Macao Holiday (14 - 17th Nov '08) part 2 of 2.

2.35 a.m, 21-Nov '08, Home.

Go to Part 1:
Macao Holiday (14 - 17th Nov '08) part 1 of 2.

You can also view all Part 2 pictures in a slide show.

Breakfast in The Venetian Macao Hotel:

Breakfast at "Cafe Deco Macao". Handsome main entrance. Picture courtesy of Wikipedia.

In the "Cafe Deco Macao". You have to walk quite a distance from our hotel to this cafe, approximately 500m!!??

Variety of dishes taken. Noodles, omelet, bacon, Hash Brown patties, dim sums, baked beans, glutinous rice and many more :)!

2nd round of feast! Porridge, mushrooms, banana cake, buns, hot dogs and delicious wafers :)!

Miniature adorable bottles of ketchup.

Cirque du Soleil - the modern circus exclusively in The Venetian Macao Hotel.

Quoted from wikipedia:

Cirque du Soleil French for "Circus of the Sun" in English is an entertainment company. Based in Montréal, Québec, Canada. It was founded in Baie-Saint-Paul in 1984 by two former street performers, Guy Laliberté and Daniel Gauthier.

Initially named Les Échassiers, they toured Quebec in 1980 as a performing troupe and encountered financial hardship that was relieved by a government grant in 1983 as part of the 450th anniversary celebrations of Jacques Cartier's discovery of Canada. Le Grand Tour du Cirque du Soleil was a success in 1984, and after securing a second year of funding, Laliberté hired Guy Caron from the National Circus School to re-create it as a "proper circus". No ring and no animals helped make Cirque du Soleil the modern circus that it is today.

Each show is a synthesis of circus styles from around the world, with its own central theme and storyline. They draw the audience into the performance through continuous live music, with performers rather than stagehands changing the props, and by having no curtains.

And we have the opportunity to watch this circus live in The Venetian Macao Hotel. The show on play during our visit is named ZAIA, a young girl who dreams of becoming an astronaut, embarks on a celestial journey and discovers the secrets of love and the true beauty of Earth and its human inhabitants.

The front page program guide of ZAIA.

ZAIA's pamplet.

ZAIA's souvenir shop.

It took 3 years and US$150 million to build the stage, the sphere, musics composition, choreograph and etc.

The backdrop of the theater, the "Star Drop", uses 3,000 fiber optic stars to recreate the night sky of Macao!

Every performance takes 115 technicians and 75 performers from 17 nationalities to stage!

The 25' diameter Sphere moves on 3 axes and weighs 1,814kg. Its 6 projectors beam integrated images in a 360 degree radius!

Most songs are sung in an imaginary language inspired by Hindi phonemes! To produce the effect of a choir, the 2 live singers are digitally mixed during the performance to sound like a chorus of over 60 voices!

The troupe includes dancers from the USA, Argentina, Canada, China, Romania, France, Hungary and Germany! The artists do their own make-up - it takes them 1-2 hours to create per person, per show!

More of Circus Du Soleil's videos can be found at ConradAskLand.com. It encompasses promotional videos, casts behind the scene, trailers, press conference and myriads of other video clips for you to rejoice :)! Below is one of the promotional videos at Youtube:

Into Macao city center:

Firstly, we arrived at the Wynn's Hotel. What so impressive is the zodiac titanically build onto the ceilings and it's mobile on every single hour starting from 12:00 p.m. A "fortune" tree is hidden in the floor where everyone is waiting anxiously for it to raised from the bottom. Why? Continue read on.

Chinese Zodiac on the ceilings with 3 dimensional effect! Each zodiac takes a segment. 12 segments all together.

When the clock struck at 12 p.m sharp, the segments start to open circularly. A big LCD screen is encapsulated! Grand musics are played simultaneously!

The ceilings opens wider, astounding luminance observed!

In sync, the bottom Western's signs in spherical shape starts to open as well! A "fortune" tree raised from the encapsulated sphere ensued!

Meanwhile, a mammoth and splendid chandelier released from the ceilings slowly and gracefully. Eventually, both the "fortune" tree and the chandelier meets!

What do you do with this "fortune" tree? People commence to throw, hurl and toss some coins to it, hoping that this tree will grant them some luck.

"Believing that now you had been entrusted with torrent of luck, now you can kindly proceed to my casino just a few meters away!", whispered wickedly by Wynn :)! Double income for me, the coins hurled and I will instruct a cleaner to collect for me every night now and then hehehe!

