Want to know what’s between Hong Kong and Macau? Water of course! About an hour’s worth of it when taking a hydrofoil.

Besides the water you can see some interesting barely inhabited islands, shipping vessels, and of course other hydrofoils shipping people with money to lose to Macau, and people with empty pockets back (those that win at the casinos will probably spend a good chunk taking the chopper back).

What’s the best way to kill time when going across? Well film the trip of course! At least that way you know you can bore everyone else with your video when you get back!

So while this video won’t win any awards, if you are slightly masochistic, have a few minutes to kill, or just want to see what it’s like between Macau and Hong Kong, then go ahead and watch it! Just don’t say we didn’t warn you!

At 10.5 million square feet, the Venetian Macau is the second largest building in the world. It has been touted as able to hold ninety Boeing 747 Jumbos. In reality it is a large glorified parking lot. What does it park? People and money! The people come and go, but of course the money stays!

It is a much nicer casino than the others in Macau. The exterior is finished with the intricate designs and look so familiar to those who have visited Venice, and the interior is filled with paintings and an opulent interior decoration. In the effort to improve on its Las Vegas sister, there are 3 canals rather than the 1 in Las Vegas. When we were there, only one was open and the other two were still under construction.

The Romans used to take the great obelisks from Egypt and then make copies in Rome; the Japanese built a replica of the Eiffel Tower and just couldn’t resist making it a bit taller, Las Vegas copied Venice, and now Macau has tried to copy Rome!! There’s something about copies though, either they are made more impressive than the original, or they are cheaply made and look a whole lot worse than the original. Macau is most definitely the latter!

So what is Macau? A collection of copies - Earlier on they copied (generally bad) Portuguese and Chinese architecture, and more recently of all sorts of western things which most Chinese who go there will never see in real life. Want to see the Colosseum but can’t go to Rome? See the fake one in Macau. Want to see the Roman forum? Well it’s sitting near the fake Colosseum. If you’ve been to the real things though, the fakes just pale in comparison! They are poorly made and look like a cheap movie set, and they just aren’t 2000 years old!!

You can also see a replica of the Wynn casino, which is 5 times smaller in Macau than that in Las Vegas. The Venetian is supposed to be a better version of Las Vegas with 3 canals instead of 1 (although only 1 is open now), and the Sands which made its owner very happy when it recovered the initial investment in only 6 months!!

Macau does have some impressive bridges though. But then again, to connect the different islands over the pretty long distances, it needs them.

The entire morning and early afternoon was spent inspecting the many casinos in Macau and getting smelly smoke and cough germs on our clothing. No, they didn’t pay us to do that Talking about cough germs, everyone seemed to be coughing everywhere and no one bothered to cover their mouth! Anyway, we got so hungry walking around, and got even hungrier just trying to find some food!

We had no idea where good food was, so we looked at the map for a place that looked like it might have something decent to eat. Once there though, all we saw were shops and a few dingy-looking eating places (soooo difficult to find a decent cafe!).

So we walked on, going through street after street in search of a bite to eat. Finally we found what looked like a small shopping mall and we thought there must be something there. Once inside though, it didn’t look like it had anything but stores, however the security guard said there was a cafe upstairs, so we went for a look.

The only way up was a vintage-looking elevator, something from a B-rated 70’s movie, but once upstairs, we saw a western-styled cafe. Although we wanted to have some Portuguese/Macau food, we were so starved we were willing to settle for anything, and in the end had a Japanese dish at that cafe!

After leaving the place and walking down a parallel street, lo and behold - we saw where we should have been all along! A street full (ok, not full, but a handful) of eating places ranging from Chinese food, to traditional Portuguese/Macau cuisine.

Tsk tsk tsk!