Macau.

Sunday and Monday were spent in Macau with my colleagues on our office retreat. The last time I went to Macau was around the same time last year, and apart from a few new hotels and casinos, Macau hasn’t really changed much. Of course this trip is not just about fun – there were some elements of work as well, but I guess when our office is spending that kind of money to let us go on a retreat of this sort, I don’t think there’s any room for complaints.

Ponte 16 – where our hotel was at. Of course this isn’t the entrance to the hotel! The problem was that the entrance to the hotel was so huge I couldn’t take a good shot at it!

Our hotel was the Sofitel Ponte 16, which is a five-star hotel opened only in August. You know it’s a five-star hotel when you go into the room and see this:

Nice bed with nice decoration and…

Body lotions and shampoo from L’Occitane!

The view from my room wasn’t exactly the best, though I thought it was interesting:

The very new Grand Lisboa among a lot of very old houses. Strange sight, but interesting.

After settling down in the hotel, a group of us went out in search of food. We went to Rua do Cunha for the famous crab porridge:

Sumptous!

We also had some desserts here and there after the meal, and after that we took a walk to The Venetian. As it was my first time there, I was definitely very excited. And indeed, The Venetian was quite magnificent in its own right.

And then of course a trip to The Venetian won’t be complete without a visit to the Manchester United store in there!

And I bought the new blue Manchester United kit for MOP940. W00t!

We had a buffet dinner in The Venetian, and while the food was only so-so, the desserts were actually pretty cool – I even had ice kachang! After The Venetian, about 12 of us headed back to Largo do Senado over on the Macau side (The Venetian was in Taipa). From there, some went over to the Grand Fortress to see some cultural show, while others (including me) went for dessert hunting! Ultimately we somehow met again on the way back to the hotel though. Once I reached the hotel, I headed into the casino which was on the ground floor. It was actually quite an interesting experience to be visiting a casino, and I had a bit of fun on my own, playing Sic-Bo (dice) and Blackjack. For a first-timer, I was lucky to experience both winning and losing, though ultimately I lost about $295 out of my intended budget of $300. Well, as they say in Chinese, gambling in small amount is a good way to relax. And I suppose I didn’t really gamble big!

Most of the second day was spent on team building and discussions, but we did manage to have our discussion over lunch in the Macau Tower. On the ground lobby there was a 1:100 replica of the Macau Tower made using Lego which I thought was quite cool:

And after Macau Tower, we kinda had some free time, so we headed to MGM Grand, which was also recently opened, as well as Wynn, to check out the fortune tree (or whatever tree they call it). I couldn’t really take a good shot of the Wynn tree because it was so huge, but I did manage to throw a coin into the tree just before the cover closes!

MGM Grand. Weird shape, but very grand.

Wynn – I always maintain that the Chinese words on this tower completely destroyed the beauty, elegance and class of the tower.

This trip to Macau was actually very enjoyable because I was with my colleagues, and this retreat was definitely more fun than the one last year because I’ve gotten to know more of my colleagues, so it was almost like a friends’ trip.

I’m planning to go to The Venetian again, probably some time in January – I think I would want to stay for a night there. Anyone interested?

Friday.

I seem to notice something that’s been happening for the past couple of days. Time seems to pass so slowly during the morning, but just seems to speed up after lunch. Now if only time were to pass just as quickly in the morning as it does in the afternoon, then that would be about perfect.

I’m still planning on a getaway in December. Ideally, I would want to go see some natural sceneries, so I don’t really want to see built-up areas again. After all, for the past 3 or 4 trips that I’ve taken, I’ve spent time mostly in cities with lots of people and lots of high-rise buildings. Now if I could actually get to see more of the nature’s wonders, that would be much better. After all, I live in a city already, so unless the city is really buzzing and is definitely a must-go, I won’t want to spend my next getaway surrounded by tall buildings, messed-up traffic and millions of other people.

Our office is going to have a retreat to Macau on Sunday and Monday. Hope it would be fun.

Getaway.

I know I’m kinda just back from Japan, but I’m already planning on where my next getaway should be. As things stand, I’m actually planning a short getaway to Guilin in December, which I am confident that all the travel and lodging arrangements can be less than HKD1000 for a 4-day trip. Chances are I’ll be there around the Christmas period, so whoever doesn’t mind taking an overnight train to Guilin from Shenzhen please let me know and perhaps we could split the cost of lodging, and thus be able to extend the trip!

And then I am asked to be part of the organizing team for a postgraduate cultural exchange trip to Hokkaido during Chinese New Year. In a certain way I don’t really mind being on the trip because that’s another opportunity to go to Japan, and Hokkaido in end of January should be cold and perhaps even snowy, so that’s sounding like a good idea. But then, I don’t really like the idea of leading a trip like this because there are just too many things to do and the thought of having to take care of everyone else on the trip sometimes isn’t the most exciting aspect, really. I’ll see how things go for this one.

