Happy Endings Are Possible

  Macau, China
Sunday, November 18, 2007

**Note New Pictures recently added**

Pit Entrance 2

I've had a great time here in Macau. Normally I only stay for less than 8 hours which is even shorter than the average Macau visitor at 1.5 days. 8 days is the longest that I've stayed in Macau and the longest I've stayed in any gambling town in the world. My previous record in Las Vegas was 5 days for the first weekend of March Madness. As a general rule, I never stay more than a couple days in a town that has my worst vice always at hand 24 hours a day. I was in Monaco for 3 days, but that wasn't much of a worry because gambling at the Casino there is like gambling in a mausoleum. Did I mention that I have a gambling problem? But I digress... This trip to Macau was great from start to finish. Last Sunday, Steven and I checked off yet another country in the world where we can say we've sat down and had a beer. This Sunday was the 54th Macau Grand Prix. A German kid helped me to buy student tickets so I got in for less than half price. The reservoir seats aren't great, but I was able to move over to the Grandstands on Saturday and in front of a big screen TV today. The energy in Macau reminds me a lot of the 2nd weekend of June in Montreal when the F1 GP comes to town and you can feel the energy growing throughout the week.

XBOX Guia Curcuit

Like much of China, Macau has changed a lot over the past 16 years since my first visit to the first Casino Lisboa in Macau. Since Vegas interests have moved into Macau, the changes have quickened and the landscape changes vastly from year to year. The number of hotel rooms in Macau must be more than doubling year over year. The Cotai Strip project alone has planned to add 10,000 rooms itself just on Taipa Island. It won't be long before Macau becomes even more Vegas than Vegas itself. Macau is developing into a destination instead of a stopover. There are now plenty of sights to see, museums, shows, art, music, conventions and festivals that could easily fill up a few days to week long visit to Macau. My favorite is the Macau Food Festival. I spent almost an entire day there when it opened playing the Xbox version of the Macau Guia street circuit, eating all kinds of food and drinking cheap Macau Beer. They had a nice fireworks display set on the lake by the Macau Tower to top off the night.

Forbidden Aladin's World

Most of Macau is a testament to the theory that if you build it, they will come. Years ago, the land that the Venetian sits on today was part of the ocean and in it's first 2 weeks they had over 1,000,000 visitors. Today I found an exception when I walked out of the GP through Macau's Fisherman's Wharf. It was the cheesiest "attraction" I've seen since going by Shenzhen's Windows on the World. I'm not quite sure how to describe this place, but the adage here might be if you build it cheesy enough, they might NOT come. On one of the busiest Sundays of the year in Macau, the place was like a ghost town. I kept expecting some tumble weed to roll by and the theme song from the Good, the Bad and the Ugly to whistle in the wind. My pictures tell the story a thousand words could not. There were some people around, but there were more employees than patrons by far.

Forbidden Bumper Cars

On my last night, I realized that I had taken too much money out of the ATM and had $200 in my pocket and needed spend the dead MOP currency. Since I have been eating festival food the past couple days, I decided to have a nice meal at a buffet to treat myself. I had just short of enough to go to the Grand Lisboa so I had to settle for the buffet at the Galaxy hotel (which I had just heard had some poker tables). They had a pretty nice spread, but nothing to write home about like I am now. After stuffing my face with crab legs, lamb chops, roasted chicken, real beef steak, prawns, sashimi salmon and tuna and a whole host of other stuff, I went down to see how the poker tables were. It's really weird; they have this thing called ProPoker. It's more than a dealing machine, it's like video poker, but you're playing against up to 9 other people at a table just like real poker. It just deals video cards and keeps track of the money for faster play and rakes in 10% for the house. I really hated the interface, but it was the only game in town. After I checked out the competition, I decided that I should try to make a withdrawal from them. I haven't played any serious poker in about 2 years, so it wasn't going to be a walk in the park, but there were no major players at the table either. I figured that I could just roll over them from the extremely tight way they were playing.

***If you don't play poker this story is probably going to be very boring and unintelligible for you until the next set of ***

Unfortunately, a few players changed just after I sat down throwing an X factor into the mix to mess up my strategy. I tried to roll over one of the new players and he either had a monster hand or just wasn't going to lay down the hand and I ended up giving him half of my chips. Playing short stacked wasn't a good idea and after about 15 minutes I decided to dig into my pocket and up my chips back up to the max $800 buy in. You just can't bully anyone around with $250 in no limit Hold'em when the other's have up to $4000 on the table. I struggled for a long time, but I finally caught a nice hand just after a short break and missing my blinds. When I got back, I had to pay my small and big blind just to see my cards and used that as the excuse to play the hand the guy on my right raised to $25. I looked in the hole to see pocket Queens and just smooth called him. We had 3 other callers with a flop of 8QK. Sweet! I had flopped a set and no one had a clue what I had. The original raiser bet $50 and I just called him again, but the dealer raised it to $150. He called and I just called again. I think a 6 of spades fell on the turn making it 2 spades on the board, but if any idiot was drawing for a flush with a rainbow flop, he could have my money this time. We both checked to the dealer and he bet a very small 50 into a pot that's over 600, the original raiser folded and I raised it to 150 where the dealer re-raises me to 400 essentially committing himself to the pot as he's already got 575 into the ~1100 pot and only about 350 chips left. I'm thinking the only thing that could beat me is pocket Kings, but he just limped in on the button and called before the flop so it wasn't likely. I go all in and the fool calls me even though all could beat was a stone cold bluff. And I don't bluff (LOL). He reloaded and came back to the table. I looked at the other 3 people at the table and we silently decided to split the rest of his money. He got lucky a couple times and I got bored not playing real poker so I called it a night after doubling up and then some. So after an entire week of BJ and poker, I came out with a decent profit which was just enough to pay for my hostel, my Grand Prix tickets, bus, ferry and plane tickets in and out of Macau. How can they afford to build such nice buildings giving away money like that? LOL My flight is out of Macau, but I won't have enough time to stop at the Venetian...unless my flight is delayed. Anything can happen with Air Asia.

***

Happy Endings ARE Possible

A funny thing happened to me on my way to dinner. I walked into the Lisboa and was solicited by 3 different girls within 10 minutes of arriving. I had been in Macau for 8 days and hadn't been approached yet. One girl was very bold and just said to me in Mandarin, "do you want to get a room"? Another said also in Mandarin, "do you want to go or not?" I was amazed at the brazenness of these women. From the sign we saw at McSorleys, I guess they should open one in the Lisboa, "Happy Endings are Possible". Even on my way home from the poker game around 3am, another mainlander with a short skirt, boots and a plunging neckline grabbed my arm and said, "ni shang chu ma?" At least she didn't grab my crotch like they do in Vietnam. My Mandarin isn't very good, but for some strange reason, I knew enough to say, "Thanks, you are very beautiful, but I don't have any money. You still want me to come?" It was a bold face lie as I had about 2 grand in HKD in my pocket, but the only other thing I know how to say is, "doa shao chien"?(How much?) I was wondering if I had something written on my face that said I needed some luvin. I looked around me for a sign or something, but there wasn't anything I could see that said, pick me, pick me. But I guess I shouldn't feel bad, there are slim pickins' at 3am if you haven't already found work by then when the night was turning cold and the forecast calls for pain.