OK, this is a little different from India! We flew into Hong Kong a few days ago, but only stayed there briefly before catching the ferry over to Macau (we’ll be staying on Hong Kong for a lot longer later). And Macau is very special. Have a look at the pictures below to see what I mean!
This has to be the silliest, tackiest city I’ve ever seen! At least it doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously (although I dread to think how many people have ruined their lives here). It’s basically the only place in China where gambling is legal - somehow the result of it being an old Portuguese colony as Hong Kong used to belong to the UK. So it tries to mimic Las Vegas - lots and lots of glitzy lights and noise. And silly buildings with even sillier fountains. For example, we’re staying in the Hotel Lisboa, which is part of one of the biggest casino complexes here (we thought we should experience Macau properly!). The Lisboa consists of an old hotel that looks like a fairy cake with scrolling neon lights, and a new wing called the ‘Grand Lisboa’ – which is a giant golden pineapple made of shiny gold reflective glass and absolutely covered with lights of all colours, which flash on and off in an incredibly tasteless coordinated way to create words and pictures! Crazy – hideous, but fascinating!
The casino next-door (the Wynn) is a much less ostentatious building – just a huge square of nasty coloured reflective gold glass. Nothing special around here. But to make up for this it has a big fountain outside which puts on music displays: we just witnessed one to the soundtrack of ‘Diamonds are Forever’! The fountain jets swirled, shot in the air, and cascaded, all coordinated perfectly to the cheesy music. And then to finish it off, at the end jets of flame erupted from around the outside of the fountain pool! Crazy!
As for the inside of the casinos, well, they are equally silly if the Lisboa is anything to go by. The foyers have the biggest chandeliers I’ve ever seen, and are full of gold, shiny black and silver marble, mirrors, priceless jade statues and of course replicas of ancient Egyptian artefacts (like the Tutankhamen funeral mask). You can also find fountains inside with flashing neon displays that surly induce epilepsy. And go down to the ground floor and you’ll see an endless parade of young, pretty Chinese girls immaculately dressed in a uniform of high heels, low cut tops, and very short skirts. Hmm.
The rooms are also completely over the top. Although actually not always too expensive – believe it or not we’ve got 5 star plus facilities here for only £65 a night. You get all the usual posh hotel things, but add to that a bath / shower / steam room with 100’s of water jets that looks so modern it might happily fly into orbit! And although the room decoration is incredibly flash and tacky, I have to admit the duvet is probably the most comfy I’ve ever slept under. Makes it very difficult to get up in the morning.
And this is forgetting the other attractions of Macau, which include a floating casino, Japanese fortress, and of course the mini Italy complete with Venice, the coliseum, and a 40 foot high concrete volcano with a flaming summit! But the entertainment industry dominates. Casinos, cafés, restaurants, bars, and course cabaret is open 24 hours, and free to enter- but you can’t take a camera inside the casinos so we couldn’t post any photos of the interiors.
Undoubtedly, the most tasteless and gaudiest monstrosity is the Grand Lisboa (the pineapple) Casino so we had to go there. We saw the largest ‘cushion-shaped diamond’ in the world (called the Star of Stanley Ho) on the second floor, but it just looked like a bit of glass the size of a ping pong ball. Funny thing was, as packed as the casino was, no-one seemed to be really enjoying the experience even when they won. So Gary decided to test the experience and condemned a 20 HK dollar note (about £1.30) into a slot machine having no idea how to work it and fully expecting to lose all of it. Within 10 seconds, when 4 lion faces appeared he suddenly thought he won an unknown amount and decided to quit while he was ahead: it turned out to be 15 HK dollars (about a quid) of winnings - the cashier did not look impressed when he exchanged the printout from the slot machine for a measly 35 HK dollars!
