More Problems for Edificio Hoi Pan Garden

Apparently, the row between the two estate management companies at my apartment complex has not been settled. The apartment complex made news again in Macao Daily (and for the wrong reasons). This time it is about the disposal of garbage. I didn't realize that nobody has dispose of the garbage placed in the bins beside the fire staircase for the past few days. I hardly dispose of garbage due to the fact most of the time, I'm not in the flat cooking. I felt there was something wrong when I came back to Macau from HK on 26 March 2006. When I left the elevator on my floor, I saw the "butch" and her husband started to pull the two plastic waste bins into the elevator. They exclaimed, "Nobody's taking out the garbage!" I thought to myself, "When did they become so pro-active?". Suddenly, I realized that their front door is nearly right across from the area where the waste bins are placed. I guess the stench was bad enough that they had to clear out the trash themselves!

Overall, I haven't seen much of a waste problem in my building due to the fact there's no pileup of garbage in the front lobby nor on my entire floor. From the newspapers today, they took a shot of a photo of a front lobby piled up with garbage.

The owners must have held an outdoor meeting last night as people were wailing through a loudspeaker at around 9:30pm. I hope they settle this out soon.

Cursing your Kids in Macau (Part II)

That mom was at it last night after having a delightful Macanese dinner by Rua do Campo. As I opened the front door to my flat, I heard the mom start screaming and yelling at her kids again. I think the reason was for some 'fighting' incident. The mom aka "butch" started cursing her kids again with terms mentioning her mom's private parts and cursing her own family dead. Every third Chinese character there's a swear meaning in it! It went on for at least 10min. Even worse, the dad popped into the so-called screaming match. He also started to blurt out the private parts. So if the dad swore, is he mentioning his wife, the mother-in-law or his own mother?

Hotpot dinner in Fai Chi Kei

Since it was a cool day in Macau, we decided to have a hotpot dinner in Fai Chi Kei (筷子基). The restaurant is called Est. de Comidas Fong Son Mei Sek. All the food you see in the photos costs a total of MOP216. We also ordered two bottles of San Miguel beer. This restaurant is actually a branch restaurant. The original restaurant is located in Barra (媽閣) district. The famous dish is this seafood+BBQ pork hotpot. It has crab, shrimps, shelled fish and BBQ pork all stuffed into the hotpot. In all, 3 people couldn't finish the entire pot of food. We managed to finish the deep fried wonton!

Funny incidents happened to me when I took the Transmac bus no. AP1 towards Macau International Airport (澳門國際機場). I've started to take AP1 over 1A due to the overcrowding on the buses. There's less people taking AP1 due to the MOP0.80 extra fare and really cuts down on the travel time by taking Avenida Dr. Sun-Yat Sen (孫逸仙大馬路) instead of hooking around New Yaohan Department Store (新八佰伴). As I was waiting for the bus stop, a packed bus (coincidentally it was Transmac Bus no. 1A) stopped to pick up passengers. Some people think they can board the bus at the exit doors and escape paying for the bus fare. One passenger wanted to board the bus by the exit doors. The so-called bus stop attendant yelled at the passenger to enter at the front/entrance doors. These bus stop attendants hired by Transmac don't really do much than tell people to move to the back of the bus or to help close the entrance doors of packed buses. I think they also keep track of the buses that pass by the bus stop? Anyways, the passenger screamed, "What's the point? The passengers inside the bus are not moving towards the back! I cannot get on the bus". The bus stop attendant yelled back, "I am not going to let you get on the bus by the exit doors. If you want to complain, you can call my company up. I do not want to lose my job because of you". The passenger had no choice to squeeze through the entrance. This reminded me of the rush hour trains in Tokyo. You were literally shoved on board the vehicle like sardines.

After I got on the bus AP1, at the next bus stop - Avenida de Venceslau de Morais 慕拉士大馬路(飛通大廈), I saw the bus stop attendant in a yelling match with a taxi driver. The taxi driver was really infuriated by his loud voice and pointing at the bus stop attendant. I don't know what really happened. But it was not a peaceful day in the life of a Transmac bus stop attendant.

Cursing your own kids in Macau

A very strange oddity I've found is the fact that one family whom lives two flats from my flat always curses and swears at her own sons. Just about every morning I leave for work, I'll hear this mom scream and yell at her sons for some really minor infraction. If you are all aware, Cantonese swearing surrounds the female body parts or her family in general. So, why in the world does this particular "mom" curse at her sons, while in fact, is cursing her own family? Her yelling and screaming included telling the family to die and her own private parts. Mind you, the kid doesn't say a word as he leaves the flat every morning. Poor kid! The mom is short and fat. She's a real "Butch"! I swear, she doesn't need a microphone to hear her a mile away.

