Macau Madness
Salut from rainy Hong Kong. Yes, the clouds and fog have finally turned to full on rain. And you know what? That's okay with us.
After go, go, go, going for three days straight here, and for almost three weeks of our travels in total, we realized something that is going to be crucially important to us these four months - time for ourselves. Even though there is an amazing country or city or unseen sight right outside our door, we need to sometimes just veg out. Relax. Write. Sort photos. Listen to music. Watch a movie. It's important to just take some time for ourselves. So, we did. And it was great. Spent the day writing and relaxing — and getting this blog sorted! Our internet was decent, so that helped tremendously. Tim ran out and got us round two from Ada's — dumplings and fish balls. Too good to pass up a chance to have again!
Then, before we knew it, it was time to head out on our late afternoon evening adventure to Macau. We were seeing the 8pm performance of Franco Dragone's famous House Of Dancing Water. It is touted as the largest water show in the world and my friend Matias from IRIS in LA is now the Head Rigger there and set us up with the tickets. My friend Jared, also from IRIS, introduced us up with his sweet friend Venus on Facebook as well, so we were excited to see them both after the show.
One thing to remember about Asia — always, always, always give yourself extra time getting anywhere. We left the apartment at 5:15pm and, with the help of a speedy taxi driver from our delayed ferry at the station in Macau and our running through casino abilities, we plopped down in our seats at 7:59pm. No joke.
The show...spectacular. Such a visual feast for the eyes. Truly remarkable and one of the biggest shows I've ever seen. Highly entertaining and to the supporting female lead with the high boots who worked that stage...WERK! The whole cast was excellent and the crew have quite a performance to pull off every show. And a special shout out to the motocross performers - random as hell, and they sort of worked it into the plot, but the crowd was going nuts!
Matias was kind enough to give us a backstage tour after the show and it is seriously impressive. He took us down to the water tanks and up to the upper grid — and everywhere in between. These theatres that are built for shows still blow my mind — up there with the likes of O and Ka in Vegas. And Dragone is starting to roll these out in various cities in China now. Mind blowing really. House of Dancing Water was doing a VIP tour after the show where people spend who knows how much money get to come up on the set, they splash water and shine lights around them and they meet a few of the cast — the last photo shows their private water show from high above the action!
The four of us — myself, Tim, Matias and Venus — wandered around Macau a bit and then had a tapas dinner and a few beers. Great catching up with Matias and meeting Venus. But, before we knew it, it was midnight and we needed to make our way shortly to the ferry station to catch our 1am ferry back to Hong Kong, then work our way home to get up at 6:30am for our flight to...TOKYO!
Thanks for the madness Macau — was wild...even if only for six hours.