OK, we prefer Hong Kong. A much more tasteful and vibrant city. But Macau is really worth visiting if only briefly to see all the silliness. Every few minutes you wander down the street a new fountain erupts, or some new light combination or huge statue catches your eye – it just makes me giggle! Anyway, we’ll be here one more night, and then back to stay in Kowloon (the bit of mainland China immediately associated with Hong Kong Island) for a while. I wonder if Disney Land Hong Kong is finished yet…
This has to be the silliest, tackiest city I’ve ever seen! At least it doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously (although I dread to think how many people have ruined their lives here). It’s basically the only place in China where gambling is legal - somehow the result of it being an old Portuguese colony as Hong Kong used to belong to the UK. So it tries to mimic Las Vegas - lots and lots of glitzy lights and noise. And silly buildings with even sillier fountains. For example, we’re staying in the Hotel Lisboa, which is part of one of the biggest casino complexes here (we thought we should experience Macau properly!). The Lisboa consists of an old hotel that looks like a fairy cake with scrolling neon lights, and a new wing called the ‘Grand Lisboa’ – which is a giant golden pineapple made of shiny gold reflective glass and absolutely covered with lights of all colours, which flash on and off in an incredibly tasteless coordinated way to create words and pictures! Crazy – hideous, but fascinating!
The casino next-door (the Wynn) is a much less ostentatious building – just a huge square of nasty coloured reflective gold glass. Nothing special around here. But to make up for this it has a big fountain outside which puts on music displays: we just witnessed one to the soundtrack of ‘Diamonds are Forever’! The fountain jets swirled, shot in the air, and cascaded, all coordinated perfectly to the cheesy music. And then to finish it off, at the end jets of flame erupted from around the outside of the fountain pool! Crazy!
As for the inside of the casinos, well, they are equally silly if the Lisboa is anything to go by. The foyers have the biggest chandeliers I’ve ever seen, and are full of gold, shiny black and silver marble, mirrors, priceless jade statues and of course replicas of ancient Egyptian artefacts (like the Tutankhamen funeral mask). You can also find fountains inside with flashing neon displays that surly induce epilepsy. And go down to the ground floor and you’ll see an endless parade of young, pretty Chinese girls immaculately dressed in a uniform of high heels, low cut tops, and very short skirts. Hmm.
The rooms are also completely over the top. Although actually not always too expensive – believe it or not we’ve got 5 star plus facilities here for only £65 a night. You get all the usual posh hotel things, but add to that a bath / shower / steam room with 100’s of water jets that looks so modern it might happily fly into orbit! And although the room decoration is incredibly flash and tacky, I have to admit the duvet is probably the most comfy I’ve ever slept under. Makes it very difficult to get up in the morning.
And this is forgetting the other attractions of Macau, which include a floating casino, Japanese fortress, and of course the mini Italy complete with Venice, the coliseum, and a 40 foot high concrete volcano with a flaming summit! But the entertainment industry dominates. Casinos, cafés, restaurants, bars, and course cabaret is open 24 hours, and free to enter- but you can’t take a camera inside the casinos so we couldn’t post any photos of the interiors.
Undoubtedly, the most tasteless and gaudiest monstrosity is the Grand Lisboa (the pineapple) Casino so we had to go there. We saw the largest ‘cushion-shaped diamond’ in the world (called the Star of Stanley Ho) on the second floor, but it just looked like a bit of glass the size of a ping pong ball. Funny thing was, as packed as the casino was, no-one seemed to be really enjoying the experience even when they won. So Gary decided to test the experience and condemned a 20 HK dollar note (about £1.30) into a slot machine having no idea how to work it and fully expecting to lose all of it. Within 10 seconds, when 4 lion faces appeared he suddenly thought he won an unknown amount and decided to quit while he was ahead: it turned out to be 15 HK dollars (about a quid) of winnings - the cashier did not look impressed when he exchanged the printout from the slot machine for a measly 35 HK dollars!
OK, we prefer Hong Kong. A much more tasteful and vibrant city. But Macau is really worth visiting if only briefly to see all the silliness. Every few minutes you wander down the street a new fountain erupts, or some new light combination or huge statue catches your eye – it just makes me giggle! Anyway, we’ll be here one more night, and then back to stay in Kowloon (the bit of mainland China immediately associated with Hong Kong Island) for a while. I wonder if Disney Land Hong Kong is finished yet…
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