Macau, China

After my day of fun in HongKong, I took the ferry over to Macau. Ferry is the main way to get to the island since there are very few direct flights. (although we were able to get Daniel's flight directly into Macau through Tapai, Tawain, and it worked out great!) The ferry is about an hour, and if it's daytime you can see the Hong Kong Islands, and the city of Macau as you are floating into the bay. As soon as you land, it's just like Vegas. Huge billboards showing the latest entertainment, hoards of tourists being hustled onto the Casino/Hotel Shuttles, and that included me! I stayed at the Sheraton Cotai, right on the strip. It opened last year and was fabulous! Gorgeous mall on the first two floors, huge gambling halls (which by the way I won twice and am even bringing some home!), and was a 15 minute walk through the other casino's to get to our new store. Before I begin, I have to say that the city has SO many different faces. It has the up and coming Casino district on the "Cotai Strip", but it was originally a Portuguese colony, so has a lot of cool old sites that you never hear about. Then there is the old financial district (where we did training), and then a re-vitalized old village which now has 5 star restaurants and cute boutiques. The other thing to mention is the language which was a problem here and there. English is on the singage, and around, but not with much of the population or local areas of the city. I have definitely been spoiled by having most of my markets fluent in English and their native language.

These photos are from the old financial district where we held out training for the associates. Obviously the older part of town. Streets were small and crowded, and the buildings were pretty out dated. This was on the northern island; Macau Island. The souther island is where all the new building is happening. Our hotel, and the interiors of the hotel arcade's as their called.