Macau

While Natalie is gone (boo hoo), Tom and I decided to take a weekend trip to Macau. Our spur of the moment activity for the year! We decided on a Monday to go that upcoming weekend! So we flew in on Friday afternoon. After we arrived and figured out the local currency situation (they use the Pataka generally and the Hong Kong Dollar) we headed to the Rio, where we stayed. The lesson learned with the hotel was that unless you are staying at the Wynn, MGM, the Sands, or the Venetian, go cheap! While our room was nice (see picture from the window), because the idea of a "Strip" doesn't really exist yet, there was not much at the Rio. The casino was awful, one blackjack table, slots mostly with "blue screen", and no real life there! I saw better Casinos at the Denney's off-strip in Vegas. It is definitely the place to go to escape the "mainland" either. But that is primarily due to the fact that 75% of the money made in Macau is from the big players who play in private casinos or rooms. But really, it is not really fair to compare to Vegas right now. There are lots of casinos, but only the four I mentioned are run by guys with Vegas experience, so it is just different!

It was also our first trip to Southern Asia in the summertime. Let me tell you, I will no longer complain about Shanghai being hot. In the picture on the right, you can see the heat haze. You practically melted walking to far.

After we figured out we would not be playing in our Casino, we headed out to the Wynn. And it was a mini-version of the one in Vegas. They had this big gold tree that "grew" in the lobby. After entering we walked around. No video poker (my fav!) to be found! Many Baccarat tables, some Black Jack, no Keno, no free alcoholic drinks??? What was up with that? And it took me half an hour to find a place to have a drink! The bar was tucked way in the back. Weird. We then headed back to the hotel and then on to the Sands. The layout was nice with a stage with live entertainment right in the center of the casino, open to the rest of the casino. And a big bar wrapping around it. The entertainment was so-so, with the funniest thing being the Filipino band singing. It is totally acceptable in Asia for the bands to use sheet music. Sometimes I guess that is because the bands are just a step above Karaoke. Even when the band is playing, people still think it is karaoke! Hilarious. And that was the Case this night. Many of the guests were singing right along with the band, and really loud too. The funniest part was that the most rocking song was "Ret's Get Roud". Oops, I mean Let's get Loud, by Jennifer Lopez.. But that is not how they sang it or what the audience sounded like singing with them. How funny is that song selection? After the band, the next entertainment was 3 sets of ballroom dancers. No kidding. How do you end up with that job??? Anyway, it resulted in most of the crowd dispersing.

Saturday we headed early over to the Venetian. It is on the Cotoi Strip which is on the two small islands of Macau. That Friday night the US Olympic Basketball team had stayed here and played some non-Olympic team. So, there were many more foreigners at this hotel. We enjoyed this one the most I think. And not just because we both won there. We watched a band play in the Bellini Bar in the casino. Mostly jazz with a decent trumpet player. Tom enjoyed a drink and funky little cigar while we relaxed in the bar. I focused on more interesting things such as making art out fruit and thinks from my purse. There was lots of shopping and so many things to do there. We ate dinner that night at the Morton's Steakhouse. Wow, it was delicious. Of course we ate too much and felt miserable, but it was fun.

I noticed a big difference in that there were not a lot of attractive women here. Part of this is due to the fact that Shanghai in general seems to have more attractive women. But it also seemed to be a different mix of people. There were quite a few Malay, but many were hard to place in term of ethnicity. Another big difference was that we saw people looking on the floor for dropped chips. I saw someone doing that and wasn't sure what it was, but Tom confirmed later that it was a chip searcher! Another thing you would never do in Las Vegas is to put chips on someone else's hand. If you are at a table with other players, you can play money on their hands. Kind of freaks you out. But I guess if a player is hot, you can win long with him! At the end of the day, Tom and I both lost what we had won Saturday. But we had a nice time and enjoyed our adult weekend.