Babymoon Part 2 (Day 3, 4 & 5 on 6-8th April 2012)

Day 3: We were dressed in RED (coincidentally!)! Heading out to Taipa Village for breakfast before we catch the ferry to Hong Kong. 

We checked out from Venetian Hotel early that morning & kept our luggage at the concierge. There were a massive amount people in the hotel that day because it was a Good Friday public holiday. So many tour groups were visiting Macau that weekend. Glad that we were heading out of Macau.

Here's a pic of me with our breakfast spread at a random shop at Taipa Village. We just picked this shop because it was filled with localsl; thinking that their buns and instant noodles were something special but turned out not.

A quick dessert fix before we leave Macau! Ice-cream pudding is extremely popular in Macau because we keep seeing them everywhere. We think it's a portugese dessert and the brand 'Serrdura' is a chain store selling puddings. I had an original flavour from Serrdura but I think the saw-dust pudding I had the day before tasted better.

Walked for a bit in the shopping area of Venetian Hotel before we headed off to the ferry jetty. They have so many big brands in this hotel and it is massive! There's a canal running around with people sitting in the gondola and gondolier was singing so loudly that his/her voice was echoing loudly in the mall. It was way better than the 'real' gondoliers in Venice! You would have to pay a huge amount of money to sit in a gondola in Venice & the gondoliers don't even sing for you in Venice. 

We took a ferry to Hong Kong and thankfully, the ride was not choppy. It was quite a comfortable ride even though the weather was cloudy. The first thing we encountered when we reached Hong Kong jetty was a grumpy and naggy but with good intentions taxi driver. He was lecturing us about the bad timing we took for coming to Hong Kong because it was a long public holiday weekend and the weather was horrible. He also advised us to check the calendar and weather in the future because the cable car ride to Victoria Peak would be surely close for maintenance or bad weather. What we didn't told him that this 'bad timing' is not new to us because we had it in almost all our holidays! Must really do more 'homework' before we plan our next holiday!

Had dinner with my Form 6 friend, Hui Yee with her hubby, Louise and son, Caleb. Caleb is so adorable; sitting in his car seat quietly. He was so attached to his face towel that the moment he started whining or crying, all I had to do was to cover his face with the towel and he would be soothed. That was both funny and amazing!

A picture with Hui Yee and family at Mikichi restaurant

We walked around AEON and a huge baby products shop in that mall, comparing prices and items that they have there with Malaysia. We found that baby items were not cheaper but they have many interesting and cute products in Hong Kong! It was quite fun just walking around and looking at these baby stuffs.

Hui Yee and Louise brought us to this amazing location to view Hong Kong's beautiful night line. 

It was cold because of the strong wind and we saw a couple standing in a dark near the pier taking their wedding photos!

Of course we had to end the night with DESSERT! Haha! Since we missed the steam egg/milk in Macau, we found a rather popular shop via blogs near our hotel, Novotel Hotel at Jordan. We went to Yee Shun Milk Company which was only a few minutes walk from our hotel. The menu was all in Chinese and we couldn't read any of them. We asked an uncle in the shop what is good? His reply was everything is good! Our next question was what's the top three best sellers & he pointed on the menu that the first three on the list are the best sellers, which didn't help us to order at all! :S Later we told him that we couldn't read chinese, so please read them out to us. He was puzzled, probably wondering why we can speak cantonese but cannot read. I get this puzzled looks quite often. He finally read out the top three bestsellers: ginger steam-milk and double layer steam milk which were what we ordered. I must really send my kids to chinese school! He later came back & advised SJ that he must not stir the egg because that was not the right way to appreciate this steam egg :S 

Left: Ginger steam milk (mine!) and SJ's double layer steam milk on the right.

We went to bed happy that night because we had our steam-milk desserts! :)

Day 4: Exciting day ahead because we were planning to have dim sums at this place that has Michelin one star rating! The last time we had was last year, June 2011 at Mong Kok & this time, we went to another branch at Shum Shui Po because this branch is bigger, hence, less waiting time. We waited for 2 hours plus in Mong Kok & only about 30 mins in Shum Sui Po.

The massive amount of people waiting outside of this restaurant. 

Good thing they have the menu in English. 

Thanks Kok Hoong & Yu Ling for bringing us to this yummy dim sum place

FOOODDDSSSSSssss!! The 'char siew chan pau' (BBQ buns) on the bottom left in this picture is super yummylicious! I think both SJ & I can have these buns every single day! Haha!

I don't think we will ever say 'NO' to egg tarts in Hong Kong. We bought these from a popular chain egg tarts store in Hong Kong. Just had to grab these while we were on our way to the MTR station. 

 Then, I saw these! Chinese Pudding or 'put chai kou' in Cantonese. 

