We decided that our passports actually didn’t have enough stamps, so we set off in the morning for a day trip to Macau. We wanted to see what made Macau so great that it takes in more gambling revenue than Las Vegas (making it the most in the world), and also making it one of the richest cities in the world (but only having a population of around 500,000).
We went through all the immigration formalities (again) and passing customs was a breeze, well, there was no customs. The one hour boat ride then saw us arrive at our destination. Upon arrival, there were complimentary shuttles as far as the eye could see, trying to lure you into the various casinos. One casino even went as far as to have an arrangement with the cellular network, so that as soon as your cell phone came within range, we received texts with special offers.
Anyway, we decided on a casino named the Venetian, which is the largest casino in the world, and the fourth largest building in the world by floor area. On the bus ride there, we saw much of Macau (being such a small place) including the Macau Tower, which is modelled on the Auckland Skytower, and the starting grid for the Macau Grand Prix. We also saw, or course, a lot of casinos along with some historical Portuguese buildings.
The Venetian was just about as impressive as a building can possibly get. Huge, Italian styling inside and out, and intricately detailed in places. The old-style Venice street was the setting for a huge food court, with food from every country (Japanese was on the menu for lunch). I actually thought the ceiling was the real sky, prior to realising it was a painting.
After a wee bit of gambling, we went across to City of Dreams casino and wandered the streets a little. One thing we noticed was that the locals of Macau were a lot nicer and more courteous than the locals in Hong Kong or China., particularly the drivers - only problem was that there were so many tourists, we were continually getting shunted out of the way by rude Chinese people. We then went to Sands Casino and had dinner there. Some communication difficulty arose when ordering dinner though. The menu said: “Roti Chennai [sic] MOP$22”, which we thought was a little expensive, but acceptable. Anyway, we ordered four (being two each) which she repeated about five times to make sure she was correct, and some Thai red curry to go with it. When we got our order, we got TWELVE roti canai, as each order was three, along with an assortment of curries for dipping! Also a beer from South Korea called Blue Girl was rather tasty.
To finish our Macau experience, we went to the Cirque Du Soliel Zaia show at the Venetian. We decided that we would take this opportunity to go, as it was unlikely that time would permit at our other opportunity (Las Vegas). Anyway, the show was extraordinary, something I would describe as a collection of some of the best buskers in the world put together into one show, with massive production value and plenty of talent, but only lacking a little more humour (which it wasn’t intended to have, but I’m being greedy).
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