Sin City of the East.. Kind of. Happy Father's Day!

It’s Father’s Day here in China, so I’ll kick it off with Thanks Dads!  I speak for Lang and Kaplan as well when I say we wouldn’t be here right now in Macau if it weren’t for your support.

We spent Saturday night in Macau, a sea of casinos, flashing lights, and some way too serious Chinese gamblers.  Unlike Vegas, Macau is not the bachelor party type destination that we had expected.  Instead of a multitude of shows and nightclubs, Macau focuses on one thing: catering to a Chinese culture of over 1.3 billion people whose obsession with gambling coupled with their stoic demeanors lead to a gambling atmosphere that is a bit too dry and serious.

Absurdly High Speed Ferry (70 MPH+).  NYC-Hamptons summer route would kill.

To get here, we took the extremely high speed ferry from Hong Kong, reaffirming the fact that the Chinese do all things transportation so much better than us.  We departed Hong Kong without actually getting to see the giant Buddha as the cable car going up the mountain was undergoing its yearly maintenance and we opted out of the alternative: a six hour roundtrip hike to the monument.  Instead of Budha, we prostrated ourselves before the glow of slot machines and sounds of a multi-billion dollar gambling industry that easily dwarfs Vegas.

Macau

Macau, like Hong Kong, is an independently governed special administrative region that is part of the Chinese nation.  Instead of devoting its intellectual power and free markets to create a thriving capitalist region as did Hong Kong, Macau committed its resources to create a gambling mecca like none other.    Since the Chinese government regained sovereignty over the land from Portugal in 1999, the entire region has boomed.  Macau is home of seven of the ten largest casinos in the world.  The billions of dollars that pass through here in a year take the city of Las Vegas three years to match.  The amount of construction and the absurd prices of all of the nearly booked hotels give no indication that this growth is slowing. 

We checked into our hotel, Casa Real, after a brief conversation with the receptionist at the front desk who to our confusion was named “Trainee”.  I would imagine it would be hard to move up the corporate ladder with a name like that in the states.  After some exciting craps games at the world's largest casino, we got dinner at the world's largest buffet, took some naps, and spent the night exploring the world's most spectacular casinos.

In the morning, we bid farewell to Jen. Tomorrow we have a brief 24 hour layover in Singapore on our way to Hanoi, Vietnam.  Changi International Airport in Singapore is renowned for being the best layover Airport in the world, as rated by multiple travel blogs (I swear there are rankings for everything).  Our plan as of now is to take advantage of the airport’s free city tours, massage chairs, and movie theaters to pass time.

Then the fun starts as we enter the deep north of Vietnam, where the food will be more exotic and the adventures more extreme.