Day 352: Drink Up!

I never realized I never got around to publishing this.  But this is Kyla sipping up iced milk teas at E.S.Kimo just before we left for the airport.  Awesome, kid.  You make ninang proud.

Day 351: Kyla

Meet my godchild, Kyla.  She's not at her finest, but probably one of her funniest.  Watch her amuse herself while we wait for her dad to finish shopping.

People would sometimes ask me why I try to visit Macau every year.  There's the old world charm I talked about.  There's also the food I love.  There's the Venetian.  There's also an old friend that I visit.  Then there's her kid, who is my godchild.  Kyla, really is a good part of why I try to visit every year.  The first time I came to Macau was a month after she was born.  I've been there every year, save for one year, since.  I try to time my visits around her birthday.  Which, I also think is a perfect time.  The weather is slightly cool, but not too cold.  It's around the Mooncake Festival, and it's not as brimming with tourists as it would be around December or January.  During the first few years, I'd visit and take Kyla to the park.  Now, I visit and I take her and her younger sister to school before I go jog.

It amazes me how much she has grown.  She was a skinny little baby when she was born.  Everything about her was little.  Then she started watching Baby Einstein and got really smart.  She now speaks English, Mandarin and Portuguese.  She even teaches me how to say things in Portuguese using her iPad2.  Yep.  The kid's got an iPad2.  Let me remind you that she's six.  I tell her sometimes that she's getting so smart I don't know if I should be proud or scared.  It's a little difficult to say no to her, though.  I'd sometimes talk to her mother over FB and when she starts asking when am I going to visit, I start looking at my calendar and seeing when I'll be available to go on leave.  I mean, what do you say when she asks, "When will Ninang Faith take me to school?"  Seriously, how do you say no to that?

Day 350: St. Mark's Square at the Venetian

Venetian never gets old.  It has always been an eye candy for me.  Every time I visit Macau, I need to dedicate an entire day for Venetian.  With every other hotel-casino cropping up on Cotai, you'd think that Venetian would eventually be passed over.  It doesn't happen.  Has never happened ever since I first saw it.  If they put up a Bellagio on Cotai, then that's probably a possibility.  However, with how this entire majestic place is built, I just don't think it's going to happen.  Even their public lavatory looks amazing.  Seeing Venetian is like going through the motions of a dream.  Every little piece of it is an eye candy.  I'm not a big fan of clowns.  In fact, I hate them (which is synonymous to being afraid of them).  The jesters in Venetian, though, I can tolerate.  Most of the restaurants, too, do not charge you an exorbitant amount for meals.  Plus, the staff speaks English.  You'd even get lucky and find a lot of Filipinos.  Going to the hotels in Macau is actually isn't as difficult as most people think it is.  All of the hotels have free shuttle service to and from main transport locations like the Ferry Terminal and the Taipa Airport.  I did go around the Lisboa area, too.  However, Venetian really was the cake of my day.

The entire place was lit brighter for Christmas, and it looked amazing.  Apart from the regular opera songs that gets sang by a woman from a window, she also sings a Christmas song.  The gondoliers also sing Christmas songs and wear Santa hats.  I love hearing them sing in Italian while rowing gondolas on the man-made moat in the Marco Polo wing.  They also have gondolas outside, but they'd only take tourists on rides when it's not winter.  I really love Venetian.  You do not even have to do anything.  Just walking around it is enough eye candy for one person.

Music while walking: The Dance (Charlotte Martin)

Day 349: Macau Tower

Gorgeous, isn't she?

Today, I went around the city on my own.  I'm going to sound really arrogant, but having visited Macau several times, I guess it makes sense that I understand the transit system.  My friend says that I've been here so many times, I cannot really be classified as a tourist.  I'm more of a returning expat.  Hahaha.  I was a bit nervous about going to the Tower since I've never been there on my own.  Turns out there's a bus that goes directly to the Tower from the bus stop near where my friend lives.  I got lucky.

This tower is famous for being the highest bungee jump in the world.  The jump itself costs like an extortion.  Around 9000Php for one person.  People still pay to jump, though.  Surprisingly, there were a lot of folks who paid to put their lives at risk when I went there.  It was one after the other.  I was watching them jump one by one while reading and having coffee and cheesecake at the Singing Bean Coffee.  The view is amazing there as you can see people jump off the SkyJump simultaneously with the sun setting off the bridge.  The sunset is glorious from this side.  I'm adding a photo of it after the jump.  Remember those things I said that sometimes you see and make you marvel at how great God is for creating such things?  A sunset is one of those things.  I don't know what I did to deserve seeing such beautiful things, but I'm glad I'm blessed enough this way.  You somehow just Breathe (Michelle Branch) it all in.

Day 348: Dim Sum Dinner

So, today is all about food.  We had lunch at Quinella, which is probably my favorite Portuguese restaurant in Macau, where I had my favorite fried rice with smoked salmon and crab roe.  After visiting Fisherman's Wharf and the Red Market, we bought takoyaki and more milk tea.  The takoyaki in mainland China is actually better, but it was a close match.  Compared to the ones I've tried home, which is a disappointment.  Takoyaki does not have ketchup!  It does not have banana ketchup or mustard.  It's not a freakin' hotdog.  I have yet to find out how takoyaki in Japan actually tastes like, but I'm sure it's not served with ketchup.

