We're in Singapore tonight. Watching TV in a comfy room in a fancy place courtesy of the airline. Thrown in with our tickets. On TV is a discovery TV show about The Venetian Macau which we went to yesterday.
Our flight home is 9pm local time so we get home Tuesday late morning I think.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Airpork
At HK airport right now about to board flight to Singapore. We're there just one night, then home. Hoorah.
Macau
We took a very quick jaunt to Macau yesterday. Its about a 1hr ferry ride from Hong Kong. We got going late so didnt make it over until about 3pm. On the ferry we saw posters for Cirque de Soliel which is showing one of their shows in Macau. We decide to see if we can get tickets.
Through immigration and customs - Macau is an autonomous region of China, like Hong Kong. WE jump on a free shuttle to the Venetian, which is where the show is playing. We hadnt heard of the place until that moment, but turning up there a short time later confirms this to be a different experience for us once again. This place is ostentatious, huge, ridiculous, tacky and preposterous. Its modelled after the Venetian in Las Vegas, that hotel/casino complex built to replicate Venice. The Macau version is 3 times bigger. It is arguably a small city in itself. 3000 rooms, 1200 staff (5% of the population of Macau!), the biggest casino floor in the world, apparently the biggest habitated building in the world, it was built in only 2 years so probably one of the biggest construction efforts ever. It has several canals within the building on the second floor which is above the casino floor, so you can take gondola rides complete with tenor singing gondola drivers. The cost of all this? I dont actually know, but I do know how much our modest lunch cost. One piece of lasagne and a small pizza? $50NZ. Youch. And that was in the foodcourt, i.e. where peasants like us dine, not in any of the numerous opulant restaurants.
The experience of being in the place for us was an eyeopener. Going with no expectation or prior knowledge of it probably helped, but it really highlighted once again the extremes that exists within Asia, or even within China itself.
The show tickets were not as expensive as I expected - we decided since we had come all the way we may as well get good seats. The show itself was great as you'd expect. Zaia is the name of it. It looked like the theatre itself was built for the show, and will probably be permanently staged there indefinately I'd say. They do 2 shows per day. Look it up on the net if you want to find out more.
Once the show was done it was about 9pm, and we wanted to see atleast a bit of the other thing which Macau is well known for (other than being the Asian Las Vegas) - its Portugese colonial history; as well as something real of course. We caught a taxi to the main street of the old section of the town, and did a quick stroll of several streets to take in some of the colonial architecture. Its a very nice place, and a very different look and feel to the ramshackle of Hong Kong. Almost like a very clean and controlled version of Hanoi. We were off to the airport super early the next morning, so unfortunately had to get going and was a shame we could check out more of the place.
Macau from tgoodwin on Vimeo.
Through immigration and customs - Macau is an autonomous region of China, like Hong Kong. WE jump on a free shuttle to the Venetian, which is where the show is playing. We hadnt heard of the place until that moment, but turning up there a short time later confirms this to be a different experience for us once again. This place is ostentatious, huge, ridiculous, tacky and preposterous. Its modelled after the Venetian in Las Vegas, that hotel/casino complex built to replicate Venice. The Macau version is 3 times bigger. It is arguably a small city in itself. 3000 rooms, 1200 staff (5% of the population of Macau!), the biggest casino floor in the world, apparently the biggest habitated building in the world, it was built in only 2 years so probably one of the biggest construction efforts ever. It has several canals within the building on the second floor which is above the casino floor, so you can take gondola rides complete with tenor singing gondola drivers. The cost of all this? I dont actually know, but I do know how much our modest lunch cost. One piece of lasagne and a small pizza? $50NZ. Youch. And that was in the foodcourt, i.e. where peasants like us dine, not in any of the numerous opulant restaurants.
The experience of being in the place for us was an eyeopener. Going with no expectation or prior knowledge of it probably helped, but it really highlighted once again the extremes that exists within Asia, or even within China itself.
The show tickets were not as expensive as I expected - we decided since we had come all the way we may as well get good seats. The show itself was great as you'd expect. Zaia is the name of it. It looked like the theatre itself was built for the show, and will probably be permanently staged there indefinately I'd say. They do 2 shows per day. Look it up on the net if you want to find out more.
Once the show was done it was about 9pm, and we wanted to see atleast a bit of the other thing which Macau is well known for (other than being the Asian Las Vegas) - its Portugese colonial history; as well as something real of course. We caught a taxi to the main street of the old section of the town, and did a quick stroll of several streets to take in some of the colonial architecture. Its a very nice place, and a very different look and feel to the ramshackle of Hong Kong. Almost like a very clean and controlled version of Hanoi. We were off to the airport super early the next morning, so unfortunately had to get going and was a shame we could check out more of the place.
Macau from tgoodwin on Vimeo.
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