Happy Boxing Day!
About as non-secular as you can get... it basically boils down to a shopping day in the states and a big day for eating for my friends from the former British colonies.
I spent last week touring Hong Kong and Macau with Miguel, including a trip to see the world's largest seated Buddha and both a day and a night excursion to the top of Victoria Peak to look out over Hong Kong and Kowloon (spectacular, by the way.) I'm about 750 pictures behind (seriously) on uploading to my photo page but as soon as I have it updated I'll let you all know.
Hong Kong is also the home of the easiest and most efficient public transportation I have ever seen, and as of a few years ago, everything (busses, taxis, the metro, even convenience stores) can be paid for with a small, non-magnetic, debit-card-like system called the Octopus Card. The advertisements for it at the airport and metro stations boast that over 95% of the population uses the card and from how easy it was to acquire and use one I'm not really surprised.
Macau was definitely not what I expected... that is, it is NOT the Las Vegas of the East. While it did rake in more gambling revenue last year than Vegas (honestly, look it up) the figures are due to an unbelievable number of mainland Chinese that take one or two day trips over to throw money at Stanly Ho (owner of the Lisboa Hotel and Casino where we stayed) or one of the two Vegas corporations that have been granted Casino licenses.
Two interesting things separate Macau from Vegas in my mind; one, the casinos in Macau serve tea and warm milk instead of alcohol and two, the casino games are hyper-simplified. By simplified, I mean the games that require a modicum of skill (craps specifically) are absent, there are a minimum of blackjack tables and the bulk of the gambling is done at baccarat, Sicbo and roulette tables... all of which are basically variations on "pick a number" style guessing games. But more importantly, no alcohol!?!
Fortunately, Miguel is a great wingman, and seriously limited our time in the casinos and made sure we got around to some of the (unexpectedly interesting) historical sights around Macau including the ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral and the A-Ma temple (pictures up soon.)
We capped off the trip with a great run at the blackjack tables (both of us ended up on the week, miraculously) and a ride up to the top of the Macau tower, the tenth tallest tower in the world, and one of the highest observation decks anywhere at an impressive 228 meters. We even managed to catch a screening of the new Bond flick, Casino Royale (fitting) before I caught my 3:00 am ferry back to Hong Kong and after an awkward 4 hours in the Hong Kong Airport, got on the first flight back to Shanghai. Even managed to get a productive half-day of work in before the festivities began for Larry's last night in Shanghai.
Happy Holidays everyone, my parents arrive in about 24 hours so tonight is dedicated to cleaning and laundry.
I spent last week touring Hong Kong and Macau with Miguel, including a trip to see the world's largest seated Buddha and both a day and a night excursion to the top of Victoria Peak to look out over Hong Kong and Kowloon (spectacular, by the way.) I'm about 750 pictures behind (seriously) on uploading to my photo page but as soon as I have it updated I'll let you all know.
Hong Kong is also the home of the easiest and most efficient public transportation I have ever seen, and as of a few years ago, everything (busses, taxis, the metro, even convenience stores) can be paid for with a small, non-magnetic, debit-card-like system called the Octopus Card. The advertisements for it at the airport and metro stations boast that over 95% of the population uses the card and from how easy it was to acquire and use one I'm not really surprised.
Macau was definitely not what I expected... that is, it is NOT the Las Vegas of the East. While it did rake in more gambling revenue last year than Vegas (honestly, look it up) the figures are due to an unbelievable number of mainland Chinese that take one or two day trips over to throw money at Stanly Ho (owner of the Lisboa Hotel and Casino where we stayed) or one of the two Vegas corporations that have been granted Casino licenses.
Two interesting things separate Macau from Vegas in my mind; one, the casinos in Macau serve tea and warm milk instead of alcohol and two, the casino games are hyper-simplified. By simplified, I mean the games that require a modicum of skill (craps specifically) are absent, there are a minimum of blackjack tables and the bulk of the gambling is done at baccarat, Sicbo and roulette tables... all of which are basically variations on "pick a number" style guessing games. But more importantly, no alcohol!?!
Fortunately, Miguel is a great wingman, and seriously limited our time in the casinos and made sure we got around to some of the (unexpectedly interesting) historical sights around Macau including the ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral and the A-Ma temple (pictures up soon.)
We capped off the trip with a great run at the blackjack tables (both of us ended up on the week, miraculously) and a ride up to the top of the Macau tower, the tenth tallest tower in the world, and one of the highest observation decks anywhere at an impressive 228 meters. We even managed to catch a screening of the new Bond flick, Casino Royale (fitting) before I caught my 3:00 am ferry back to Hong Kong and after an awkward 4 hours in the Hong Kong Airport, got on the first flight back to Shanghai. Even managed to get a productive half-day of work in before the festivities began for Larry's last night in Shanghai.
Happy Holidays everyone, my parents arrive in about 24 hours so tonight is dedicated to cleaning and laundry.
posted by Mr. Frisky | 5:05 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home