cake

A bought a cake to celebrate early b'day w/ dad this year. We got one from Mrs B in HKG. Let me tell you, the cakes from Mrs. B were wonderful. Queen of Macau shipped one from HKG to Macau in November for A's b'day.

The cake here was sesame and coconut. Quite lovely.

Yes, the cake cutting ceremony was in a hotel room. HK Disneyland hotel. The Boston gang was there for a 2-day visit. Mom and dad were resting so we came to do a small early b'day before leaving for PVG. Speaking of the Disneyland hotel there, expensive to stay. Everything costed money. You would figure if you were in the Presidential Suite, all things were free. Nope. The hotel wanted to charge for extra bed for children!!! OK, after putting the Boston gang into a room with cages outside (renovation), rather than upgrade. The hotel "offered" the Presidential Suite for 1/2 price. A 45-minute check-in time. A bit ridiculous. O yeah, we couldn't control the Suite's room temperature. I called for an engineer to check the thermostat, the reply was "you can't do it. We have to set it for you. Sorry, we had it set at 21C. I had re-adjusted to 23.5C". Still in Air Con mode. It's winter!!!! And the Suite was facing the ocean where the wind came in. Good thing I wasn't staying there.

And now speaking of staying, we were at the Skycity M.... next to the airport. Got a suite there, not presidential. It was small! And price did not reflect the space and cleanliness. Basically, it was a room and a 1/2 joined together. Yuck! I had to wipe down the coffee table in the sitting room!!! Still had food crumbs!!! I looked side way at the table, I could see all the dry marks from people's pretty "cup landings". H K hotels are ripping people off big time now. Gouge, Gouge, Gouge.

close

Thanks to the Queen of Macau, we stayed at Sofitel's Mansion for two days. Basically we had about 900 ft of living space w/ butler service. We looked straight into China. How close? From the water out, that's China! It's Zhuhai.

Next to our hotel, one could pick up a little ferry across to China. Total travel time, 8 minutes door to door. On the 4th picture, toward the right there was a blue roof top building, that was the border control for the crossing.

sun light

This type of row house was quite common in the old days in Macau. 40's 50's 60's.... I took this picture because the sun shone on it in late afternoon, reflecting the by-gone days of Portuguese yellow colour.

Taken from my 8M camera phone. Not bad.

sculptures

A and I were walking in an old Macau neighborhood when fishing was a major industry. We stumbled across these sculptures. Took a closer look. Plastic wraps. Pretty cool.

Interesting graffiti

We were bumping around Macau this morning not far from Pointe 16 hotel. Quite smart to have a Xmas message using all the big company logos. Recognize all of them?

Comfort food

A quick trip to the West Coast; boy, did I enjoy the food I had!  

Seattle not much as we were cooking from sun up till sun down for A's younger sister.  She just had a 3-week old baby.  8lb plus.  

Portland though, yummy!  We had real French bakery stuff at St Henri on 23rd Ave and Thurman.  Yummy.  Everything was yummy there!  Then we had a nice Vegan meal at Blossoming Lotus (http://blpdx.com/).  It was so yummy!!!!!  I will have to go back there again.  The Tempeh was seasoned and breaded wonderfully.  Grilled root vegetable with quinoa.  Wow.  The way we found this place in Portland is from Happycow.com; it's a vegetarian restaurant website.  Better than Yelp! 

Then my little "Chill out" in YVR on the way back to Shanghai.  The Fairmont Airport hotel had a very nice healthy menu.  I tried the vegan curry.  So nice and flavorful.  Of course, I had to have my vices.  Grabbed my iPad w/ my kindle book and headed to the lobby bar.  Nice Martini!  I ordered the James Bond concoction of something double and double - the Jet Setter, I think,  along with the chicken drumlettes.  Not exactly small.  More than a pound for sure.  I was in heaven.  No need to talk to anyone, just my book, my drink and my food.  Ah...   Back in the room later that nice, I ordered the mushroom risotto.  Man, it was good.  Hotel food!  I had many.  This one though, I was impressed.  

  

Hell ride

The state of our national airline - I am talking about the maple leaf one. The plane was larger and better when i started flying across the Pacific Ocean to the M0the r L@nd. 777 large comfortable and clean. Then... 767. Smaller... now dirtier! Worse than MU here! As I sat down on a highly priced premium seat, I was afraid to touch anything. Thick food and dust on every nooks and cranny. Do I want to lie flat sleeping under that kind of cleanliness ? I think NOT! My seat made creaking sound when I tried to recline. Loud. I was afraid to disturb the neighbours!

Tonight. Wow.. my flight was to depart Shanghai at 6:15pm. Checked in at 4:45pm. Flight delayed till 7:30pm due to schedule maintenance. How the heck you do that? O well... 7:15pm... 7:30pm... 8:00pm ..... 8:30pm.... 9:00pm... You got the picture. I was bad when I saw the plane was not connected to the bridge. Then I didn't see any crew. And the staff started handing out dinner vouchers. O no...

The ground staff, as typical Chinese one with "good" leadership skills, was pathetic! I could not blame them. After all, you only knew so much with what you got trained. Bad. I anticipated a problem if and when the crew showed up. There were some loud mouth pieces that instigate the mood. And bloody Canadians too! Shame on them.

We took off at 11:30pm or so. Then had to turn back and landed again in Shanghai. Nose landing gear could not retract. By then, some passengers wanted to get off. With that, we had to wait MUCH longer to locate the luggage and extract them. I believe we took off by 1:30pm or so. I slept. The food didn't entice me a bit. We had our "breakfast" at 7:15pm Vancouver time in flight. Right.... I just played around with it. B'fast congee or Omelette. Both were equally appetizing. I tried the congee. The chicken meat tasted "funny".

Compensation for the delay... 100RMB food voucher at Shanghai airport because I am an Elite member. Otherwise, 70RMB.

O yeah, speaking of Elite. Aeroplan sent me an email saying if I don't fly the Maple Leaf, I will lose all my points by May 1 next year. Nice loyalty program. Is that loyalty really?