) That gave us another reason why the museum's name is not Doraemon Museum, But Fujiko F Fujio Museum.

However however!

There are so much interesting spots to be enjoyed too such as this beautiful-version-of-Giant well! 

All the kids pumping the lever there and the beautiful-Giant will show up for several seconds and before it went down again they took photos! Since the queue were so long I decided to just peek and go.

After enjoyed ourself touring the main hall, we reached the spots which (finally) photo were allowed:

The Reading Hall.

Leisure Hall.

It was just a normal leisure hall with tiny door as a bait for kids!

Next to the leisure hall were the theater. Since we didn't have so much time at that moment we decided to skip the theater. It plays 10 minutes special movie for several times in a day however it came only in Japanese audio which resulting in why my friend skipped it since she can't understand Japanese at all too. 

Then we just walk a little bit more and found an open space that leads to the main photo spot!

P-man enjoying life...How nice.

And here are the main spot!! 

From here pardon my oily face and hair; its a little bit too humid and hot that day since the week before were always raining quite hard.

The field that Nobita and the gang always play.

The famous pink door hahaha ( didn't go nowhere though.. pass the door arrived on the same field -___-)

And the dinosaur.

Have to pay attention that even though I managed to get some "clean" photos without all the crowd, to be honest, it took me and my friends THAT MUCH of an effort to took these photos. The crowd (and the kids) were running everywhere it's crazy. It was a mental battle between embarrassment and eagerness to take cute photos!! 

See this if don't believe me:

See ah. All the parents and the kids. Wahhh. 

And it's only one small part of the battle. Small part. *sigh*

Finish with the photo battle (glad it's over!) we went straight to the cafe and ordered meal as soon as possible since the order hour are soon to be finished. We ordered karaage set (fried chicken set meal), the cheese risotto (?, forget the name) and art coffee latte (standard taste. Again, only for the sake of its cuteness!) 

The meal's taste is OK, not like WOW but very acceptable. The price ranged from 1.000 yen for standard meal to 2.000 yen the really fancy one, I didn't quite remember. The karaage set is around 1400 yen, forgot about the risotto, and the cafe latte were around 400-500 yen.. memory blur but it was around that price I'm sure.

Satisfied and finished with our meal, we have no other time besides rushing directly to the souvenir's shops. 

It was near closing time so the souvenirs shop were so crowded sorry can't take proper photos. I managed to take this photo only! 1.080 yen.. not buying.

All the kids wear this on the museum!! What a hype.

Finished with our shopping marked as the end of our trip here. We went back to the station by the bus and reached Noborito around 19.00. Then from there we went to Shinjuku to go back home.

And this is my shopping spree result for that day! Take a look at it once again I realize it's quite a lot actually (ooppss!)

The blue box and the bus can were cookies for my work colleagues since they know i'm visiting this museum that day and allowed me to take day off so I splurge them a little bit alright. The Dorami Doll for my boss' little daughter. And the rest is for myself hahaha. The coaster are free souvenirs from the cafe though! 

Well, for overall, I really enjoyed it a lot!! 

Since my expectation about this museum were not THAT high (I didn't expect it to be ALL Doraemon from the start) it was really a fun experience!

Me myself quite enjoyed the moment of when the museum showed me how Fuji's artwork being processed, what kind of tools he used to draw his comics, how did Fujio's enjoyed his everyday living etc. It was worth a visit; seeing how amazing one person can share so many happiness to all the people through things he love the most: art.

The question is, like him, how can I share happiness to people through things that I love the most?

Still, an unanswerable question indeed, but I always believe that I will find the answer someday.

Fujiko F. Fujio, thanks for all the fun today :) You will always be remembered.

See you on next post!