Yesterday, I went to play squash in Tap Seac district, address at Estrada Vitória, s/n, Centro Desportivo Vitória (得勝馬路，得勝體育中心 ). I haven't picked up a racquet in such a long time, it was refreshing to play again! It's good exercise and rental is quite cheap. It was rumoured to be MOP30 per hour. Hopefully, I can play on a weekly basis.

Faucet Burst in my Macau Flat

Surprise, surprise! When I went to wash my face this morning, all of a sudden water started to spurt from behind the taps of the wash basin. There seemed to be a crack within the tap and thus water started to spray inside the bathroom. Thus, I called my colleague to tell him I cannot get to work on time because of this incident. Afterwards, I called up the landlord, but to no avail. Fortunately, they open a cafe restaurant a block from here and thus, I hurriedly went there. Thankfully, his wife was there looking after the restaurant and I told her of the situation. The landlord will come around 9am as he's not awake that early. Luckily, she helped me find where the main water main where I can turn it off and prevent further flooding in the bathroom. So, I waited in my flat until around 9:20am and the landlord came up to check the faucet. He said he tried to call two plumbers up and but to no avail. So, he instead tried to replace the faulty tap himself. Lo and behold by 10:30am, he replaced it with a new one. The reason for the crack is probably due to poor installation of the original tap. When the plumber was winding the tap, his wrench must have applied a lot of pressure and made a crack on the tap. So, by 11:30am I was back to work.

Last night, I went to Chua Lam Gourmet Kitchen for a Japanese buffet (MOP148 + 10% service charge). The sashimi and sushi were particularly good and well worth it. Much better than the Sands dinner buffet. The rest are ok, such as tempura, soba and some hot non-Japanese dishes. Apparently, a Japanese owner runs the place. The restaurant is located on Largo do Senado beside the Giordano outlet. It is located on the 4th floor of the building.

Photos of Zhuhai dinner

It was another get-together for a dinner in Zhuhai. This time the restaurant is nowhere near the China-Macau border. It was located in Xiangzhou district. A taxi ride from the border costs RMB25 one-way. But our taxi ride became like a video game. We had two taxis going up and one taxi was tagging the other. Unfortunately, the other taxi felt like playing a cat and mouse game. They were hurtling to and fro between the cars. Like one of the colleagues said, 'The safest drive is when they go through the tunnel.' The reason being 'speed cameras' are placed inside the tunnel due to too many road accidents.

This restaurant caters to Hunan food, which translates to spicy! Don't be fooled by the absence of red peppers. The dish with the fish is quite spicy. They also ordered durian pancakes! As I don't eat that fruit, I dare not touch that. In all the dinner costs around RMB40 per person.

Photos of Singapore delicacies

There's not much to report these few days. The weather has gotten quite frigid over here in Macau. The temperature fell to 9C for the past few nights in rainy weather. Quite chilly in terms of sub-tropical Asia! Thankfully, it is not cold enough for me to turn on my portable heater in my Macau flat. It should warm up later in the week.

Anyways, here are some nice Singapore photos of some local delicacies. These were taken in my New Zealand trip in Dec. 2005. I had to stay one night in Singapore prior to going back to HK.

Tonight will be another Zhuhai dinner! This time it should be Hunan food. The restaurant is called 洞庭湖 by 五洲花城. It seems it is quite a far away from the China-Macau border as it takes 20min by taxi. Will report back tomorrow!

Photos of Hac Sa Beach (黑沙海灘) and miscellaneous dinners, Macau

On 26 Feb. 2006, we went down to Hac Sa Beach (黑沙海灘) on Coloane (路環). This is the famed black sand beach in Macau. It also houses the famous Westin Hotel Macau and some luxurious houses as shown in the photos. The pizza was taken at Pizza Toscana, a restaurant right across from the Macau Ferry Terminal. It is a great little pizza joint popular with Westerners.

The hot pot dinner on 28 Feb. 2006 was served at my colleague's rented flat in Taipa (氹仔). 4 guys couldn't finish off the food on the table. He also bought two heads of lettuces. Averaged out to around MOP50 per person including the taxi ride from Macau peninsula to Taipa. As the weather became quite chilly and raining last night, we decided to have a hot pot dinner. The temperature dropped to 8C and raining! Not to worry, by next week, the temperature will rise to 22C.