My Macau-Hong Kong Birthday Celebration - Part I

To celebrate my 36th, hubby and I (with emphasis on hubby and I only, no kids in tow!) flew to Hong Kong, stayed overnight in Macau and ferried back to Hong Kong.

As always, we took advantage of Cebu Pacific Airline's promo fares and booked our trip as early as November. We were supposed to fly in to Guangzhou, China but there were obstacles in obtaining a visa. We decided to rebook our flight and go directly to Hong Kong instead.

Arriving at the Hong Kong International Airport at around 7:40am, we were shocked to see that it was raining heavily. We knew it was winter there but almost all the internet sites we checked out prior to the trip said that it never rained during February. This is a perfect example of the global warming effect, we thought.

We went directly to the turbo-jet ferry ticketing station and paid CNY 215 per person (they accept HK Dollar and Chinese Yuan). We skipped Hong Kong's immigration and customs and they took care of our luggage transfer. We wandered around the airport shops, sat down and took advantage of the free WiFi service to while away the time as the first ferry to Macau wasn't until 10am. At around 9:30am, we entered the gate and took a short train ride to get to the ferry boarding dock called SkyPier.

The ferry ride to Macau was a comfortable one and took approximately 40 minutes. It was still dark, gloomy and rainy.

Upon docking at the pier, we quickly went through immigration and proceeded to claim our luggage. Outside the ferry terminal, we got confused as we were previously told that there were free shuttle buses going to our hotel. We couldn't see our hotel's bus and decided to take a cab then. It was a 10-minute ride to downtown Macau.

Later on, we found out that we docked at the Taipa temporary pier and that the free shuttle buses were only in Macau proper.

We checked in at the Holiday Inn Hotel,

freshened up a bit and went out to get lunch at a small restaurant across the street. I loved the lechon macau and Bacalhau Rice, which was yang chow (fried rice) with bits of dried and salted codfish.

After a short rest back at the hotel, we headed to The Venetian Resort Hotel.

DH could not resist going inside the Manchester United Experience merchandise store.

The next day, we walked 20 minutes to get to the Leal Senado Square. Decorations for the Chinese New Year were on display at the center of the square.

We followed directions going to the Ruins of St. Paul Cathedral. On the way, there were a lot of stalls selling tapas

and egg rolls.

After 5 minutes of walking, this came into sight.

We walked some more

and went up the steps to get a closer shot.

Then we asked a fellow Filipino to take our picture.

Next: Part II of our Macau - Hong Kong Trip