Thursday 14 August 2014

Travelling & Dining: 2D1N Wynn-ing In Macau


Grand prix ready as seen in background
Image from Locky's English Playground
Last Monday, my wife had to travel to Macau for work and so I tagged along for a two-days-one-night "vacation". With baby at Mother-in-law's and laptop with me, I expect I was going to make real progress with my thesis.

Nice sunny day
Image from Locky's English Playground
An hour of ferry and we arrived at the pier. Commuting between hotels and pier is free thanks to the shuttle buses arranged by the casinos/hotels.

Great looking bridge
Image from Locky's English Playground
The ride was kind of funny because 5 minutes ago we hopped onto the shuttle,  5 minutes later we were still circling outside the pier.

Sands Macau
Image from Locky's English Playground
Whether the route has anything to do with the upcoming Grand prix is beyond my knowledge. But what I do know is, once we successfully left the pier, it only took another 5 to arrive at Wynn.

Wynn Macau
Image from Locky's English Playground
At 3:45pm, our room was still being made up, so I went to the gym for some rare workout while my wife went to work for an hour or so until the room was finally ready.

Soy sauce noodles with soup
Image from Locky's English Playground
After we had got our room, we went to grab some street food. At Chu Kee,  I ordered a not-so-impressive soy sauce noodles with soup while my wife ordered their signature fish-skin dumplings.

Fish-skin dumplings with noodles
Image from Locky's English Playground
I had no idea why I didn't follow her order.

Full house!
Image from Locky's English Playground
The lesson is, never order anything that isn't a signature dish.

Me and the bun
Image from Locky's English Playground
Feeling unsatisfied, we bought a famous Tai Lei Loi Kee Macau pork chop bun for $30 at a branch near the Ruins of St. Paul and devoured it in minutes. It was as gorgeous as that from the main branch I used to visit.

Fountain light show every 15 mins
Image from Locky's English Playground


Back at the hotel, I was all ready to go online until we found out that both LAN and Wi-Fi weren't free. How stingy! This has got to be the only hotel in Macau which still charges their customers for broadband. And for MOP160!! Insane! Maybe that's why its stock price has stalled for months. Ended up I couldn't go online at all for the entire day ( and night ).

View from room 1836
Image from Locky's English Playground
The next morning, I went to the gym again for about an hour and half before getting breakfast with my wife at the Café Esplanada at Wynn.

Tom Yum Goong
Image from Locky's English Playground
I ordered for an unorthodox Tom Yum Goong soup with spicy fried beef ho fan for breakfast, totally gastronomically challenging!

Image from Locky's English Playground
While my wife ordered a $200 all day breakfast with very limited choices of food.

All day breakfast for $200+, drink not included
Image from Locky's English Playground
Despite only offering eggs, baked potatoes and dried ham, it didn't stop them from taking 25 minutes in preparation. Incredible service!

The moral of this story is, if you have a choice, don't choose Wynn Macau unless you enjoy digital detox and don't mind paying for expensive food.


Vocabulary:
insane -- (adj) extremely unreasonable or stupid
stall -- (vb) [I] to stop making progress
unorthodox -- (adj) different from what is usual or expected in behaviour, ideas, methods, etc.
gastronomically -- (adv) relating to the preparation and consumption (= eating) of good food
digital detox -- (n)[U] Informal A period of time during which a person refrains from using electronic devices such as smartphones or computers, regarded as an opportunity to reduce stress or focus on social interaction in the physical world


Resources:
Cooking: Locky's Home-made Pork Chop Bun @ Locky's English Playground
http://lockyep.blogspot.hk/2013/07/cooking-lockys-home-made-pork-chop-bun.html

Travelling & Living: Macau One-Day Trip @ Locky's English Playground
http://lockyep.blogspot.hk/2013/04/travelling-living-macau-one-day-trip.html

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/insane_1?q=insane+
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/stall_5
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/unorthodox?q=unorthodox+
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/gastronomic?q=gastronomical
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/digital-detox