Category: travel

Hey everyone! This will be a two-parter, since much has happened in the last day and a half. Let’s finish with Vegas first.

So when I left you it was Sunday morning and we had settled in to Vegas pretty well, having had a fun Saturday and some good hours sleep. Now it was time to get into it, since we only had the rest of Sunday to enjoy the spoils of Las Vegas.

We didn’t have much on the agenda, so after a lazy start just headed back down the strip, soaking up the Vegas atmosphere. What atmosphere I hear you ask? Last post you were complaining about it? Well, ironically the Sunday felt much more alive which was odd. We placed quite a bit of the quiet Saturday night to the cold weather. We in fact got to be part of one of the coldest Vegas day on record. Yep, when I said it was cold, it was cold (like zero degrees cold).

So we headed down to finish the wander of the strip, heading down to some of the more classically kitschy casinos, like New York New York, Excalibur, and the Luxor. These have not aged so well I gotta say. But in a way they were nice in a nostalgic kinda way,since they were the bees knees when I first visited Vegas, 15 odd years ago. How times have changed.

We didn’t spend much time in them, just really to get all nostalgic. It was a quick fly around and then to one key destination… M&M World. Yep, why not celebrate Vegas by eating colours of M&M’s that are nowhere else to be found. It speaks volumes of Kate and I that by this point we had not gambled, but had hunted down candy. Good times.

The casual wandering took us close to our main Vegas event. As you might have guessed from yesterday’s post, we had tickets to the Beatles Cirque Du Soleil show “Love”, which was our main reason for coming to Vegas. All giddy, we grabbed a quick bite to eat and into the Mirage for the show.

First impressions were of the incredible theatre. Completely purpose built, it’s odd layout meant that I have no idea what else it could be used for and made perfect sense why this show doesn’t tour. As the crowd filtered in we were treated to all kinds of kooky folk wandering about. Then it kicked off.

What took place for the next 90 minutes was a slightly surreal mash-up of the Beatles story and post war Britain, all to a specially constructed Beatles soundtrack. There was so much going on throughout the whole show, you would need 6 viewings to capture most of it.

So how was it? Pretty great overall. I mean, hearing the music presented in that setting was incredible. The theatre part of it was a win for the most part. some bits fell a bit flat, or seemed just a bit too quirky, but overall super glad we went. And if I was in Vegas I would want to experience it all again.

Once the curtain fell on it, we had to leg it back to New York New York for another show, and another Cirque Du Soleil. Three in 2 days? Crazy huh?! But given we were in Vegas, we wanted to do a trashy Vegas burlesque type show and it happened we could score cheap tickets to Zumanity, the Cirque Du Soleil Vegas risque show. So we legged it back down the freezing strip to the warm comfort of NY NY for more.

Right from the get go with the warm up folk we knew this was going to be a different show. Language was a whole lot bluer and the costumes much more revealing. And it continued in that vein for the next 90 minutes. Thankfully Kate and I avoided any major audience participation. It was fun in a trashy Vegas way but was probably my least favourite. Although any show where you say the best part is where the dwarf was flying over the audience whilst dancing suggestively with a scantily clad lady and you can probably get the picture.

It was close to midnight before we then headed back to our digs at the Venetian. I grabbed a bite on the way back down the strip, some odd McDonalds burger that had corn chips in it. Yep, I was back in the US.

Even though we were pretty tired by the time we got back, we had pangs of guilt. How could we be in Vegas and not gamble? So off it was into the Venetian gaming floor. We had big plans… $5 each into a slot machine and then $20 on roulette. Big spenders hey?

The slot machines proved fruitless. I went with the 60’s Star Trek version and to be honest, I really only lost by $5 because I got bored. I was playing for about 10 minutes on the same $5 of credits when I just upped the ante and lost it. I have no idea how people play them so long. Kate similarly did her dough in that manner. Anyway, we wanted the big fish.

So we settled at a $10 min bet Roulette table and each grabbed $20 of chips. Bets were placed and away we went. Alas, in two rounds, Kate was out. Boo! It was quite disappointing. Me however, I kept going… and going… and going. I got down to my last $10 but then back to about $60. In the end I pulled the pin at $51 in chips.

$51 minus our investment of $20 each leaves $10. Take out our slot machine $5 each and we were left with profits of $1. So I can say I left Vegas on top. Ha!