My sister and I have agreed that we want to visit Japan together, so we’ve penned it down for April. But if I do go to Hokkaido in January, then we’ll move our trip back to June. I’m not sure how hot it would be come June, but I guess sometimes it’s so difficult to arrange for things like these – it’s not like I can just grab my bag and go just like that.

Perhaps I need to strike a first prize for Mark Six sometime soon.

Cupboard.

I bought a new cupboard and it was delivered to me on Saturday. I spent almost 2 hours trying to build the cupboard (well I’ve got the cupboard from Ikea and I didn’t think paying them to assemble the cupboard made economic sense) and in the end I had a nice little cupboard inside my room, freeing up space that used to be occupied by 2 cupboards. Now I could spare more room inside my room, and I can do revisions in the comfort of my own room now!

I had a busy day yesterday even though I only did two things at work. I went for a grand total of 2 meetings that lasted something like 6 hours in total, and I have about 3 reports to write regarding those meetings (don’t ask me why it’s 2 meetings but 3 reports). I’ve got one submitted, one in progress and one still yet to begin. I’ll get down to writing them as soon as possible.

Somehow time seems to pass so slowly. Not fun.

Chocolate.

Mandi came back from Belgium and got me some nice little European chocolate:

The small box looks very good.

The chocolate looks very good.

The most important thing is that the chocolate tasted so good that I’m wondering why Mandi didn’t bring more back. Haha.

Met Jun-Chih on Tuesday for dinner and it’s nice to hear that he’s working in Hong Kong now. He’s in the industry that everyone now loves to hate, but I guess he should be doing just fine. After all, his CEO didn’t get punched in the gym, so I guess he should be doing fairly decently.

One sad thing to hear was that Kwok Fai, our NCSH senior of a few years back, came down with a stroke a while back. I heard he’s doing better now, and should be able to recover fully. I saw him a few months back when he was in Hong Kong and we even had lunch in my university’s staff dining hall. It was quite saddening to hear that he was struck down by such an illness. But knowing how optimistic he is, I’m sure he’ll pull through. I really hope he recovers soon.

Weekend.

After a good weekend’s rest, it would be back to work tomorrow morning. Not the best thing in life, but I guess before I can officially call it a day as far as working is concerned, I’ll have to keep doing (and moaning about) that.

I’ve been listening to the songs by this Japanese R&B group EXILE for the past couple of weeks and I think I enjoy them. Perhaps you could try listening to their songs too. Somehow I just have this feeling that Japanese R&B songs are nicer than the Mandarin ones, but the Mandarin rock songs are nicer than the Japanese ones.

How about Cantonese ones, I hear you ask. Now don’t make me laugh – do Hong Kong people do music at all? They are alright to fool younger people (like myself a few years ago), but once you’ve heard better things, you won’t want to go back to bad things again. The Hong Kong music scene simply fails to inspire people anymore. There are still some decent people around, but I could count the good ones with my fingers, and for every one good one there would be god-knows-how-many hopeless ones. I mean, after all these years you still have Stephy Tang who continuously sing out of tune despite “working very hard”; lyricists whose concept of rhyming words mean repeating the same word at the end of every line… do me a favour.

Guangzhou.

Welcome to October.

Yesterday was a public holiday – National Day – so I didn’t have to go to work (all hail the almighty). But my uncle in Guangzhou decided to give me a call and invite me over to his place for dinner. Since Guangzhou was about 2 and a half hours away by train(s), I grabbed my documents and headed north. In total I only had to change trains twice and I managed to get to Guangzhou, which is quite amazing considering if I were to go to Central by the MTR I would have to change trains 3 times!

It was nice seeing this uncle since the last time I saw him was 3 years ago (Refer to this post – yes, it’s that same uncle), and how times have changed. The last time I saw him his daughter (i.e. my cousin) wasn’t married yet, but this time round she’s already got a kid! We had a very good chat and by the end of the night, I officially have another 2 more concerned parties about my lack of love life (my uncle and his wife).

I headed out from Guangzhou at 9.30pm and got home at about 12. So in total I was on the trains for 5 hours (to and fro) – which was actually longer than the amount of time I actually spent in Guangzhou! Too bad I didn’t have enough time to see Ron there, but I’m quite sure this won’t be my last time to Guangzhou anyway.

Oh did I mention that I took the high speed rail? Nowadays the high speed rail is about the de facto choice of train you can take between Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and a direct train without any stops in between would take you only 50 minutes – it’s amazing considering 20 years ago you probably would still be in Shenzhen territories after 50 minutes on the train!