Vic is out shopping with Christina, so I’ve got a chance to upload a few pictures.

This is Marcus and his family, Christina’s Aunt and Uncle. They were awesome, and we probably would have only seen a tenth of what we did without them. He was a super tour guide, and also bought me food and beer.

After a quick lunch and walking around a little party of the city, we went to our hotel. The Venetian is massive, with more than 10,000 employees at peak. The place has a huge casino, over 50 stores and 2 McDonalds, one for the employees alone. Our room was pretty nice, but I was disappointed with no free internet. The Venetian is on a road that was scheduled to be the Las Vegas Strip of Asia, but after the economic crisis, they ran out of steam.

As you can see, these hotels are still under construction, though Marcus said it’s been many months since anything has been done. Past the last building there is nothing but a line of palm trees and open fields. More like Loss Vegas.

Here they’re building a hotel that is roughly twice as big as the Venetian, called the Galaxy. I don’t know any specifics, but the place has fortresses on either side that could pass as a large-ish mall in the US. We were told that progress has slowed, but not stopped on it.

Downtown Macau is a place where China, Portugal and the West collide. The roots of Portugal are everywhere, but the city seems to share a an equal amount of Chinese heritage as well. Western influences are apparent in the richer parts of towns, the hotels and the styles of the younger crowds.

Macau had a lot less people than Hong Kong, but still a lot more than Seoul. When we were out in the smaller cities it wasn’t so bad, but downtown was crazy. Also the taxi ride we had in Macau was easily the most reckless driving I’ve ever been a part of. If I hadn’t had a few beers before we left back for the hotel I probably wouldn’t have thought it was so awesome. But I did, and it was.