So yesterday was a "free day". I went for breakfast, returned to my room, surfed the net for a while, went to the gym, then left for Coloane. My aim was to locate Lord Stow's egg tarts and take the public transport at least once.

The bakery wasn't difficult to find at all, as the place (Coloane Village) is so small. There were several other baked and confectionery products and I decided to get a madeleine with the egg tart. The tart custard was really soft and the pastry evenly flaky (no lumps in the dough). The madeleine was pretty ordinary.

I might look for a Margaret's egg tart later. Not bringing any back as they'll probably look like scrambled eggs by the time I reach Singapore.

After another drink I made my way to Hac Sa, touted as one of the two best swimming spots in Macau. The operative words are "in Macau", because the beach didn't look appealing at all. The sand was a dirty brown and there was floatsam everywhere. The breeze however was welcome and there were BBQs going on. Restorante Fernado was there too and it was more like a shack than a restaurant.

For my last destination, I hopped onto the public bus (MOP5 or less than S$1 fixed price) and headed for Senado Square (or "Dai San Bah" in Cantonese). The bus got increasingly crowded as it was the peak period. You do wonder where all these people emerged from. Senado Square is damn easy to locate and I went off window shopping (got some requests).

My colleagues soon arrived and we went off to look for a Portuguese restaurant. We're letting this Hong Konger native take the lead and we stumbled into this Dragon-something restaurant. It was fabulous and we had two bottles of wine to go along. After that, we went to this Dai San Bah almond cookies shop further down. The colleague bargained down the price (no problem for him; he negotiates billion-dollar contracts) and I bought 10 boxes of the cookies.

Some of them departed for the dog race while I walked around with another colleague. Walking around was surreal as it felt so much like Europe while you're obviously in Asia. After seeing the St Paul's ruins I proclaimed that I've seen all of Macau (hahaha) and we headed for home. We took the free shuttle bus from Grand Lisboa and reached our hotel in no time.

Shuttle buses are a great way to find your way around. A local was telling us to save the trouble and take the taxi. After he left, I turned to my colleagues and said, "we Singaporeans are like that: if there're free buses we won't pay for taxi." (打死都不会搭 taxi). Well actually we do but we do give preference to free buses if they're available.

I'm attending the sessions this morning. Going to the gym later and perhaps checking out some other places beyond in the afternoon. Mom is again off to China. Another makan session tonight - farewell dinner at the Macau Tower. Sek kau poon!!!