24 hours or so door to door, but finally we made it to freezing cold, big hat wearing, Las Vegas!

The story starts Saturday morning with Kate and I heading to the airport, dutifully our 3 hours ahead of time for our flight Vegas (via LA) with United (yeah, I know… United). With online check-in only giving us a “sorry, but one or more parties are unable to obtain a boarding pass” message we thought we had better get there pretty early. Which while not a mistake, proved to be very optimistic as we sat. And sat. And sat waiting for our flight. As each hour went by, more people were being told “sorry, but you will be unlikely to make your connecting flight in LA”. We had 4.5 hours so I was still feeling OK.

To give credit where credit is due, the United process after leaving Melbourne was pretty good. We had to change planes in Sydney, which was super quick, and then we made time in the air to end up only 2 hours behind schedule. Win! Well, until you are greeted by the LA immigration experience. One person to process ALL visitors on the incoming flights in that terminal. At midday. *Sigh*

Anyway, I don’t want to make this a “oh, boo hoo, international travel is so tiring and horrible” story, because it’s not. It only seems bad because best laid plans go awry, and emotions are heightened by default. When we got on our bumpy connecting flight to Las Vegas, departing just a shade early, all was tip top (well, except our stomachs… that was a VERY turbulent welcome to Vegas). And here I am doing the first entry for this wildly eclectic holiday Kate and I are about to embark on… sitting in my hotel room in the Venetian no less on a sunny Sunday morning with a solid 10 hours of sleep under my belt.

So what has happened in our first night in this quick two day jaunt to Vegas? Let’s get to it!

If you could do the math, we rocked in mid afternoon. On the cab ride from the airport we saw the first signs of a slightly different Vegas experience happening. The annual national Rodeo champs were on and you would think it was Texas. Big hats everywhere, so we could be in for some fun. Anyway, we checked in to our gloriously opulent room at The Venetian. Well, I’m sure it is not that opulent compared to everything else in the hotel, but you all know I am not one for 5 star hotels, but at Vegas rates (i.e cheap) it was hard not to take up the chance. Hot water to make us feel human again, and it was off to wander.

We had no real plan… only planned event was some shows for the Sunday night, so this was just getting out and about. First of all it was an explore of our (obviously Italian inspired) hotel which is suitably borderline elegance and kitsch, as all good Vegas hotels should be. A fairly simply and tasty pasta dinner and small amount of wine later and we hit the strip. Good lord! Freezing! So back to our room for a quick beanie run and back out. Did I say how cold it was?

As we wandered the strip, both Kate and I commented how it just felt kinda different from what we both remembered. Granted, neither of us had been here in 15+ years, but something just didn’t match with our memories. We remembered themed casinos that grabbed you as you walked in with their crazy themes and outlandish sensibilities. However as we wandered it seemed just like a shopping strip with lots of gambling. We popped in to many of the newer casinos early, but still, we both remembered it being much more over the top.

I was quite weirded out by how quiet it felt on the strip. Maybe because it was still fairly early (8pm), maybe because it was so freakin’ cold it was better to be in, and maybe because the rodeo was in town, but there was very few on the strip itself. I remembered it being bustling with all kinds of folk. Hhhmmm.

Our main task was to pick up tickets for our couple of shows for tonight (Sunday) that we had pre-booked. The main point of coming to Vegas was to catch one show in particular that a photo will give away. But alas it is not Donny and Marie, Shania, or even our very own Human nature. More revealed tomorrow…

We achieved our ticket missions so just kept wandering, popping into casinos to stay warm, and stay awake given our imposing jetlag (Kate was fast approaching 30+ hours with not a wink of sleep). As we got in the vicinity of the Aria hotel Kate got her 17th wind and was up for another show. “They have a Cirque du Soleil here that would be pretty good” she remarked. Me with my 12th wind and quite cold was “hhmm… another show… hhmm… OK, let’s see what’s up!”. So after what felt like an eternity traipsing through the casino to find the theatre we came across the box office… to be informed it started in 3 minutes! So haggling with the courteous ticket dude got us good tickets for Zarkana at the cheapest price, and in we went as it kicked off.

