OK, it turns out that weather predictions here seem to be pretty much worthless. When I posted earlier this week, it looked like it was going to rain non-stop, but in reality, it just sprinkled a tiny bit this evening, and the last few days have been quite clear. So, here's a few photos from earlier today (Saturday, keep in mind I'm 15 hours ahead of Vegas time).
This is the Grand Lisboa, from across the street more or less.
Here's Lisboa Hotel on the left, Wynn in the middle, and MGM on the right.
By the way, I came here thinking the fountains at Wynn were more spectacular that at the Bellagio, but I was mistaken. The area that the fountains are in is pretty tiny. Plus, I watched the indoor show of the "Tree of Life", and wasn't very impressed...I was rather surprised. I get that Macau is a tiny area, and there wasn't a lot of room to build this stuff. Sands built the Venetian Macao with a huge lagoon, but Adelson wasn't really restricted by the amount of available land....he just filled in the ocean to build his casino, and created the land that he needed. Wow, money talks.
Here's a pic from outside of MGM, looking towards Taipa in the distance. The bridge in the photo is one of three, and although it doesn't look all that big, at's actually 1 1/2 miles long. The big arch at the beginning is just so freighters can pass underneath it....where it looks like it goes back down, there's another mile of bridge.
I then walked across from Wynn to StarWorld Casino - sorry, no pic, but my intention was to take the shuttle down to Galaxy in Taipa. You can pretty much get anywhere in Macau on free shuttles if you want to invest the time, but realistically, you can't spend more than $10 on a cab to get anywhere. Usually, when I take a cab, fares are $3-4, and cabbies don't expect a tip. Usually, though, I just wave off the change, simply because I've already got a bag full of coins sitting on my kitchen table that really aren't worth much, and a few patecas more or less doesn't make a difference to me (a pateca is 12.5 cents, and my cab fare is usually 30-40 patecas). I just got tired of carrying around the coins, and the cabbies are happy with me rounding it up, although a few have insisted on giving me the change).
Anyway, to get back to Galaxy, here's a pic of the lobby. It's huge, and I backed up to the entrance doors to take a photo, but still was only able to get the center area.
I meant to just take the shuttle to stop by Portal, the best expat bar in Macau (based on my experience in the last month), but thought I'd stop to the Macallan Lounge first, as I've been meaning to check it out. This is pretty cool place. Yeah,they have whiskeys that cost up to US$4250 per glass, but I opted instead for a 14 year old Macallan for about $10. Lots of leather couches, dark inside, and lots of wood, as well as a Davidoff cigar store. The pics didn't come out too well, and I didn't really get any of the leather couches along the side, but thought you all may find it interesting.
Oh, and when I asked for exactly one ice cube to cool down the whiskey, that's exactly what I got.
"Jigger", my Filipeno bartender, showed me how they do these ice balls. He pulled out a block of ice from the freezer, and placed it in this contraption that I won't even bother to explain, but suffice it to say that putting ice on copper ends up in the ice being melted rapidly. It was fascinating to watch. He mentioned that the unit they used was designed in Japan, and costs thousands of dollars, but converts a block of ice into a perfect ice ball in about 10-15 seconds.
Anyway, that's it for now. If you want to see few more photos, I've been posting a few things on facebook, so PM me and I'll give you my info.
(Edited to correct a couple of minor errors, thanks to the Macallan)
