Macau, Day 2 - Part 2 (Noon)

Continuation from previous post

From the Lisboa casino, we walked to the Senado square...

 the square is full of colonial style buildings built during the Portuguese era....

 the architecture resembles those colonial buildings in Malacca & Penang Georgetown

 the colorful facade of these buildings adds more vibrant to the city, with tourist taking pictures/videos even on a hot & sunny day!

Meanwhile I was busy finding shelter/shades, gonna melt under the hot sun....

we proceed our way to the hill top, passing by some churches and shops 

 it was a Friday (not even a weekend yet!) but the place was crowded with locals & tourists...

 it was a 30 minutes walks on the hillslope before we reached the footstep of Ruins of St Paul.

Yes, the iconic spot of Macau!

Climbing up the stairs really test my stamina...

If you ever wonder how it looks like from the back, there you go, multiple steel pillars supporting the structure. Some parts have also been cemented...

 Entrance is free, but this place is well guarded to prevent people from vandalising or ruining any parts of it.

A few steps from the 'entrance', it displays the history of this structure over the years and the restoration made unto it.

  there is a mini gallery downstairs, but basically nothing significant to see...

After a few photo sessions, adjourned down the hill for some snacks shopping...

 here's a view from the hill top, the tall building on the left is Lisboa Casino/Hotel

 there are lots of pastry house/bakeries/dried meat shops at the vicinity. Basically they are all franchises selling almost the same stuffs.

Most shop offers tasting/sampling. I went to this pastry shop and unashamedly 'feasted' on their variety of local biscuits/cookies. Their signature product is the famous almond cookies.

Noon time, we went for a simple lunch at Tai Lei Loi Kei (大利來記) coz was still full from all the cookies & snacks sampling earlier.

Tai Lei Loi Kei shop is famous for its pork chop bun!

the pork chop was very well marinated and grilled to perfection, not too dry nor hard despite the lean meat...

it was superb...and out-of-the-world...

I dun tink I could find such delicious pork chop bun in KL (even at its own franchise in KL)!

after then, we took another free shuttle to down south, passing by the Macau tower

 here u'll see some of the plants/trees 'senget' (leaning aside)....This was due to the Hato storm that blown them until senget.

Yea, the coast was badly affected (especially the construction side with cranes dangling and debris everywhere! see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-4818278/Typhoon-leaves-12-dead-lashing-Macau-Hong-Kong.html for details)

 Reached the Venetian in within minutes. This place was so quiet and deserted like some ghost town...

 u hardly see any vehicle or people on the street during the mid day

 hello? hello? where are the people?
only later I found out that most of the casinos have just reopened after closed for 2 days (due to no electricity and water)...So basically people still thinks they are closed....or even if it isn't, there wasn't a mood for gambling as the entire place just recovered from disaster.

 Business was kinda slow even inside the casino...all empty tables, with hardly any sight of gamblers...

The casino/hotels are so gigantic, it makes me feel so 'tiny' being surrounded by huge architecture!

Anyway, this was just our stop-over while we hooped onto another bus to further south - Coloane!

Will be back to Venetian again later during the evening...