Amajing Beijing

As amazing as it may be, my brief Beijing encounter lasted roughly a dozen hours. I don't want to pretend like I know or experienced THAT much of Beijing, or even China for that matter, but the mere hours I spent walking around Beijing was well...amazing.

If you ever have a long layover in China and want to get out and explore, but are deterred because you don't have a visa, worry not. China allows you to leave their airports for up to 48 hours in some cities. Beijing had a 24 hour policy, which worked out well since I had less than that to get out and site-see.

I landed in Beijing a little before midnight and had to board my plane to Incheon around 3pm. That gave me enough time to catch some sleep, catch an early cab into the city, and make it back in time. After striking out at the airport's hourly hotel, I dropped off my backpack at the luggage storage, had some Chinese girl write down "Forbidden City", "Tiananmen Square", and "Airport" in Mandarin, and took a rest on an airport bench alongside fellow wanderers.

My buddy Scho had previously recommended I catch the sunrise at Tiananmen for a flag-raising ceremony so my slumber was short-lived. I grabbed a cab around 4:30am to make it there in time. I had forgotten to take into account the fact that China operates on 1 timezone (they had 5 up until 1949). Yes, that's right. A landmass much larger than the continental US is the same time no matter where you are. The sun rises and falls much later in the West than in their Eastern counterpart. In other words, the Eastern cities (e.g. Beijing) experience earlier dawns and dusks relative to the rest of the country. What I'm trying to allude to is that by the time I arrived at Tiananmen at 5:15am, the sun had already set. I made it just in time to catch the flag ceremony though. I didn't think that many early-rising tourists would make the journey, but I was wrong.

I had to fight for a clear view of the guards raising the flag in the distance. Once the flag was up, the crowds dissipated. From my understanding, hundreds (even thousands?) of local Chinamen get up early, catch the flag ceremony, and go to work. Nothing quite like a big bowl of Communism to start the day. The ceremony was cool though. Afterwards, everyone was free to walk around the Square. I spent the next hour or so people-watching (a truly wonderful activity in China), taking photos, and talking to Chinamen who wanted to practice their English.

Tiananmen Gate to the Forbidden City

Chinese bros flying kites in Tiananmen at 6am.....what else?

After Tiananmen, I made my way towards the Forbidden City. Not really knowing where I was going, I followed some signs towards the famous Tiananmen gate to the Forbidden City with the iconic image of Mao on it. 

I walked through Zhongshan Park to get to the Forbidden City and couldn't help but notice the sheer amount of [old] people working out at 7am on a Monday morning. It was very similar to the countless ajummas and ajusshis in Korea you see hiking, stretching, and using outdoor public exercise machines at all hours of the day , but in China (minus the bright ajumma clothing).

Ajummas in Korea

Chinese exercise enthusiasts near the Forbidden City...

He was running backwards, which, appropriately enough, sums up how I felt about much of China

 

After soaking this park up for a few hours, I ventured into the Forbidden City before saying Zàijiàn to Beijing. Here are the final pics of my brief time in China...

And finally, what's a post on Beijing without some Beijing Cooldown action? If you're curious what Chinamen do when it's real hot out, here you go. The one and only...

For more photos of my brief time in Beijing click here.

A Big Buddha birthday

2nd to last post on the Hong Kong trip that started May 6th in HK, took me to Macau on the 8th, and Beijing and the 10th.

After a night out in Lan Kwai Fong, Eric and I met up with our friend Chris to check out the Big Buddha, or Tian Tan Buddha as it's formally known, on Lantau Island. We got to the cable car station early enough to grab a bite to eat and avoid the long lines.

The cable car trip to Ngong Ping was gorgeous. We saw a great cityscape of HK, the airport, lush vegetation, and an outline the Big Buddha. It was quite the entrance. Upon arrival, we braved the high temperatures and walked around the area. It was especially cool since Buddha's birthday was only days away.

For more photos of the Big Buddha, and other sites in/around HK, click here.

Before hopping on my overnight flight, Eric and I checked out some more sites, including the Hong Kong Disneyland and the harbor. 

Thrilled...

 

Bruce Lee

Wynn-ing and Losing in Macau

For those of you who have never heard of Macau (used to be me before going there), let's change that. Riddle me this: Macau's profits this year will exceed $20 billion. By April 2011 alone, Macau grossed what Vegas did in all of 2010. BY APRIL! Macau, a Portuguese colony until 1999 (like Hong Kong with the English until 1997), is the Chinaman's gambling mecca and a cool 2-hour ferry from Hong Kong harbor. It has newer, nicer models of popular Vegas casinos such as The Venetian, Wynn, MGM Grand, and Sands.