Had to buy one and try because I've never tried before. Yes! I can eat really a lot as you can see my huge belly in this pic :P

Later that evening, we had dinner with my uni friend, Rockie & her hubby, Ocean in a chinese restaurant. Forgot to take photo of the main dishes. Only had a photo of dessert. Haha! Really dessert junkie! Here's a picture of coffee pudding (it was similar to our Malaysian many layer kuih but it was in coffee flavour), sesame seed roll (interesting! and apparently it's very rare nowadays as not many people make this dessert anymore) and finally my favourite glutinous rice in ginger soup (YUMMSSSS!). 

 Even though we had desserts after dinner at the restaurant, Rockie still suggest that we go to another dessert place to have more dessert and chat! We went to Hui Lau Shan and they served many desserts with mango and other varieties of fruits. 

Day 5 (Final day!): Last day to eat before we head back to Kuala Lumpur! 

Morning picture at the hotel before we go eat ;)

Read about this 'Australian Dairy Co.' from a blog and it was near our hotel! We went the day before our dim sums lunch but the queue was too long, so we've decided to go on our final day in Hong Kong and we had to make sure we were up early to start queuing. Here's a picture of SJ, standing about two shops away from the restaurant. We waited for about 20 minutes before we were shown to a table. 

The efficiency level in Hong Kong is really superb! The waiters really tried their very best to make sure every table is full. If there was a table of 3, they would sit another single person in that table. We being the 'foreigners' and cannot read chinese (they did not have an english menu) plus not knowing what to order; we were looking around & told the rather impatient waiter that we wanted breakfast sets, not knowing what are the breakfast sets. The only thing we understood were how to order our drinks and a rough guess of how we wanted our eggs. Then, suddenly came two bowls of macaroni with bacon, SJ had scramble eggs with toast and I had fried eggs with toast. Even though this restaurant has a very english name but the food served were so chinese! Quite misleading.

 Many bottles of milk, which I believe were imported from Australia. They served steam-milk desserts too. 

Then, it's time to leave to catch a ferry back to Macau and then to catch a flight back to Kuala Lumpur. 

We were planning in the ferry what we should do and eat before we get to the airport. We really wanted to try the famous pork chop bun with its original buns again and we also wanted to buy the famous Macau's almond biscuits and almost pastries. So, we split the tasks as we had very limited time: me to queue for the pork chop buns and SJ to run over to buy the biscuits.

This is the long queue to get the buns. 

SJ with almond biscuits/pastries and me with the pork chop buns. 

A photo to end this post of our Babymoon: Daddy SJ sitting happily on a bench by the street eating his pork chop bun! 

That's the end of our Babymoon! I saw my doctor the following week & I gained 3 kilograms but I am a happy mommy! :)))

I'm 32 weeks pregnant TODAY!!! Babymoon (Day 1 & 2)! (4th - 8th April 2012)

I'd get excited on Thursdays because I'm closer to meeting baby as I'm approaching to another week closer. Babycenter.com.my sends me weekly updates of my pregnancy on Thursdays. I'M WEEK 32 TODAY! About 8 more weeks to go! Will record about how I'm feeling later. As for now, I want to record the one and only holiday that we had in this pregnancy and probably the only holiday we have for the next two years. Lots of photos, especially photos with food in this post!

What is babymoon? Just found this on http://www.baby-moon.eu/questions-answers-about-going-on-a-babymoon/

A last vacation taken by expecting couples before the birth of their baby (preferably in the 2nd trimester). Treat yourself with a luxurious getaway before your baby arrives. Celebrate your pregnancy ! 

SJ and I were advised to go for a holiday in our 2nd trimester when we first found out that we were pregnant. Our architect, Cheryl advised us to take a nice holiday in my second trimester because we won't be able to travel much when the baby arrives. We wanted to go somewhere but couldn't decided on the destination; we were torn between  Koh Samui, Thailand or Macau. Koh Samui would be a beach relaxing holiday where there's nothing much to do but just laze around and get massages, which would be really nice but also will be quite boring with nothing to do or EAT! The thought of going to a place with lots of tourists and food that would cost a lot and don't taste good was not very appealing. Macau on the other hand, is much busier and not as relaxing but food would definitely taste much better. So, finally we gave in to FOODS..

I was working as much as I could on the week before we flew to Macau. This initial 5 days 4 nights trip to Macau was then later included Hong Kong to eat! So, this babymoon trip was really an eating trip, but at a comfortable pace.

YAY! We're going for a holiday! :))))) A photo of us before our airplane takes off from KL. 

I was 26 weeks pregnant.

SJ booked Venetian Hotel and it was one of the nicest hotel in Taipa Island, Macau. 

This is the smallest room in this hotel! :S It was HUGE! 

This hotel is so huge that when the receptionist gave us a map of the hotel, I thought it was the map of Macau. It was quite funny because almost every space available in this hotel were fitted with casino tables or machines. This is definitely the gambling heaven for gamblers. 

