Apartment Life

Now I realize this is not specific to Hong Kong. In some parts in might be, more to come. We live in a 31 story building broken into 4 separate tower blocks. You do feel though rather like you can't meet anyone, even though there are so many people living here. 

We miss the days we could send the kids into the front or back yards and let them play.  Or casually hang out on your front porch and catch up with our McDonald Ave neighbors. Here it is different.

First off families congregate by nationality. I suppose an expat sort of way to feel like this is your home country.

Our Trip to Macau Near 6 Months In

There comes a point when you are set and comfortable enough that you think about a night away from the kids.  I can report that on an expat assignment, it comes at about 5 to 6 months.  We are very impressed and thankful for our helper Eva to the extent Katy and I started to think about a night away.

Macau much like Hong Kong is also a SAR (Special Administrative Region)  of the Peoples’ Republic of China. It was a Portuguese colony before the handover.  Think of it as the Vegas of Asia only family friendly.  More to come on that. It is one hour away from Hong Kong Island by ferry.  So Katy and I thought it would be a great getaway.

Our Executive Assistant Maria’s husband works in Macau and was able to book us at the Hotel Okura in the new Galaxy Casino complex. More to come on that.

So Katy and I decided to go during the Hong Kong handover Day or SAR (Special Administrative Region) Day we had off on Friday through Saturday evening. We went down to the Ferry.  There are several classes of seats much like planes: economy, business and first class. We decided to choose the business class which means you have larger seats and get served a light lunch and beverages. (Yes here in Asia most flights and ferries serve food. I can’t seem to understand why US airlines have to cut back but here they don’t.  Better not get used to being treated well.)

Because it was a 3 day weekend, the ferry terminal was jammed. Well we got 2 tickets and were told to wait until 30 minutes before to go to the gate. About 45 minutes before, I see all these people headed down and we head down. You get to the gate number for your ferry.  But then what no one tells you is that you have to check in at the gate and they assign you a seat. It took Katy and I about 15 minutes to figure this out.  Luckily we still got 2 seats together.

Trip over was a little choppy. You may recall Katy has motion sickness.  You head out into open sea for a bit. Then landed at Macau. Since it is a separate SAR, we decided to take our US passports with us. We were told later we could use our Hong Kong ID cards. But another long time at immigration.

Like I said, Macau used to be a Portuguese colony so the first thing you see are signs in Chinese and Portuguese and wonder, “wow do I need to know Portuguese to get by here?” At least if you are staying at the hotels the answer is NO. It is exactly like Hong Kong: English, Cantonese and Mandarin.  Now maybe the newer casinos are different than main street Macau, but it is like the entire Portuguese experience was forgotten.  It is all about money and fun now.

So we get past passport control and take the Galaxy bus to the hotel. There must be a luxury bus for every casino and hotel at the ferry terminal waiting to take guests wherever.

The Galaxy Casino just opened, has 3 hotels and a wave pool with sand on top of the casino complex. Our hotel Hotel Okura had it grand opening when we arrived.  The Galaxy is well unbelievable. The Casino, restaurants, malls, shows, private club rooms, and spectacular fountains and exhibits in the halls. We counted about 4 private gambling club rooms. The amount of money that changes hands there must be incredible. Here is where you are reminded of how much new wealth is being created in Asia and not just for the super rich. But you can see middle class families with disposable income like in the US. Once the real power of the Chinese consumer is finally free, watch out.

But since there is clearly disposable income across the classes, the thing that really gets you about the Galaxy is how many families are there from Hong Kong and the mainland. Keep in mind the mainland is only a river away.  So lots of families and the environment seems very family friendly.  Except for the smoking.  I swear the Chinese are in a contest with eastern Europeans to see who are the biggest smokers. And that is another very noticeable thing: if we are a minority group in Hong Kong, and we are, there were even fewer westerners we saw in the Galaxy. But could not be friendlier.  You see families with small kids, tours, senior citizen tours, most from the mainland.

I saw these 4 senior citizens with tour badges on their jackets standing outside a food court.  The women were pointing to their badge, to the food court and back to what I can assume is one of the tour directors.  I recalled my own grandma who used to go everywhere with her senior citizen group and in my mind translated the mandarin I heard from these older women as “The tour said we could eat at any place in the food court and that is what we are going to do. Hey Anna, get back here.  We don’t have to pay for that.”  Yes the Chinese version of the St Mary’s Senior Citizens Club of Pittsburgh.

So the Galaxy is part casino, part hotel, part supermall, part family resort.

We ate dinner Friday night at one of the 2 upscale restaurants.  An Italian restaurant that was incredible. Then off to the Cirque du Soleil Show “Zaia.” Zaia is actually in the Venetian Casino. The Venetian is across the street from the Galaxy.  It has 2 manmade indoor canals with gondolas that run through the indoor mall. Really impressive.  The ceiling is painted with clouds and blue sky.

The Galaxy has a bus terminal that takes its guest pretty much everywhere.  One of the stalls was to the Venetian.  We were told it takes about 15 minutes to get there.  So we got in and actually watched as the bus drove across the street and into the Venetian’s bus terminal. Not exactly a 15 minute drive.

The Zaia show was great. Then we wandered around the Venetian.

We were treated to breakfast at the executive breakfast room the next morning. Spend the morning at the casino.  Yes we gambled. Penny slots. Ha ha. And no Luck was not a Lady. Back on the Ferry and home by 4pm.

Thus ended our first night away from the kids since before Nicholas’ surgery.  Maggie has an off day in September and we booked another stay.  This time with the kids.

One thing after another about living in Hong Kong really is great.  So if you are counting: Disneyland is 1 hour away door to door and the adult playground, that is a lot family friendly, of Macau is 1 hour away by ferry.