The Grand Prix Museum entrance.

Nothing much in this museum but a collection of F1 antique cars where I do not really have any experience nor interest on them. Heyiah! Just take a few snap shots.

The national museum of Macao where it talks about the history of Macao with cultural influence both the Portuguese and the Chinese.

The entrance into the national museum.

Fireworks manufacturing in the past of Macao.

Chinese architectural design of houses and shops.

Common living room of the Chinese community, 2 lanterns and an altar. Similarly can be seen on some of the Hong Kong movies.

Traditional Chinese wedding ceremony.

A bed for both the bride and the groom.

Ok! Done with the museum. It's time to take a real adventure into the city center.

The Ruins of St. Paul.

The Ruins of St. Paul's refer to the façade of what was originally the Cathedral of St. Paul', a 17th century Portuguese cathedral in Macau dedicated to Saint Paul the Apostle. Today, the ruins are one of Macau's most famous landmarks. In 2005, the Ruins of St. Paul were officially enlisted as part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Historic Centre of Macau. Quoted from wikipedia.

Antiquity of St. Paul Ruins - other view.

St. Paul Ruins - other view.

On the way into the Snando Square, again a shopping haven with a reasonable price.

The walkway. The mosaic floor ditto to Lisbon.

Hustle bustle.

Busy and occupied!

Street signs.

Koi Kei's pastelaria. They claimed they are the largest pastry in Macao with 72% monopoly together with incredible supporting document of graphs and charts pasted on their door entrance! It says, this branch is the 8th on the company's board. The further I went down the street more and more franchise of Koi Kei can been seen. Perhaps they are telling the truth :).

The noteworthy Portuguese tart. The tart of eggs, flour and sugar are splendidly blended together with its fluffy cakes. Best consume while still warm!

Countless selection of dried meat!

Mc Donald in Snando Square.

Teeny counters but incalculable customers!

The heart of Snando Square.

Other view of heart of the Snando Square.

Macao Business Tourism Center where you can get an advice on what places worth to explore in Macao.

The acclaimed delicious pork chop burger!

Subliming night view of Snando Square!

Vivid neon lights of Casino Lisboa, a Chinese gaming style casino. Picture courtesy of Aida.

Another great effulgent casino night view. Picture courtesy of Aida.

Incandescent view of street full of signs. Picture courtesy of Aida.

Souvenirs:

Not forgetting souvenirs to be brought back. Macao also renowned with its almond cakes.

A box and 2 bottles of almond cakes. A plastic box of egg rolls with mango flavour :).

A carton of cigarettes. Most importantly made in Macao!

Back view of the carton.

Hong Kong dollar notes with HK$500, HK$100, HK$50, HK$20 and HK$10 respectively. In Macao, HK$ is widely excepted than their own currency named Patacas. Patacas is pegged with the HK dollar. Actual difference between these 2 currencies is 3% with of course the HK$ worth 3% more than the Patacas. For effortless trading sake, HK$ is treated at a ratio of 1:1 with the Patacas.

Chips won from The Venetian Macao casinos :)!

We are all aware that werewolves transformed into their actual being during the full moon. Meanwhile, for vampires, they will experience the same when the clock struck at 12 a.m sharp. Jocularly, guess what, while we were in the Venetian Hotel, by the time the clock struck at 9 p.m or 10 p.m sharp, the reborn of the God/Queen of Gamblers are obvious :)! Everyone just couldn't wait to toss and sell their sure win ideas to each other haha :):

1) "Wow wow...the black, the black colour has a higher probability."
2) "Wow wow.... the next is bull run (black all the way up), yes! yes! the next bear run (red all the way down), quick, quick, short sell :p!"
3) "Volatile, let's swap to next table."

4) "This number hasn't reveal for quite some time, bet at least 8 times of the same number."
5) "Birthday dates should work..."

When it's time to disperse, there goes the God of Gambler's advice:

"Why quit hastily, you still can win back what you lose!, don't quit, don't quit, you are here to enjoy", persuaded by Edwin. I wondered, he has vested interest in the casino, hasn't he haha :)?

That's all folks, time to move forward :)!

Go back to Part 1:
Macao Holiday (14 - 17th Nov '08) part 1 of 2.

Non-related but worthy sentence.

The world achievement has always belonged to the optimist - J Harold Wilkens.

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