Our dinner at a Portuguese restaurant on our first night in Macau 

We hopped into a cab and told the cab driver that we wanted to go a famous crab porridge restaurant  at Taipa village but the cab driver told us that he is worried that the restaurant might be closed due to a long weekend; 'Ching Ming' celebration, Good Friday and Easter Sunday public holidays. We somehow always picked the wrong timing for holidays; it was the worst snow-storm when we were in Europe for our honeymoon, we experience 9-level of typhoon when we were in Hong Kong in 2006, monsoon season when we were in Phuket in 2010 and now, long weekend holiday and raining season in Macau and Hong Kong. I still had a lot of fun because SJ is such a fun travel companion! ;)) So, our spirits were not dampened. 

This is our first time trying Portuguese food and I think portugese likes tomatoes a lot. It was quite an experience and it was the most expensive dinner we had in this trip. We have decided to celebrate our 3rd wedding registration anniversary in this dinner because of those two reasons :P

The must haves for this trip : DESSERTS!!! 

Finished our first night with my favourite chinese glutinous rice (tong yuen) dessert

Day 2: We took the free shuttle bus to Macau Peninsula, where they have most tourist attraction sites and much older casinos. We have learnt that we can practically go anywhere for free by catching these free shuttle buses from the hotels! 

Our breakfast!! Super yummy Portugese eggtarts from Margaret's Cafe e Nata. We stumbled upon this tiny cafe in our first visit to Macau back in 2006 but this cafe has became really popular as we see this cafe being mentioned in many blogs. The queue was quite long to get these tarts. It opens daily from 8.30pm-6pm but closes on Wednesdays. 

We walked to our next food destination for lunch! Took this photo on the way. 

Loja Sopa Da Fita Cheong Kei. No idea what that means because they're in Portuguese but I think it meant Cheong Kei Restaurant

Squid balls. This was yummy. It was freshly fried!

Fish skin. It tasted better than it looks. Texture was chewy and we were told that fish skin is filled with good fats and collagen!

Wantan noodles. Nothing spectacular. We noticed that all wantan noodles in Hong Kong are almost the same. The best thing about wantan noodles in Hong Kong and Macau is the springy texture of the noodles. 

Dry noodles with shrimp paste. Interesting and tasted pretty good. 

This was recommended by the waitress. Hard boiled egg with herbal tea. It was just ok. 

A must go/see/visit place in Macau: Ruins of St Paul's. 

We took the opportunity to visit other hotels since we have free shuttle bus rides. This was taken at Galaxy Hotel, situated beside Venetian Hotel and it was sooooooooo nice!!! It was so beautifully decorated with bright lights and fountains that Venetian looked so old and boring compared to Galaxy. The best thing was Galaxy has free wi-fi and Venetian don't!

 Tea-break for Day 2. We knew we had to go to this pork chop bun place in Taipa Village, which was located opposite of Galaxy Hotel. This place only opens from 3-6pm and it would have super long queues. We reached this shop at 6pm and they sold out of their usual buns. We had 'polo' (pineapple) bun and 'chan' (normal) bun with their same popular pork chops.

SJ was happy we made it on time, before 6pm to grab these pork chop buns! We were so late that the advantage of this was there was no queue!

Tea-break dessert on Day 2! I insisted that I want to try this recommended pudding near the pork chop bun shop. 

Saw-dust pudding. The direct translation name of this pudding sounds quite weird. It's an ice-cream topped with crushed biscuit (something like digestive Marie  biscuits) powder. 

Yay! I love desserts especially ice-cream!! :))))

A picture by the fountain in Venetian Hotel before we leave for Hong Kong the next day

There was a baby fair the next day! Was tempted to go and have a look but we had such a long list of eating places to go that we had to let this go. 

Dinner on Day 2: Crab porridge!

 We ordered a vegetable with scallops dish. It was yummy!

Main attraction in this restaurant. I think all tables ordered this crab porridge. 

It was wet and cold!

The day does not end until we had our Chinese desserts!!! We had Sweet Splendor at Galaxy Hotel because it was pouring outside and we had free wifi in Galaxy! ;)

SJ has soy bean with fried you tiao (breadsticks/chinese churros) and I had red bean soup. 

I love going on holidays with SJ because we just eat all the time!!! :))))) I had such a fun time and  I hope my baby won't be a glutton when he grows up. We walked a lot in this trip and there were times I felt a pain at my lower abdomen while walking, which we had to stop to take a break and watch people for a bit. Will blog on our Day 3 and 4 next! Can't believe that I'm in Week 32 already! Suddenly got into panic mode that there are so much things that are not done yet! Time to get new shoes for my final 2 months because my old good nice red shoes are wearing out.