Hong Kong and Macau 2015 Day 2 – Prada outlet and Bon Jovi asia tour in Macau

It started at 730am, and with all the preparations in mind, the target to leave at 10am. It wasn’t enough as cooking porridge took a long time. I had to pump and deflate his bathtub for his bath. Chopping the baby carrots and the sweet potato with a tiny knife and a cheap daiso chopping board was really difficult. The biggest challenge however was to keep a watch out for baby K as he moved around on the baby.
We were finally ready at 11 am to move out. Left the luggage at the reception but disappointed to find that they do not have a refrigerator to store milk.
Went over to Yuen Kee restaurant (where we had dinner the night before) for our meals. Ordered macaroni abalone slice and turkey ham set that came with bread and egg coupled with milk tea while wife had the traditional bread bun and ovaltine.
Restaurant menu, under the glass typically.
Restaurant menu, under the glass typically.
Ham and macaroni with HK milk tea.
Ham and macaroni with HK milk tea.
Scrambled egg and bread.
Scrambled egg and bread.
Inside Yuen Kee Restaurant.
Inside Yuen Kee Restaurant.
All was well until baby K, who was roaming about on the seat, picked on the container of chili oil and spill it all over the table. I had to bring him to the tiniest toilet in the restaurant to wash up, as fortunately, only some parts of his arm and leg got it. We had to shift tables so that the staff could clean it up, though they didn’t looked happy about it. The food costs 75HKD.
We went back to the hotel to ask for help on getting taxi but they said no one was picking up since it was peak period and were advised that we walked one street down to flag instead. Called mom to postpone our meet up to 230pm.
Went to flag the taxi at the next street (Rumsey street) where there was a taxi stand in front of the mall and it wasn’t long before we boarded.  Gave the destination in lousy Cantonese accent (Marina Square, East commercial block) and the taxi driver immediately knew where we wanted to go. Baby K drank some milk and fell asleep. Then my arm started to feel a burning sensation. It must have been due to the chili oil that I might have not washed off completely!
20mins and about 100HKD away, we arrived at Marina East center and Prada outlet store could be seen. It seemed like a really out of place store since the rest of the center was either selling market food stuff or other mama store stuff. The store was quite large with a collection of mostly women products with a small section of Men and Miu Miu products. My wife shopped for a while my baby awoke from his sleep. She bought a bag and a wallet and we left on a taxi flagged from the road, another 100HKD back.
Marina square east with Prada just next to it.
Marina square east with Prada just next to it.
Prada opening hours.
Prada opening hours.
Inside the outlet store.
Inside the outlet store.
We went to the shopping mall next to our hotel, Infinitus Plaza and ate Cafe de Coral, since the other places on the 2nd floor were actually pretty expensive. Had pork chop baked rice and my wife had curry rice. Had to change diapers for baby K but there weren’t any nursing room in the mall, so I had to use the cubicle in the small toilet.
Curry chicken rice.
Curry chicken rice.
Baked pork rice.
Baked pork chop rice.
When we arrived back at the hotel, my mom and aunt was already there. Repacked the luggage and walked to the Macau ferry terminal through the MTR underpass. The first stairway didn’t have a escalator and thankfully my aunt helped us with the luggage. The journey up was easier since there was an escalator going up to Shun Tak Center, where the ferry terminal was located.
The tickets office was located at the 3rd floor of the building and we purchased our tickets at Turbojet. Didn’t know that babies under 1 didn’t require tickets and had to refund the 149HKD for the child ticket. The adults one cost 164HKD each one way.
Turbojet ticket counter.
Turbojet ticket counter.
We checked in 3 luggage en route to the jet boat for 25HKD per piece and that was a good choice later we found that there was a stairway down to the jet boarding pier, which would be treacherous to negotiate with a baby. We had to go through immigrations counter, after all we were heading to another country. We had our seats given by lining up at the counter next to the gate and the staff giving us a seat number by pasting stickers on our tickets. Boarding was quick and we were soon jetting to Macau, with an active and noisy baby keeping me busy throughout the 1hour smooth journey.
Luggage check in counter.
Luggage check in counter.
Tickets with the luggage tag.
Tickets with the green luggage tag.
Tickets with the seats allocation stickers.
Tickets with the seats allocation stickers.
Gate in which the passengers board. The counter beside the gate was where the seats were allocated.
Gate in which the passengers board. The counter beside the gate was where the seats were allocated.
Spacious inside of the jet cruise.
Spacious inside of the jet cruise.
As we disembarked, it was some walking journey. First we went through the immigrations, the lack of queue meant we got through in about 10mins. Immediately to the right after the counter was our luggage reclaim area, but it was out of sight and if we didn’t follow the sign, we would have left the control area without our luggage, which my mom did.
The inside of Macau Outer Harbour ferry terminal.
The inside of Macau Outer Harbour ferry terminal.

To take the free bus to the hotel, we had to cross the road by going through the underpass. Luckily, there were elevators available at both sides. The main big hotels (like Sands) had their rows of buses immediately on the front of the elevator. Our Holiday Inn bus was provided under a group name of Cotai Central. The bus was scheduled to leave at 5pm, with or without a full bus.

