The Pink Lady: Catching Up With Life in [Macau]

Dear Pipsqueaks,

Typing this while putting up my feet to drain the blood from a whole day of walking. No joke, just about over 18,500 steps. I could feel this pain at my arches and calves were tight. Maybe I'm really out of shape!

We left the house around 7am after I've sent Apes off to take the bus to Taipei. We'll be seeing her shortly in Hong Kong so it's all good. A slight jam in the Airport System of highways but made it in good time. Then the bizarre part: today was not a holiday or beginning of a weekend, but the airport was full of people! Lots of travel groups and a few teams of dance crews taking up most of the walking space. No worries, we sped up to avoid them through security and immigration.

Dee deeeee! What happened? My mama - who I will add has traveled load of times before - had forgotten her Swiss Army gadget the size of a business card in her backpack. So, le sister had to exit the security zone to post the item back home. Earlier, my papa had forgotten that his lighter needed to be in the carry-on and tried to stuff it in the checked in luggage. Sigh, I guess that just means they need to get back to traveling again...

So we thought we managed to avoid the group of kids? Nahhhh. They were on the same flight with us to Macau! G-R-E-A-T. They literally took up the whole gate seating area, so we were kinda forced to go downstairs first. Luckily, we didn't have to wait long to board and the next thing you know, we were in Macau!

I can't remember when was the last time I was here (until we walked into the Venetian later on). Sure felt like ages! Lots of construction starting from the airport. We waited for almost an hour before exiting. Oh, and I exchanged USD at the rate of 7.60, which seems to be a better rate than what you'd get at hotels. One of the casinos was trading at 7.5! By then, it was a smarter choice to use RMB. Best part is, you can't even place bets with MOP (Macau Pataca). You can only place bets in HKD (Hong Kong Dollar)! Odd eh?

Anyway, so we walked outside to catch a hotel bus and OMG was that the most horrendous experience or what. Because the airport is under renovation, the route to the hotel buses must have changed and basically a huge flood of people were all being funneled down this tiny walkway to a bus loop. Luckily, other buses came and left with a crowd so we could at least stay in the shade a little longer. We waited a good 15 minutes in the heat before our bus came. Really disappointed considering these hotel buses are on a constant loop, so it can't take that long unless you have a small fleet. For such a big hotel group like Melco Crown Entertainment, I'm surprised. La-di-da, we eventually made it to the hotel.

Check in was supposed to be at 3pm, but we managed to get our rooms around 1.30pm - thank goodness! We were starving so we went looking for food. Let's just say, Studio City is still looking to build on their food menu. So we left for Galaxy instead. We did so much walking - Galaxy to Venetian, a park full of pretty flowers, and then to Dumbo Portuguese restaurant for dinner with my cousin and cousin-in-law - I really just wanted to rest. Not to mention the allergies on my forehead that I can't seem to get rid of.

Maybe I expected more of a rest than a discovery holiday. Can't help it though - parents haven't been to Macau so they gotta go out walking and see! Will suck it up and just do it for them. But not before gym first thing tomorrow!

Here are some photos - caption will come later on when I get on my laptop! Nights peeps :)