I gotta say, for my first Cirque du Soleil I thought it was pretty cool. A surreal acrobatic show is probably the best way to describe it, and it was fun and jaw dropping and looked amazing. Sure I couldn’t follow all the supposed “plot” but I’m not sure that’s the point. I went with it and it was great fun.

So a high five to Kate for her convincing me to go, and we emerged back on the Strip. With the wind chill notched up a bit more we legged it, with a quick detour into the Paris themed casino. Now that’s more like it!

A giant Eiffel tower that actually emerges from the gaming floor, mock Metro stations, Moulin Rouge dressed staff. Over the top Vegas casino at last!

Hi again all! Hope all is well with y’all back home.

This will be a pretty quick post. Yesterday was a slow start to the day and another visit to Disneyland. Yep, of course we were going for two days. So rather than give a blow by blow description of things, let me bombard you with photos and some miscellaneous highlights from the day.

– We finally got to see the REAL parade… twice! Even though there was a little smattering of rain, we got the real deal this time. Needless to say it was suitably cool and kitsch all at once, and there were LOTS of photos taken

 

 

 

– Crowds were down today, I’m guessing mainly due to the crazy rain that was flying around in the morning. But for the most part through the day we stayed pretty dry. It meant that getting onto rides was way easier. Woot!

– As a consequence we rode everything again, and even got to do Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters 5 times. Did I redeem myself? Briefly. At one point I was easily reigning champ with a score of 632,000 points. Kate proceeded to score in the high 600’s next time around. Oh well. At least I was champ for 5 minutes.

– I rode the Mad Hatter’s Tea Cups sans Kate. Not as much fun solo, but they still rock.

– Lots more photo ops with characters that will no doubt please my niece and nephews

 

 

 

– We made fools of ourselves as per usual.

 

 

– I ate something kinda wrong

– We also had to do a lot of souvenir shopping as well. And boy howdy was it tiring! More so that the rides. I have to say after staring at every possible item of Disney merchandise, I hit the wall big time. When you have so many options of what to get everyone, it starts to do your head in. But we soldiered on.

And with that, our Disneyland experience came to an end. Boo. But I’m sure we’ll be back.

Today we take a break from our usual transmission of theme parks to bring you something a little different.

When thinking of how to fill our week in Hong Kong, one slightly more random thing popped up. How about we pop over to Macau? I mean, if it’s good enough for James Bond in Skyfall, it’s good enough for us right?! I was really keen to see if the Portuguese influence was still strong and how that made for a different city experience. So after a bit of a sleep in, we popped down to the Macau ferry terminal (conveniently in our hotel complex building) and bought a ticket to the next ferry. Easy!

While we were heading over, we were giving the Lonely Planet a bit of a read, working out our plan of attack. I read that we were in fact heading over on a Macau public holiday, Ching Ming day. We had no idea what that was, but figured considering it was just after easter, it couldn’t be too crazy. Hhhmmm… we’ll see about that. Oh, and for those playing at home, I have since looked it up and it literally means “Tomb Sweeping Day”. Spooky huh?

After a bit over an hour we docked safe and sound at Macau Ferry Terminal. I kind of forgot that we were really leaving one country and arriving at another (well, technically one administrative region to another). Well, we were made painfully aware of this when we arrived into the formal arrivals hall. “I think this could be worse than Heathrow”, Kate said to me. And I don’t think she was far from it. We were in a massive hall, with only a semblance of order, waiting for passport control. After waiting about half an hour, a new check in point opened. “Go! Go! Go!”, so we took the gamble (it is Macau after all, ha ha) and changed queues. Yes! We were through in 5 minutes.

Out in the main ferry terminal, we had no idea where we really we were. Our map gave us a bit of an idea, but didn’t really have an idea of the best way into central Macau. Then it dawned on us. Why not jump on one of the myriad casino shuttle buses? I thought I had read somewhere it was the best trick, and so we picked the MGM Grand at random and got whisked away. Nice one!

By this point we were starving, so thought why not grab a bite to eat at the casino? So we wandered in and it was your typical, Las Vegas, kinda gaudy, kinda kitschy, casino. And good for us they had your typical cheap casino lunch buffet, but holy moly, this one was actually great! All kinds of delicious foods on offer. So we settled in for an hour of eating and drinking to get used to Macau.