Buses of the major casinos.
Buses of the major casinos.
Exterior of the Outer Harbour ferry terminal.
Exterior of the Outer Harbour ferry terminal.
Our bus to the hotel.
Our bus to the hotel.
Upon arrival some 20mins later, we were at one of the grandest Holiday Inn I have ever seen. We were check in rather quickly with the short queue. The recept said there were 2 upgrades, one was an upgrade to deluxe and the other was a later check out timing at 12 noon. Wasn’t exceptional but fine.
Grandest Holiday Inn, ever.
Grandest Holiday Inn, ever.

The room had 2 queens as requested since mom was staying over. The view was the one facing Conrad so it was nothing. Otherwise, it was a nice room expected of a casino hotel room. Rested a while and prepared meal for baby but found our portable rice cooker was dead and even short circuited the room’s electrical socket outlet. We had to shamelessly called reception to send in the engineer to fix the trip out.

Double queens in a spacious room.
Double queens in a spacious room.
Comes with a tub.
Comes with a tub.
Separate shower.
Separate shower.
All set for the Bon Jovi Asia tour 2015!
All set for the Bon Jovi Asia tour 2015!
Then we went in search of cheap dinner options and found it in the form of Koufu at level 3. The food was not nice though. Right next to Koufu was a large toy store which I brought baby K to walk around as he was cranky.
Integrated shopping mall near the hotel.
Integrated shopping mall near the hotel.
Familiar Koufu for dinner.
Familiar Koufu for dinner.
Almost 8 and we proceeded to Venetian arena for our Bon Jovi concert, leaving baby K with granny to babysit for the night. We had earlier on picked up the tickets at the counter in Holiday Inn and 15mins of walk through many luxury stores and a made real city of Venice, we arrived at the Arena.
Once through the ticket collection gates, we proceeded to line up for the merchandise. Took a while and they only accepted cash, so I could only buy one for myself. There wasn’t a size small enough for my petite wife so it was ok. The concert started at about 30mins past its official start time but we only finish buying when the band started their first song.
The tee from the tour.
The tee from the tour.
List of countries included in the tour.
List of countries included in this 2015 Asia tour.
The concert was overall nice though we had expect more popular hits to be sung. There were still hits like “Its my life”, “Keep the Faith”, “Because we can” and the encore “Living on a prayer”. Atmosphere was nice, expected of a rock concert though it could have been better, guess both the fans and the band have grown older and more orderly? There were also many new songs that weren’t so well received by ourselves.
Starry starry concert night!
Starry starry concert night!
On the big screen for fans not that close to the stage.
On the big screen for fans not that close to the stage.
The concert ended about 30mins past 10pm and so we strolled back towards Holiday Inn and exited, crossed the road towards the City of Dreams, where Hard Rock Hotel was located. Purchased ourselves some tees and heard some bands jamming to old Bon Jovi songs. We went back to our rooms after all the shopping.
Baby K was fast asleep in granny’s arms but awoke rather quickly. We cleaned up the bottles a bit before going to the ground floor for some photo taking at the fountain and the Dreamworks exhibits since baby K was awoke.
Fountain area that had cardboard Dreamworks characters for photo taking.
Fountain area that had cardboard Dreamworks characters for photo taking.
Nice fountain that went all the way up to the roof.
Nice fountain that went all the way up to the roof.
Went back to the room after taking some free bottled mineral water from the casino. As we all finished the cleaning and prepared for bed, baby K also went to snooze. We wished baby K and ourselves a peaceful sleep full night.

Escape plan to Hong Kong and Macau September 2015

A brief summary on the itinerary

Escape Plan to Hong Kong and Macau 2015:

Total duration 5D4N
Singapore is in the same time zone as Hong Kong.
Flight time is 4hrs on Cathay Pacific from Singapore to Hong Kong.

Afternoon flight on 24th September at 12pm and arrival in Hong Kong at 5pm.
Return flight is on the 28th September at 3:20pm and arrival in Singapore at 7:20pm.

Day 1 Arrival at Hong Kong
Day 2 Prada Outlet and Bon Jovi Concert
Day 3 Macau City and Victoria Park
Day 4 Tin Lung Heen and shopping
Day 5 Home Sweet Home

This escape plan was to attend the Bon Jovi Concert since their last concert in Singapore some 20 years ago. I didn’t want to attend the F1 one thinking that it won’t be a official full concert and thankfully so, with the haze that was around during this time. At the same time, with a Hari Raya Haji on Thursday, a 2 days leave would have yielded 5 days of holidaying.

Budget nature: Expensive (for this itinerary) with the a visit to Prada outlet, Macau concert and 2 Michelin starred dining at 102nd floor.

Travelling in Hong Kong and Macau can be affordable if we had taken the cheaper alternatives of staying outskirts, taking free buses, eating cheap food etc. This itinerary wasn’t so basically due to attending a concert in Macau and having expensive dim sum at a 2 Michelin starred restaurant at 102nd floor of Ritz Carlton. For a one time experience, why not.

Complexity: Easy to get around with the MTR and the buses in Macau.

Major places of interests were well connected to the MTR in Hong Kong. Macau was well served with free hotel buses and public transport. Taxis were inexpensive too.