I was at Vivocity yesterday & I almost thought I was in Genting! Except for the climate of course...
There was so many tourists carrying day luggage and heading towards the monorail station at level 3! Although I saw those reports on the news of the huge crowd for the RWS, watching the action in live was different. Witnessing actually more tourists than the locals (yes, I meant it!) inside a local shopping centre, I felt a strong atmosphere of holiday mood.
I was surprised at the vast range of nationalities though. Honestly, I only expected to see Malaysians since they are just our neighbours. Hence, I was surprised to see Indonesians (many of them), Indians, Caucasians (I really can't understand why they would travel so far just to see a casino?), Chinese, etc.
When I took the train at Harborfront, I was the minority Singaporean in my cabin. Will there be any place for us in future?
The most surprising thing is the stores inside
Vivocity has banners placed in front of their shop entrance that screamed "15% off for
WorldCard members"! Familiar scene in
Genting right? Although the government has been repeating that
RWS is not just all about the casino, but about the theme parks, hotels, etc., I felt the island is just revolving into another casino resort. Will we become the next
Genting,
Macau,
Las Vegas (although that will take a long time)?
Btw, I'm impressed that RWS has a
blog! Looks like RWS are trying to stay relevant because nowadays, its not just the aunties & uncles patronizing the casinos. mypaper this week reported a lot of young people in their 20-30s are patronizing illegal gambling dens in private houses. Some people just have to flow with the new Singapore culture right?
Btw, the RWS
webpage don't use the word "gambling" on their main page, they used the word "gaming" instead. Sounds real relevant huh?
