Hello everyone!
It's been about a week since I've been back from my Macau trip, and that week flew by in a flash! I'm still kinda feeling the withdrawals from the trip, mainly because I loved the weather so much and it was nice to getaway for a while, but the tiredness is definitely catching up to me.
Enough about that, I'd like to talk about the Womens Sports Festival! I didn't want to talk too much about it in the travel blogposts (Part 1 & Part 2) or int he vlog as I wanted to dedicate a single post to it. I must admit, I didn't get too many photos or videos this time round. I honestly didn't really get what was going on as well since a lot of it was in mandarin and cantonese. I know, I know, I should start improving my mandarin, I get it!
Day 1: Welcoming the Delegations
Upon touching down in Macau, we had our welcome dinner at the hotel. We were staying at Hotel Royal, which was in the older part of Macau, but it was a pretty nice hotel. It had a 7-11 just next to it, so you can bet I was there everyday. There were a lot of countries being represented besides Singapore. There was Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Taiwan and various parts of China as well!
Dinner had quite a number of photo taking done, and it was when all of us got to meet the other delegates too. I was honestly quite tired from the flight so I don't really remember too much about the food apart from the Xiao Long Bao (which caused me great excitement!)
Day 2: Performances and Seminars
The next day started pretty early, we had to be up at about 7am, have breakfast, and we were off to Central Square to perform our little item!
I'd post the video but my jacket had fallen off in the middle of it and I was just hella embarrassed at that point. But I guess there's nothing I could do so I just kept going haha. It was an absolute joy watching the other countries perform their pieces as well. Taiwan's cheerleading squad was particularly captivating. They were college students if I'm not wrong, so they were definitely filled with energy! I remembered that Malaysia's item was just filled with positive energy and that was a whole lot of fun!
We did an item that was a lot more edgy compared to the rest. I think we gave a good balance for sure. We had our camo + black outfits and we were hella badass! Well done, ladies! And well done Pri for choreographing it!
Song's pretty much still stuck in my head.
After the performances were over, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for a health and nutrition seminar, which I unfortunately had to give a miss because it was literally ALL in mandarin, and I had no hopes of comprehending anything beyond a trivial conversation. Reflecting on this, I'm definitely embarrassed that I've almost no command of my mother tongue. Then again, I struggle so much with learning languages, but it doesn't particularly give me a free pass.
Of course, I didn't want to miss anything else! After having a good rest in the hotel, Pri and I headed to the Fisherman's Wharf to join everyone else for dinner! It was a buffet dinner and that was pretty exciting, especially the desserts! You guys know how much I LOVE my desserts! Sad to say, Pri and I were not feeling our best, so we didn't end up eating too much from the glorious buffet spread.
After dinner, we were treated to an orchestral performance! I wasn't really supposed to take a photo, but I snapped one super quick just for the blogpost. I wasn't very familiar with the songs they played, but it was definitely nice to watch. I was freezing in the theatre though! Also, the conductor introduced all the songs, and needless to say, it was all in cantonese, so I was definitely confused and lost. But I'm glad I didn't miss this!
Day 3: Sports Event and Farewell
We started the morning off with the sports events! In the previous year, there seemed to be more than one game, but this year we only got to play one, which wasn't too bad considering that it was pretty early in the morning and it was really cold in the sports stadium! On the bright side, it was indoors, so I was so grateful for that!
I didn't bring my phone or camera to the stadium because we were told to leave our valuables in the hotel room. No one was going to be able to look after our stuff while we played the games so I didn't have many photos/footages for the blogpost or vlog. But it was all fun, you can take my word for it!
The day continued with a farewell lunch, as some of the delegations were leaving that evening. Of course, we weren't, so right after lunch, we got to have some free time to explore the Shoppes!
We took a nice stroll around Wynn Palace first, before heading to the Venetian! A trip to Macau would not be complete without having some Portuguese egg tarts! As I said before, I'm not the biggest fan of them, but these were pretty good! I decided against bringing some home because it was just really troublesome to carry and the boxes weren't particularly travel-friendly!
After an hour or two of shopping, it was time for the farewell dinner!
It was in this Portuguese restaurant in a busy street! I did like walking through this little street, actually! There were souvenirs and stalls that sold street food! Dinner was definitely overwhelming (in a good way), there was so much food and we were all stuffed! You can see more pictures in the previous blogpost! ^^
Day 4: Goodbye, Macau!
Our last day in Macau was mostly free and easy, considering that all the festival activities were completed!
Just a few photos for the fun of it, more are in the travel blogposts! ^^ I don't really want to repost too many photos since the actual blogposts are just a click away!
It was a good few hours to wander around the streets nearby. I did get a tiny bit of shopping done, I'll definitely do a mini haul on my channel to keep it alive, so stay tuned! I hope you guys enjoyed this little blogpost. A massive thank you to the Singapore Womens Association for bringing me along and for having me! I'll see you guys in my next blogpost!
xx
Shayne