Macau

No trip to Hong Kong should go without a stop in Macau. Macau is like a sister city with an unusual realationship to Hong Kong and China. I haven’t quite figured out if its an independent state, special economic zone or both. I was told that Macau blows Las Vegas out of the water and it is “Vegas on steriods”.

It all starts with a ferry ride from Hong Kong. I think there is a Helicopter service but you need to be a “player” to roll in the copter.

The symbol of Macau… Actually I just made that up.

The old town of Macau is a well scaled pedestrian friendly place. It was built by the Portugese and it still retains is character.

The Grand Lisboa is one of the new casinos in Macau. It is every thing that vegas is bright, gaudy and big. On a bright note it had one of the best noodle bars I’d ever seen.

The Wynn Macau. Its a mini Wynn Las Vegas equipped with a mini Bellagioesque fountain and light show. For experience sake, I decided that I would try my hand at some black jack in Macau. So I checked 700 HK dollars and got at it. Now in Macau, people can “ride” your hand and bet along with you. I didn’t like that so much (and neither did a few of the people riding my first 10 hands). After getting beat up by the dealer and scaring off some table mates I hit a streak and some how I manged to escape the Wynn with 2,100 HK dollars! On a travelers budget thats a lot of money!

Macau lacks a certain swager that vegas has and is’nt quite up to Vegas standards in terms of its gaming facilites (I say this without having visited the Venitian). It did feel like a fight night with out the fight. The tables were packed and I could see how from gaming revenues it would surpass Vegas. I unfortunately missed the opening of the new Venitian Casino. I promised myself that I’d come back to check it out after I finished with main land China… We’ll see.