Macau
Trip Start
Aug 06, 2007
1
12
20
Trip End
Nov 17, 2007
Macau,
China
Monday, October 1, 2007
Macau is the "Vegas of Asia" and is ok if you never have been to Vegas. If you have been to Las Vegas many times and you are comparing, that is not likely fair as Vegas has had years on Macau at least in terms of development of mega Hotel-Casino structures. In any event, Macau was fine, but nothing at all the glitz and glamor that Vegas in the US has to offer. Macau is still part of China and I found that between the various islands that make up what people call Macau (Taipa, Macau etc) it is a mix of traditional Chinese establishments and city stuff with some Portuguese influenced architecture and restaurants and ruins along with some Mega Casinos and Hotels that now seem to be sprouting up like crazy that seem to be dominating the horizon. The Venetian, Macau opened just weeks before and so we had the pleasure of being some of the first to go to it.
Lisboa dome casino
It is very impressive. They say it is the biggest building of its kind in Asia and second biggest in the world (I assume some building in Dubai holds the record). We spent one entire day and evening in the Venetian and it was great. To get to and from Macau (from Hong Kong) you take a ferry. The ferry going to Macau was very pleasant. We had some coffee, and read and enjoyed some Chinese shows on the TV. Coming back was so turbulent that both Jeff and I were on the verge of being sick. People were making sounds like they were on a ride (hooting and whistling "whoahooo") as the boat crashed up and down on the waves. Apparently this is very uncommon so we just had bad luck with weather coming back.
We did luck out however with timing as when we went was still the week of celebrations from the October 1 national holiday and so we got to see some fireworks from the Macau tower on our second night.