Part of the reason Macau rakes so much is the rampant gambling addiction among the Chinese. I grabbed some newspapers before boarding my plane in Beijing and learned that there are numerous help groups for the "best husbands" of China. I no longer own the newspaper (and thereby lack full credibility.....call me a 'Scott Templeton'....sorry I just finished the fifth and final season of The Wire....), but one article told the story of a man who (whom?), after gambling away a mortgage and attempting to commit suicide, started a gambling addiction hotline. According to this guy, his lines are constantly busy with mostly middle-aged men who are looking to talk about their gambling problem. According to an article on The Telegraph, "an estimated one trillion yuan (~$1.4 billion) is also wagered illegally each year in China – equal to the entire economic output of Beijing." A staggering amount when you consider more than half the population lives in rural areas on just 4,700 yuan (~$730) per year.

This brings me to my next point. Las Vegas doesn't want to be like Macau. Yes, Macau OWNS Vegas when it comes to revenue. However, Macau has nothing on Vegas when it comes to, well, Vegas. By that I mean Macau doesn't have that crazy bachelor--bachelorette--The Hangover--weekend with the bros scene that Vegas definitely does. Instead, they have relatively empty streets (for a population of 540,000) and PACKED casinos full of Chinamen with one goal: to gamble. Eric and I didn't really see anyone taking advantage of the free drinks (which is reeaaal dumb) because, again, dudes go to gamble money not guzzle free drinks.


Quick back story. While walking around HK, Eric and I noticed countless advertisements for an upcoming grand opening of a new casino called The Galaxy. They had entire subway stops on lock-down. Galaxy this and Galaxy that. They wanted people to know they're here a force to reckon with.

Turns out, they're right. The Galaxy, in my opinion, is a resort/casino that you will be hearing a lot about in the next decade. After all, it only cost $2 billion to build.

Let's go over some of the features that set them apart (pictures courtesy of CNNgo).
World's largest rooftop wave pool? Check. An artificial beach with 350 tons of white sand to go along with the wave pool? You bet.

An enormous "diamond" that floats out of a fountain under a chandelier while programmed lights shine a rainbow of colors? Uh huh.

Fertility-themed decor in the lobby? Yup.

Peacock tail

"Seashell" sculpture

Blown-glass writhing sperm-esque sculptures

One of Asia's largest collections of whisky? Obviously.

Personal pools in the suites? C'mon.

Other highlights of the ~6 million square feet property include: 
-more than 50 restaurants, and 600 tables and 1,200 slot machines in 5 differently-themed rooms 
-the hotel has 2,200 rooms, run by hotel brands Banyan Tree and Japan's Okura 
-the private club and restaurant China Rouge is modeled after 1930s Shanghai 

Watch out world, The Galaxy might just become the world's premier resort/casino. Here are some more photos of it...

A sketch of the property

Galaxy's top dogs

I actually took this one

As for Eric and I, we only had enough time to spend the afternoon in Macau. We jumped on the ferry--after eating brunch in HK with Jo and her parents--and arrived in Macau around 3pm. We heard many casinos run free shuttles to and from the ferry terminal so we hopped onto the Four Seasons bus with about 6 other Chinamen and took off. I'm going to try and give you a visual here. The bus took a left out of the terminal, towards all the casinos. So far so good. It turned left into the nearest casino, The Sands, went through the drop-off point, and proceeded back towards the exit. The bus then turned right, onto the main drag where we came from, and headed back for the ferry terminal. Okaayyyy, interesting. The bus flies by the entrance to the ferry terminal and heads past the "To Airport" signs and straight for a really long bridge connecting another piece of land.
"S**t!" Eric and I both say aloud, "We're going to mainland China!!"


We were especially worried because we only had ~5 hours in Macau and were afraid this detour would cost us valuable time. We tried asking some of the Chinamen where we were going but they just smirked at us. Certainly not the hospitality we're accustomed to in Korea. We figured what happened next was completely out of our hands so we just sat back and hoped for the best.
Turns out there are TWO main strips in Macau (kind of anti-climactic I know).

Macau consists of the Macau Peninsula and Cotai, which  is an abbreviation of Coloane and Taipa Islands

We arrived on Macau Peninsula and thought we saw all the casinos. Turns out the Four Seasons shuttle we got into went to the....Four Seasons on the Cotai Strip. Surprise surprise. Had we got on the Wynn bus right away, we never would have seen The Venetian (which is the 5th largest building IN THE WORLD)...

...and The Galaxy. Shame that would have been. Anyways, Eric and I walked around the Cotai Strip for a while before heading back to the other strip, to check out MGM Grand and the Wynn. The MGM's building was way more spectacular than the actual casino. The casino lacked life and had some bare walls. Bare walls?! In Macau?! After watching a Chinaman lose his cool by chucking his chips and getting in the face of a roulette dealer, we bounced over the Wynn. The art on the walls and perfumes being pumped in the air told me they cared about their interior. We decided this was the place to be. As one Wynn employee declared, "The Galaxy is very big, yes, but the Wynn is luxury." Luxurious indeed. However, if personal pools, a rooftop beach, and an enormous, rotating "diamond" isn't luxurious I don't know what is.

When we had to leave Eric was in the black (shocker...) but I didn't have such luck. Yes that's right. I ended up losing. At the Wynn. Ironic?

...2 days down 1 to go...