With full bellies, it was time to explore. Just up from the MGM, on the water, was the Statue of Guanyin, a female buddah type figure. One thing I read also said she was also part Virgin Mary. It made for quite a cool sight to see. Given it was a public holiday I was surprised to see it so quiet. Maybe tomb sweeping day just means a lot of cemetery and casino visits.

So we said goodbye to Guanyin and headed into Macau proper. As we walked it was interesting to see lots of tiled walkways and buildings. The European influence was quite strong in places.

So Macau certainly is an odd place. The mix of Chinese, Portuguese, and casino influence all mashes into one. Turn one corner and you see this…

Turn the next one and you are here…

It is fascinating to see almost all signage have a Portuguese equivalent on it. As you could probably guess from the sign, we were in the realm of St Agostinho, home of the St Joseph’s Seminary. The whole square had some beautiful Portuguese architecture, where suddenly we were transported to a different place. It was fascinating. We just sat in front of the Dom Pedro V Theatre and took it all in for a while. It was nice to escape the hustle and bustle we had become accustomed to over the past week.

After some relax time, we headed for the main tourist locale in Macau, the Ruins of the Church of St Paul. On our wander up the tiny streets we would suddenly remember we were in a busy, Asian city… bumping shoulder to shoulder with locals, but would then turn a corner and see more sweet churches.

As we wandered up the windy street full of shopping and food, we came across the ruins…

They were both amazingly out of place, and also of their place. In many respects it would be quite jarring to see this in the middle of a bustling city street, but having just seen casinos, then female buddahs, then old-style Portuguese architecture, then quintessential asian city streets, it seemed right at home.

Again, it wasn’t too busy, so maybe the public holiday was a good time to come. We had a chance to get some cool photos and soak it all up for a bit more.

Soak is a good word to use about now, as it was at this time the typical afternoon rain storm arrived, just as we have been getting used to in Hong Kong. Kate barely had time to say “hhhmmm… I think I might get my jacket out” when it came bucketing down. It was OK, as we were about done there and it was getting on sundown, so decided to wander back to the casinos to do some high rollin’ (or just watching high rollin’) and head back to Hong Kong.

I mentioned the mix of old and new, and it is evident in the casinos as well. The Lisboa is one of the old-school casinos, full of tradition (well, I use the word tradition very loosely here), and then just over the road is the new-school Wynn and MGM. Seems Macau is full of juxtaposition.

So on we hopped to another free casino shuttle bus back to the ferry, to grab a ticket and head back to Honkers. Ah. OK. Maybe not that easily. So this is what happens on a public holiday… the ferry terminal was choc-o-bloc with people scrambling to get a ticket back. We were aiming for a 7pm ferry or so, but the earliest we could get back, normal travel, was 11:50pm. Some ferry companies were completely full. Maybe Kate and I should have listened to ourselves about 8 hours earlier and bought a ticket for the return leg. Oh dear.

After chatting with some other travellers and finding out that seats were fast disappearing, we ponied up a bit extra to go “Superclass”, so we could get on an earlier ferry. As it turned out “Superclass” meant paying about $45 for ticket as opposed to the $25 it cost us to get there. Ha. I love this place.

I was quite happy that Superclass got us a little bit of food, even if it was a pretty dodgy roll with some kind of processed meat. We were quite enamoured with Kate’s dinosaur version…

We had planned to try and catch the light show on Victoria Harbour, but we missed it. Oh well, there would be a couple more opportunities. Instead we just soaked up the amazing cityscapes of Hong Kong, on our way back to the hotel.

A quick bit of food shopping on the way back and I settled in for the night…

… and here is posting two for the day. Double your reading pleasure today!

After being tuckered out from a day of Disney shenanigans, we started the day a bit slower. But the intent was not for it to be low key… in fact the plan was for more theme park! Before you stop reading, no, not more Disney. This time Ocean Park – part aquarium, part zoo, part rides, all fun.

We arrived to the what seemed to be fairly large crowds, but it didn’t really prove to be the case, especially when compared to the day before. This was lucky, as we had to be gone by late afternoon to visit the tailor again, so there was no time to dilly-dally. It was off to it!

Believe it or not, I was more keen on the aquarium aspects of the park. There was definitely going to be time for rides, but I was more keen to see some of the other star attractions. So off it was into the Grand Aquarium.