For dinner, I went to visit my friend's parents, who have always been like my own, and we had dim sum for dinner.  In an honest to goodness dim sum diner.  Complete with noisy staff and quarreling customers.  Notice how they were watching me take a photo of the steamer baskets in the background?  Tito explained that dim sum diners are more of tea places than restaurants.  At the same time, a typical dim sum restaurant would be the equivalent of a goto or pares place in Manila.  Do not expect fine dining here.  The experience is great, though.  Plus the dim sum could not have been any better.  Even the tea served with it is awesome.

Day 347: Galaxy

I spent the day going around the picturesque parts of the city with my friend.  At night, we decided to visit Galaxy, which I believe, is the newest hotel casino to open on Cotai.  For all it's monstrosity, it still can't hold a candle against Venetian.  I like the place, don't get me wrong.  I think the exterior looks like a palace and I liked the food choices of the restaurants.  I also liked the interior fountain.  It was giving Wynn's fountain show a good competition.  There are just a few certain decor that doesn't fit.  It feels like a mixture of all the hotels in Macau.  I don't know.  Maybe next time the place will grow on me.

It's interesting that I've been to Macau several times, but I've never played in their casinos.  I've watched shows in casinos and drank in their bars, but I've never played.  The Las Vegas perception of Macau is just a part of it.  If I didn't have friends here, what would attract me best would be the old world charm of the city and their food.

Song of the day: We Found Love (Rihanna featuring Calvin Harris)

Day 346: Lomai

Welcome to Macau!  First order of business is a trip to Loja Canja Lok Fu.  Well, there was a side trip to get milk tea from Come Buy (I know it's a funny name, but they have really good milk teas).  Loja Canja Lok Fu is a hole in the wall noodle house where the you will find the best lomai you will ever taste in your life.  I'm not kidding.  I've been here every time I visit Macau and it never grows old.  My friends who live in Macau still go to this restaurant at least twice every month.  There's something about the noodles that's just different.  It's dry noodles, but the taste is all there.  I've never tasted anything like it anywhere.  Writing about it is already making my mouth water by just remembering how it tastes.

The place is also well-known to locals.  It's normal to wait for a seat to be available.  The facility has not much to offer and even if the staff is nice, they do not serve your food as fast as other restaurants do.  However, people still go back.  I've heard that they would sometimes close for an entire season and would open business when they feel like it.  Patrons still go, anyway.  There's really something about their noodles that's just addicting.

Day 345: Beautiful Mess

It was a busy day.  I'm happy to report that the Christmas Ball was a resounding success!  I ran around for the most part, with about ten people stepping on my train the entire night.  Which was funny.  I did not trip all over my face like I feared, though, so it was all good.  I realize that  during events like these, as much as it's a great opportunity to take photos, I never really find time in the middle of it all, nor do I have the inclination to do so.  Aside from the fact that I'm horrible with portraits.  So, let's just not try.  I'm often busy running around as an usherette or something else, anyway.  I think, these are moments that I prefer to live in, rather than capture.  That's probably a weird thing to say for someone who likes photography.  That's also probably why I prefer doing landscapes.  Capturing a moment in landscape is the same as living in it.  So, I don't really miss anything.  Yes, I'm selfish that way.

I took a picture of the worktable of our make-up artist, though.  It looked dramatic, and I liked how it turned out.  So, when I got this shot, I left the camera alone.

Beautiful Mess (Jason Mraz), isn't it?

Day 344: Almost Emerald

This is part of my dress for tomorrow's Christmas Ball.  I can't show the dress itself, because the damned thing is so long.  It's a little difficult to take a picture of the entire thing.  I wanted this to be a little brighter, but I think this is fine.  I hope I do not trip all over myself or do something stupidly embarrassing tomorrow.

Day 343: Pino

I met with an old friend today to have ramen at Little Tokyo, which is a perfect fit for the rainy December weather.  We used to go here often to buy food from the Japanese grocery store.  One of the things we like buying is Pino, which is basically chocolate-flavored ice cream.  I love it because it's ice cream.  The flavor is fantastic, too.  I wish I could go here more often, though.

Day 342: All My Bags Are Nearly Packed

This is a really busy week for me.  So much so that I took a vacation leave just so I can fix everything I need to fix on time.  I leave next week, and our company Christmas ball is this weekend.  Between that and my trip, there's enough errands that will eat up my vacation leave time.

Day 341: Bibimbap

Ate at Bab House after running errands.  This is my Bibimbap.  I realized that I haven't eaten at a Korean restaurant this year.  I guess it's timely that this store opened at out office building recently.  I actually like Korean food.  It's very similar to Japanese food, only with more mixing involved.

Day 340: Almost There

Excited to see this place again.

Day 339: It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Even the macarons have a Christmas special. :)

Day 338: Crazy, Stupid, Love

Earlier this year, I talked about seeing Crazy, Stupid, Love and absolutely loving it.  I bought a copy of the video because I wanted to see if it still has the same charm.  It does.  I love this rom-com.  It's what rom-coms should be.

Day 337: BonChon Chicken

A funny incident that happened to me the day before.  I bought BonChon for dinner, but was too tired when I got home to eat it.  I heated the chicken in the morning for breakfast, and I burned it.  See?  No culinary skills, whatsoever!

Out of my frustration over burning my heated takeout, I went back to BonChon to eat.  This time, I ate at the store.  No heating required.

Day 336: Booky

I'm trying to finish The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest this month, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen.  I would have posted a picture of it, however, I've used The Girl Who Played With Fire too many times as a photo.

Day 335: Jelly Beans

Sugar saved my life.  It will probably un-save me someday when I've gone past the sugar-abuse line.