MACAU

Yikes- what a weekend.

Getting to Macau wasnt easy - our morning starting at about 5a.m. consisted of us taking a taxi, then the subway, then the maglev train (which goes up to 400km per hour), then a plane, then a bus, then a ferry, then through customs, and then another bus until we finally arrived at 4pm. However, all of this grueling travel was validated when we pulled up to the Venetian Macau Hotel and Casino, the biggest hotel/casino in the world.

Needless to say, the place is absoultely incredible, designed to look like Venice, it has Italian fresco paintings covering the walls and ceiling, beautifully tiled floors, gigantic fountains, and even a series of canals running through it in which you can take a gondola ride. Aside from a minor hiccup with our reservations (a hiccup where they momentarily had no record of us or our complimentary rooms) the stay was incredible. We had ridiculous rooms, access to the private VIP lounge and its more than helpful concierge service, tickets to the John Legend concert and afterparty, and beautiful sunny weather so that we could enjoy the pool- I could not ask for more.


Friday evening, after spending an hour or two having drinks and dinner by the pool, the group of us got ready for the John Legend concert. If you don't know John Legend's stuff, you're missing out- he's one of the best and maybe the only R&B artist that I like (serious baby making music). His Macau show, was the last show of his Asian tour and he played absolutely everything. The crowd there was an interesting group of people- mostly young, attractive, and super wealthy Hong Kongers (probably 50/50 ex-pats and Chinese) who had taken the ferry over and booked rooms for the night. After the concert everyone made their way to the venetian pool for the afterparty. Honestly I had no idea what to expect from the afterparty, but given the gaudy over the top style of the Venetian I probably should've been more prepared for the absolute madness that ensued. A popular American DJ, DJ Skee, had been flown in from L.A. to play the party, his booth was suspended over the swimming pool, as was one of the dance floors. Surrounding the pool there were go-go dancers, and circling the crowds were hired models in skimpy attire as wels as people in gigtantic stilted robot costumes- there wasn't any real concise theme to the party except extravagence. Drinks were cheap, and within an hour or so the poolside party turned into an in the pool party. As if the night wasn't good enough, I just happened to bump into John Legend during the party and get a picture with the guy.....

Saturday we spent the day getting sunburned by the pool and in the evening had a few friends who are studying in Hong Kong come over to spend the night with us. We had an incredible but somewhat expensive night out, hitting a few night clubs and casinos.

Sunday, after checking out things got a little crazy. Macau is home to the highest bungy jumping platform in the world. At 233 meters or 61 stories tall, the Macau Tower literally towers over the city, and yes I jumped off of the son of a bitch. I don't really have an explanation for why I did it, heights have never been my favorite thing in the world, but my friends wanted to go and without really thinking about it I bought my non-refundable ticket and that was that. After having a mini panic attack while taking the glass elevator to the 61st floor I found myself relatively calm and was actually the first of my friends to jump. I don't have the words to describe the terror of walking to the end of a plank, looking down 61 stories, and then jumping, but maybe the pictures below can help you get an idea of how I felt. After the jump I felt incredible (free falling really gets the adrenaline going-I absolutely want to skydive now) and honestly would have done it again had I not had to get directly into a cab headed towards a ferry and another 9 or so hours of grueling travel.

That's basically all from Macau, enjoy the pictures below!

Maglev Train reaching its max daytime speed

The Venetian

The Venetian Pool

Me in the Bella Suite

John Legend billboard

Crazy robot guy, covered in lights

Go-go Dancer

The dance floor suspended over the pool

Thats John Legend!!!

I'm absolutely terrified

Begin Free Fall- I bought the DVD package, the video is soo insane

At the bottom of my jump

Been a while

I realize that it's been a while since my last post. Since returning from Beijing I have been trying to get back into the rhythm of going to class and studying. Other than these two things I haven't done much else.

Next weekend I will be going to Macau for two nights. Macau is an island off the southern coast of China, that although formally part of China, enjoys a great deal of political and economic freedom (much like Hong Kong). It has taken full advantage of this freedom, and over the years transformed itself into the "Las Vegas " of Asia. My trip there is going to be absolutely insane - a friend of a friend's father, who is a hotel developer in Macau, has hooked us up with suites in the Venetian, which is the biggest casino/hotel in the world (not too shabby for a poor college kid). We're going to gamble, lay by the pool, explore the city and also catch a John Legend concert as he is playing in our hotel. Stories to come......


Little else to report, except that a friend of mine who is doing a semester at sea was in Shanghai yestday and today. I spent my day showing her The Bund and Nanjing Lu. A few pictures below.






















































***Another note about the Pinyin Debate ***

I spoke to my tutor about replacing the character system with pinyin, and she gave me the best reason yet.

In China there are 7 different major dialects, each spoken in different regions of the country. For instance Shanghainese, spoken here in Shanghai, is vastly different than traditional mandarin chinese thus explaining why cab drivers never understand me (even my tutor said she can't understand Shanghainese and she is a native chinese speaker). The different dialects sound nothing alike, to the point that they are nearly different languages. However, they all share the common character system. Therefore, switching to pinyin would leave Chinese accross the country virtually incapable of communicating with eachother as each dialect's phonetic spelling of words would be vastly different. Just something to think about.....