Red Market, Red moon.
Still alive
The last few days have been orientation, tours of Macao, tomorrow we tour the theatre.
Went in to the Venetian HR offices on Macau Peninsula on Monday. They’re a little overwhelmed by the number of people coming in – they sometimes ask you to fill in forms you’ve already filled in, and they’re a bit frazzled – but overall, pretty smooth. They took my passport away – no-one seems to know what for. I should have it back tomorrow, hopefully with a red consultant visa stamped in it. I had to borrow a pen from the lady sitting to my left, so we got chatting. Her name is Freida, and she is from Hong Kong. so I startled her slightly by shouting “Ah! I need to talk to you!”. When she recovered, I explained that I needed to pick up some pallets of my stuff from Hong Kong docks and ship them to Macau. This baffled her, but the guy over the table said “Oh, no problem”. Since he looks like a Chinese wharfie, I’m inclined to believe him
Turns out he’s one of our riggers, called Danny, and is also from Hong Kong. He’s having some stuff shipped over as well, so he can just call the shipping company he uses, and get them to grab my stuff as well and bring it over. So that’s sorted.
The next day, we went on a bus tour of Macau, with a tour guide from Hong Kong who spoke excellent English, but no Chinese. And she didn’t know Macau very well. So Danny spent the day translating, and telling the driver where to go. Always, always have a local friend, is my advice
We hit the main tourist places – Cenardo Square, the Red Market, Macao Tower. Red Market is just insane. Live turtles which we presume are for food, fish filleted in front of your eyes still breathing, chickens waiting to die at your whim. More pork than even I could possibly eat, and big bags (up to my waist) of deep fried pork skin, like those tiny bags of crackling chips you can get on an industrial scale. Fruit I’ve never seen before, and honest-to-god hundred year eggs, in 3 different varieties.
I haven’t tried those yet
When we did Orientation today, the trainer asked what we liked about Macau, and I said “The food!”. “Ohhh! Have you tried chicken’s feet?” “Not yet!” “How about eel?” “Yeah, we have that in Australia. Not very exciting” “Ohh! Cow’s stomach?” “Yeah, we call it tripe” “Snake?” “No! I haven’t found snake!” “You haven’t found snake!? I’ll tell you where to get it!”. She thinks snake might be too expensive in Macau, and we might have to go to China to get some. But she and her colleague want to come see the Cirque show (and her colleague asked if I could dread *her* hair!), so they’re going to take me for Dim Sum some time, hopefully complete with snake, and in return I’ll try to hook them up with comps. I’m not sure if I even get comps, but the show doesn’t open for a while. I’ll work something out
Everyone at the Casino is very excited about the show. This is the largest casino in the world, on a strip that turns over more money per day than Las Vegas, and *they* want to come see *my* show. They’re making me even more excited about it
The Chinese, they love the dreads. They were walking behind me touching them, coming up to me to compliment them and giggle at them. It’s an awesome feeling.
The whole place is an awesome feeling. I’m learnig a little Cantonese every day, I’m trying some new food every day. Sooner or later I have to start work, but for the moment, I’m just wallowing in Macau. Even the pollution makes things beautiful. mother Nature never knew colors like that ….
Photos: http://cirqadia.eccentrify.com/gallery
jai.
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November 18th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
[...] and jumped off, on Hennessy road. Or rather, just off Hennessy road. 3 blocks of stalls, putting the Red Market utterly to shame. Food, hardware, crafts, jade, clothing, anything you like. Including presents for [...]