We got onto the 1pm ferry with minutes to spare (and discounted tickets!) and headed over. We caught the ferry into Macau Taipa, which is closer to the old part of town, then a taxi closer to where we wanted to be. We started our exploring with one of the most famous sights, the ruins of St Paul's. There is only the front facade and some of the foundations left of this church, and it's remarkable, standing on the top of a hill surrounded by all this hustle and bustle. From there we went across to the next small hill where Mont Fort (mountain fort) stands. Again, only the edges are remaining, but it was a great spot to look over the city, and the Museum of Macau is in the centre of the fort.
Then we wandered more through the old part of town, where Richard sampled baked goods from stores, jerky which they seemed to be selling fresh at every shop, and bought some egg tarts (basically, Portuguese tarts, as Macau was originally a Portuguese settlement). I didn't partake as I spent most of the day not feeling well, I assume related to my lack of sleep. We walked all the way to the edge of the water on this side (Macau is split in half by water) where we arrived at the Wynn hotel and casino. We took a short walk through the casino before using their taxi rank to grab a taxi to the biggest casino in Macau - the Venetian.
The Venetian is also famous for having gondolas you can get rides on surrounded by a shopping mall. Richard had tried to find this on Google maps but confusingly hadn't been able to. We worked out pretty quickly why... It's all inside! All the blue sky in the photos is painted on. So it's a massive indoor shopping mall designed to look like Venice with gondolas you can go for a ride on, with many designer brands (a recurring theme after getting used to HK a bit). We walked around and did a bit of window shopping, but didn't actually buy anything except postcards. We walked all the way through the shopping centre to a different casino, the Parisian (they're all connected on this side of the road so you don't have to go outside to go to a different bit, convenient for the rainy season).
The Parisian, as the name might suggest, has something in common with the real Paris - the Eiffel Tower. There is a half size one at the hotel/casino! We bought tickets to go to both the accessible floors, 7 and 37. Floor 7 at the base of the Tower had an ice skating rink for the winter, a cafe, and the lift. Floor 37 was the top viewing deck with the most amazing view over the rest of the casinos. They even had holes in the floor so you could look down at the lights on the Tower from above (I didn't like that much, but it did make for cool photos!) After going back down to 7, we sat on the terrace having an alcoholic drink and watching the lights, before deciding to find some dinner.
We actually ended up eating in the food court of the Parisian (japanese though, just for a change), before heading down into the casino for a spot of gambling.
The casino at the Parisian was bigger than I expected, and had lots of different games. There was a lot of slot machines and digital games, as well as traditional games like roulette, poker, and baccarat (which I have no idea about). We didn't play on any of the tables because they were all priced out of our range (the cheapest buy in was $300), so we picked a digital roulette game and put in $200 to play with. We just played until we were out of money (we did win a bit, but then kept going) before heading back to a taxi rank to get the get Water Jet back to HK.
We didn't get back until 11pm, so it was a late one, but it was also a late start, so that's okay. I enjoyed the casino time more than the old town, but I think that's just the kind of fancy lady I like to pretend to be!
No comments:
Post a Comment