Today I had a flight to catch from Macau to Kuala Lumpur. However, I've been feeling kind of sick lately, so I rested for most of the morning. When it was time to check out, I exited my hotel, went to a nearby Subway restaurant and ordered a nice, delicious, genuine sandwich, and then headed to the Macau ferry terminal. They have sailings basically every 15 minutes, and most of them are pretty full. I would expect the last ones of the day to be most depressing, as people return from Macau, either penniless or feeling quite lucky.
Anyway, I bumped and bounced along in the ferry for an hour along with other loud and yelly Chinese people on their cell phones. Surprisingly, there were quite a few Portugese speakers along for the ride. Perhaps due to Macau's heritage as a Portugese colony.
Macau is basically Las Vegas for the Chinese. It's a special administrative region of China (think Puerto Rico), so I suppose if you think about it, it's an excellent method for the communist regime to capture more citizen money than just by taxes alone. However, seeing the damage this vice causes in South Korea (especially when Koreans aren't allowed to enter casinos in Korea), it makes me sad to see it taxing the poor of China as well.
Nevertheless, when casinos take your money, they do it in style! When you get out of the ferry terminal, you can take one of many shuttle buses to each casino in Macau. I unfortunately didn't have time to see the downtown area, so I took the shuttle to Galaxy Macau because I could connect to its airport shuttle there.
That was an interesting ride to say the least.
As you are driving, you can see all the other amazing casinos along the way. These buildings are quite something! The shuttle bus has TV screens which tell you about people just like you who have won millions of dollars, seemingly without any risk or loss.
Once we arrived at Galaxy, I was blown away by the architecture of this building. It was so luxurious! A long-legged beauty showed me to where I needed to go for the airport bus, and I got to witness a gigantic glass diamond rising dramatically out of the hotel fountain.
I got a few stares going through the place, probably on account of my touristy appearance and large backpack. Fine with me, take money from someone else.
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