The pictures below were taken - by me - in various locations around Macao and Taipa that may, more or less, bring to mind the term "touristy". Since I didn't bring my camera during several outings in Macao, most of the pictures are centered around The Venetian in Taipa and the Old City section of Macau. What's interesting is that in the old movie clip from 1960 are several locations that I myself have already seen - from the Portuguese section of the city. Those locations haven't changed since that time. Equipment used was a Panosonic DMC-ZS6K camera and a steady (?) hand or a steady object (light post, railing, etc).
Location:
Click on the title! Here you can find typical pictures around Taipa, Cotai, and Coloanne! Other notable features include the Macau University (Taipa).
Click on the title! The Venetian, City of Dreams, and other existing and coming resorts are listed here! Events shown include the 2010 Macau Tennis Showdown 2010.
Click on the title! Pictures of Macao city include the old Portuguese sector, the ruins of St. Paul college, the marketplace and views of/from the Fortaleza do Monte.
Grand Lisboa Macao
The Grand Lisboa is definately a swanky place! Arguably the number one tourist destination for visitors from Mainland China, this 826 foot tall complex is as massive as it is ostentatious. The outside of the structure is covered in a reflective gold curtain wall that appears to have a giant bulge, or egg, at the base. The casino for the complex is housed in the egg. The interior glistens and glitters with displays of huge jade carvings, many lights, and reflective flooring. See below for a quick look at the place!
Grande Lisboa from the front. Inside of the bubble is the casino.
The tall part of the structure houses the hotel!
View of the Grande Lisboa from the side. Believe me, getting an angle for this shot was very difficult!
Inside the lobby of the Grand Lisboa. Incidentally, this is about the only place where picture-taking is allowed. If you try to take pictures in other areas - say the slot machine rooms - you're in for a talking-to!
Also inside the lobby.
View upwards into the chandelier seen in the previous pictures.
Water display in the lobby.
This "painting" is 3d... made of tens of thousands of small sea-shells! Click on the picture to enlarge.
While the food portions are small, that's about it in Macao. At the resort, everything is huge!
View of the lobby from near the top of an escalator
Hallway leading to a group of shops between the hotel elevators.
Outside the Grande Lisboa on a Sunday night. This section of the city becomes EXTREMELY congested during late Sunday afternoon... thousands of people milling about, and lines numbering into the hundreds waiting to get a taxi! Bus or walking highly recommended.
Next door to the Grand Lisboa is the Casino Lisboa. The original place was constructed in 1970 and an extension was added in 1991. This comprises the Casino Lisboa. Since both complexes have the same owners, there isn't really a rivalry between them as far as I can tell. The Casino Lisboa does have an older feel to it, but it's just as "sparkly" on the inside. The main lobby has two staircases leading up to the second - casino - floor. The second floor encircles the lobby so that people may look down, and lining this is a huge collection of massive jade sculptures and carvings that must alone be worth several fortunes.
Above the lobby, second floor.
Chandelier above the lobby.
Example of one of the winding shopping sections of the Lisboa.
MGM Grand Macao
That's right! Everything is "Grand" here! Now for a brief history lesson. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer has been a massive entertainment giant that arose in 1924 and dominated a large portion of the subsequent movie industry during the "Golden Age" of Hollywood, between the 1920s and 1950s. In 1980, the company was split into two separate venues: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Film Co. and MGM Grand Hotel Inc. Incidentally, the owners after the division of the company at that time remained the same (of course). Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Film Co. later became Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. MGM Grand Hotel Inc. later merged with Mirage Resorts Inc. to become MGM Mirage, which later renamed itself as MGM Resorts International.
The movie studio section of the former conglomerate may be filing bankruptcy, but the resort complexes aren't having the same degree of financial difficulties! Quite an internal tug-of-war going on for the former MGM studio, but at least the Hobbit also finally got the green light and survived the the New Zealand Actor Equity Union's boycott!
Enough said about the MGM Inc or MGM Resorts International. The MGM Grand Macao is another huge complex a short distance from the Lisboas and filled with shopping and good eateries. I've tried the fair myself, and can testify to how they are good!
Entrance to the MGM from the Wynn side
View of the Macao Sky Tower from the second floor of the MGM
Wynn Macau
The Wynn Macau is a luxurious resort hotel, casino, and shopping complex owned by Wynn Resorts Limited. Arguably, at least when I've been walking through, the majority of visitors at this place are a class up on most of the other casinos. Everywhere else, there are crowds upon crowds of tourists taking pictures and noisily chatting with each other as they stroll through the casino. The visitors here dressed and acted, on the whole, differently here. The clothing was fancier, the shops were more expensive. Featured within the Wynn is a Ferrari store with US $100 polo shirts, US $35 baseball caps, and other items. Another store which caught me by surprise while touring the Wynn was the Rolex store.
Additionally, about every other room in the casino portion appeared to be for high stakes! From what I've heard from privy people, the casinos make a decent income from tourists and the regular slots and tables, but their cash crop comes from the high-stakes gambling rooms - where rich businessmen from Shanghai and other parts of China come to spend a "pleasant" (i.e. expensive) weekend, sometimes dropping millions of dollars US. In the end, I don't know anything about the gambling at the Wynn, but the restaurants and stores are sure nice! Oh, and did I mention that the "Ristorante il Teatro" is housed here? Just FYI, this Italian restaurant has been ranked in the top ten most expensive restaurants in the world. Another restaurant, the "Wing Lei" sports spectacular decor - including a huge dragon made of more than 90,000 crystals - combined with an equally delicious traditional Chinese meal. In case you feel like dropping by either restaurant, make sure to remember that dress is casual elegant and that prices for individual dishes can reach up to MOP $6,000 (although the average would be a lower MOP $200 or so).
