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Jun 13 2011

Eastern Europe + Greece 2011

Kelvin

And finally…… the pictures of our Eastern Europe + Greece adventure are now ready!

Click here to assess.

Jan 2 2011

And of course, we rewarded ourselves with some great Portuguese food and wine. Found this restaurant tucked away at the corner, somewhere between the Senado square and the ruins of St Paul’s – watch out for those alleys and signs!

Portuguese restaurant – Restaurante Platao, affordable with a nice al-fresco dining corner

Jiyun had fish

Kelvin had spicy chicken

And we had wine. Porto and other wines were cheap too.

Old house

Another look at the ruins of st paul’s, in the daytime. At last, we rreached our destination. A good trek it was!

Another look

Close up 1

Close up 2

From the top of the ruins. You could clim up to the windows of the remaining facade, but that’s about it.

Us and the city below

Night falls…… and batteries go flat. The dying shot from our Sony backup camera. Nikon, our usual trusted camera, had died on us after just the first day.

Day 4

Bungy jumping from macau tower!!??

Luckily, Jiyun’s handphone camera was more than good enough to handle a bright day shot, our last of Macau.

On the way home….

Macau 2010 December

Kelvin

Macau 4 days 3 nights

Macau was a last minute decision (as usual). We had wanted to go somewhere, anywhere. But our choices were running out, as this was the festive season and time was running out. And when Jiyun stumbled upon some air tickets to Macau, we thought we’d take the plunge.

It’s the start of winter in Macau – and how different the climate is from Singapore, just a 3.5 hours place ride away. Temperatures were at a cool 10-20 deg at the end of December.

Day 1

In front of Macau Grand Lisboa, one of the main “faces” of Macau

At Senado Square, one of the many “world heritage” sites in Macau. This would be a must go place for tourist, for the food, pictures and cheap shopping.

Macau has many places for dumplings and noodles. We (I) also tried the roasted goose meat, which is really like duck meat. Very nice nevertheless!

Night view – Looks rather sleazy but really the gimmicks and neon lights spices the night life here and makes it interesting for young and old alike. Great for night shots.

Thank you, kind photographer who helped to take our rare shot together, but this one’s blurry as well…. Sigh, what can I say.

We went back to Senado at night, and were greeted by gleaming Christmas lights gracing the old Portuguese enclave.

The ruins of St. Paul’s. The face of Macau. If there’s only one place you have time for in Macau, you should be here (besides the casinos). Though, it’s really the ruins of the church and former school, where only the frontal facade remains. You could go go up to the windows and to the back to see parts of the foundation etc though. Packed with people all the time.

Somewhere between the Senado Sq and Ruins of St Paul’s. There’s always good photo op along the way.

Day 2

Inside the Venetian hotel.

Being a casino city, Macau is the playground for the rich. It is the place to be if you like to be surrounded by high-end boutique shops – you name the brand, they’ll have it. In a day or two, we are so de-sensitised to the expensive sounding brands and high prices that they don’t seem especially out of the ordinary any more – they actually seem much more accessible than they really are, a clever unintentional strategy if you ask me.

By the way, if you ever ran out of money gambling or buying branded stuff, you could still give yourself a nice Macau/Korean/Portuguese/Japanese/Singaporean food at their food court in the Venetian.

Outside Venetian – we thought the beauty of it all lies on the outside. Maybe apart from the canal inside.

Somewhere near the musuem of taipa. So apart from the main city area of Macau, the Taipa area is another strip of the island with attractions to offer, such as more Portuguese colonial buildings and streets, and not the least hotels like Venetian, Hyatt, Hard Rock, etc.

Day 3

Day 3 was basically reserved for touring the historical sights in Macau. Strongly recommended for those who don’t really fancy the smoke filled casino rooms or stone-cold granite boutique shops. The trail would require you to make your way to the A-Ma temple, another Macau world heritage site. We took the route that offered us most of the sites, from A-Ma temple to up north, back to the ruins of St Pauls, a good 3-4 km of Portuguese architecture and Macau everyday life.

A-Ma temple

Magic

A rest stop

Reflections

Church. One of the last stops of our history trail. (Continue to Next…)

Korea 2010

Kelvin

Back to Korea – This time we took road trip to the shooting set of several famous Korean movies and drama - Shuri, JSA, Cinderella’s Stepsister, etc. Took another trip with friends to a ski resort. Also featured – more great Korean delicacies, and Korea Vs Argentina!