It was certainly pretty grand. I could stand there all day and watch hammerhead sharks swim overhead. There wasn’t much in there that was too different to say Melbourne Aquarium, but it didn’t matter. Manta Rays, sharks, jellies… they all can keep me entranced for ages.

As to be expected, the exit of the aquarium part led to the first of a bazillion souvenir shops. We did our best not to get too carried away…

 

Even thought the aquarium was cool, the main thing on my radar for the day was PANDAS! Both the giant and the red variety. On our way we bumped into quite a nice red panda who was just hanging out and saying hi to people.

We went into the panda exhibit just in time for some Red Panda training. Did you know they are also known as “Fire Foxes”?

Anyway, we watched this little rascal for what seemed like hours. We were well and truly entranced. Which was lucky, as his giant panda cousin was having a sleep right out of sight. Oh well, there would be time to pop back.

At this point it was time to pop over the hill to the other side of the park. The two parks were joined by a massive cable car that Kate tells me used to be like a ski lift. I cannot imagine what that must have been like. First of all, it was bloody steep. Secondly, it was pretty cold and wet as we were going over. Thank the pandas for the new cable cars.

Over on the other side was a much bigger mixture of both animals and rides. We decided to get a little ride action in before checking out the rest of the animal exhibits. My constitution is a bit stronger than Kate’s so I went on a handful of rides by my lonesome. The Dragon was not a bad rollercoaster… your typically loopy variety. I hadn’t been on one for a while so forgot how violent they can be on your neck and back. Oh well… an osteopath can sort those things out.

I also went on The Abyss, a giant drop type ride. It was OK… the first drop was gold, after that, it was kind of a bit “is that it?”. But still, that split second where your stomach is in your mouth is always fun.

With some rides out of the way, we decided to do some more animals. We chanced upon the obligatory seal and dolphin show. It was your usual animals performing tricks type show, although there was some odd storyline going on that was hard to follow from the broken english. I think there was some environmental message in there, but I figure it was being lost on everyone. Kate was excited though.

Next up was a tour through both the North and South poles. Penguins were plentiful, but alas the walrus was hiding. Boo. Everyone loves a walrus.

There was one last stop on our trip to Ocean Park, and that was back to the pandas. Hopefully the giant panda would be out… and he was! Well, in so much as he decided to have a sleep outside, but at least we could see him. He seemed so comfy there having a rest. Munching on bamboo, sleeping… seems alright to me.

And with that, we were about done. We were soaked again (although some was ride facilitated) and it was time to head back central to visit the tailor. We needed to try on the works in progress to see if any alterations needed to be made before they got finished. They had a shirt completed for me already, and holy heck, it fit like magic! It was so good, I decided to get a few more made. Where else are you going to get top quality, perfectly fitting shirts for about 40 bucks? The suit was looking very rough, but it was intended to make sure it was on the right track before getting finished. A nip and tuck here and there and it seemed good to go. It was filling me with quite a bit of confidence for the finished product.

By this time hunger had hit again. And oh boy! What a coincidence! Is that… Tim Ho Wan? Yep it is! You must be getting a bit sick of this by now, but we were in the neighbourhood, and there were things yet to be eaten, so it was my duty. This time I added some shrimp dumplings to the order…

… steamed beef ribs in black bean sauce…

… and my new favourite, wantons in “special sauce”. I have no idea really what the special sauce was, but it was super delicious. Kinda spicy but just really flavoursome. Yum!!

As you can tell, we ordered up. Considering the whole meal cost about 16 bucks total, you can see why I’m addicted.

On the way out I popped into a more random convenience store and found this nugget. I figured it would be a chocolate milk type drink, and, well, it was a chocolate milk type drink. As Kate said as she tried it… “it smells like nesquick… looks like nesquick… mmm… tastes like nesquick”. So yeah, it was just chocolate milk, but pretty tasty.

Rather than head back to the hotel, we decided to head to Mong Kok for some more looking around. I had wind of some good Converse stores and even some Japanese-style toy stores. It turned out to be a fruitful visit which was cool. In many respects this areas was what I expected from Hong Kong… the slightly dodgier version of shopping. Kind of what Singapore used to be like. It was fun and might be worth another visit before we head off.

Well folks, time to hit the hay! More shenanigans tomorrow.