The Wynn, lit up after the 2010 Macau Grand Prix Motorcycle event. Note how the traffic barriers are still on the road (to keep regular traffic away from the competition routes).
View of the Wynn from the center of the traffic circle.
The Wynn has a water show synchronized with music! The beginning isn't that impressive, but as it progresses, it becomes more spectacular. This is best seen at night, but at night my camera wouldn't be able to catch the image as well without a tripod! Oh, also a good idea when photographing or watching the show is NOT to stand downwind... I made that mistake, and quickly hid my camera under my shirt when rain began to come out of the cloudless evening sky!
View of the Wynn from the MGM side! I like this shot since it also shows the tropical vegetation.
The Ferrari store. Need I say more?
Typically hallway in the Wynn. I was too chicken to photograph the areas frequented by people (don't want to enhance the "typical American tourist" image), so I snapped this quickly while no one was around... well, almost no one!
Also found in several of the resort malls are Rolex stores. Don't expect discounts here! These watches seem to start around MOP $100,000.
Outside view of the Wynn... not the hotel tower.
Personally, this is one of my favorite shots! This is the hotel tower of the Wynn... very hard to capture the image at close range. It's a bit of an illusion, since I also included the tree at the left-hand side. The building is huge, but it's somewhat hard to tell from the picture.
Senado Square
Senado Square could be thought of as the center of shopping in Macao. Yes, high quality merchandise can be found in the resort hotels, but isn't it sometimes more pleasant to shop for bargains? You may find them here, although the prices will be quite a bit higher than those of Zhuhai, the city right on the other side of the Chinese border from Macao! The buildings around Senado Square are small two to three story structures, well-kept and for the most part emulating period Portuguese architecture. Nearby can also be found the ruins of St. Paul's college and the Fortazola do Monte. Additional information about Senado Square can be found here.
Combine cute shops, good food, better prices than the casino malls, and
you've got a winning combination!
Night shot of one of the many Catholic churches in the area. And yes,
Sunday services are still held in all of these churches.
Unfortunately, I didn't keep a good log the day I took many of these
photos, so I can't identify all the churches!
Outside the main free library. The library is a very nice place, quite shady and very pretty. The outdoor locations and sitting areas are cool and nice even in the hot time of the day. The library itself is quite modern. The area is "difficult" to get to unless you're walking. It's located on a small hill surrounded by winding, narrow streets.
Another church. This one is adjacent to the library seen above.
The trees here have very complicated root systems! This shot is taken outside
a government building - if I'm correct - down the street from the library.
The sanctuaries are quite beautiful. However, without air conditioning,
the interior must be very difficult to keep up!
This is a photo of a tree in the Mandarin's House.The house itself is a large complex, encompassing several acres, it is from one to two stories in height and has a spacious, open feeling to it. Large round doors and almost empty rooms enhance that feeling. Despite the size on the inside, the streets around the house are narrow and the houses nearby look cramped, so such a house must have been pleasant back in the day!
A typical signpost that can be found in the touristy sections of the city. Remember, this sign has Chinese, Portuguese, and English words written on it! Regular street signs will be written in Portuguese.
Waterfront
Another distant view of the Macau skytower. The 360 degree revolving restaurant
at the top is supposed to have great views!
The waterfront walkway by the MGM and Wynn.
View of the city. The grandstand for the Macau Grand Prix can be seen slightly left of center.
Return to Taipa
Well, after all, Taipa is a very nice and quaint area! Also, because it's primarily a residential section of Macao, I believe it's a little less crowded.
Galaxy Macau: This is a project set to open next year, 2011. Similar to most complexes in the area, the Galaxy will feature a five-star hotel, a shopping area, and then the casino. The project has made considerable progress since it began, costing a total of around HK $14 billion dollars to complete. Interestingly, the casinos usually make enough to break even within a few years and go on to make a considerable profit after that. I've met many employees of the various contractors working on the project and recently found out that one of my friend's friend helped with the overall design. It's a small world, after all!
While walking by this area, I suddenly noticed something small scurrying along the side of the white wall to the right-side of the picture. I was startled - a monster of a cockroach? A giant spider? I looked more closely and noticed a lean, black cat padding about a yard behind the panicking rat. The cat was biding its time, patient, playing, if you will, with its prey. Suddenly, the cat seemed to think something was amiss and sped up to a quick trot. I instinctively reached for my camera and whipped it out. Not in time! The rat put on a burst of speed and dove through a tiny hole in the brick wall (towards the center of the photograph). Just then, I took my picture. The black, dark shape in the center of the photo - to the right of the concrete cylinder - is the forlorn cat looking through the tiny hole. Dejectedly, the cat strode slowly away. The moral of the story? Well, for sure there is a life lesson to be learned from the Cat and the Rat, but I'll leave it to the reader to decide what that is!
This used to be the sea, but now it's a lake in the middle of the reclaimed land of Cotai! Across the water and in the background is the residential district of Taipa. By the waterfront is a park and historical district that can be quite interesting to explore.
Close-up on several of the houses seen in the photograph above. The water lilies were green earlier in the year. Now that the cooler weather has set in - it's now staying around 70 degrees F - some of the vegetation has gone into a miniature hibernation.
Well, that's all for now! Check out my photostream on Flickr for hundreds more of my photos from around Asia!
Thanks for sharing, Chris!!
ReplyDeleteThis is truly amazing!
Nice pics! We'd like see more. Keep them coming!
ReplyDeleteWe like the Ferrari!! Gonna get it for us in us?
ReplyDelete