Friday, January 18, 2008

Macau: The Land of the Free

Macau is so full of casinos. A soon as you touch down at the airport, there's one waiting for you already.

Macau airport is located on an island south of the city centre. I suspect that it's situated on a landfill, surrounded by the sea. It's a different experience landing on a strip where you can see water on both sides of the runway. Certainly an experience unlike Ting Pek Khing's airport back in Kuching.

We took a cab from the airport straight to our hotel. It was a quick & scenic ride which brought us over the long stretch of bridge connecting the island to the city centre.

We didn't realise that our hotel was in a very strategic location. It only took us about 5 mins walk to reach the main casinos. Hotel Beverly Plaza (Fook Hao in Mandarin)costs around HKD740-780 (RM330-350) for a three person room with extra bed. Highly recommended as the the deal is good and the rooms are clean, practically odorless and big too. Single beds are bigger than usual. We found this at macao.com.

Tip No.1: Always book your hotel rooms on the internet. It's cheaper.

Tip No.2: Always find out the names of streets, places & hotels in Cantonese or Mandarin. Places with English & Portugese names are alien to taxi drivers.

If you've watched National Geographic or Discovery before, you'll understand how nature works.

Flies & other insects are strangely attracted to light.

That's why every year, gazillions of insects get zapped by electric fly traps.

Macau casinos use the same concept.

Except that they're not attracting flies.



Macau is The Land of the Free. I'm not talking about the great United States of America, nor am I talking about individual freedom. The kind of free that I'm talking about here is the Auntie kiasu kinda free. And the best casino in town for free loaders would probably have to be The Grand Lisboa.

They've got mountains of complimentary bottles of mineral water. They'll pour you glasses of complimentary soft drinks.

And they get dancers to dance for you on stage for free. Non-stop. 24-7. As long as you stay in there.

Everything is carefully calculated there. Even the shape of the entrance is designed to suck in unsuspecting humans.

3 comments:

WoMbOk™♂ said...

I would most definitely be attracted to those lights.. and miraculously my wallet will become thinner and I will have no recollection of what happened.

Man... am itching to go on a holiday now.

Anonymous said...

did u use a tripod bc ur pics r very sharp.

Greg Wee said...

Wombok, MAS flies to HK now for RM79. You can take a ferry across to Macau - It takes about an hour.
Scratch that itch!

Anonymous, it was point & click, for I am the infamous lazy photographer!

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