Singapore has been terribly hot and humid for the past few days and added to the fact that I have been sleeping at 0300 for the past few days, I could not fall asleep at 2300. I eventually fell asleep at 0100 after turning on the air-con but I had to wake up at 0430 so I was super exhausted.
I reached the airport at 0450 and checked in rather quickly due to the short queue. After eating a McDonalds breakfast, I ran into Herman. We chatted a bit about Rapture Gaming and Poker. He then asked me what time my flight was and I told him 0600. It was already 0520 then and JX still have not arrived yet. He informed me that budget airlines usually closed their counters 45 mins before take-off. When JX reached the airport, there was no longer any Macau counter around so he missed the flight and had to pay another $70 for the afternoon flight at 1330. FML, i would reach 8 hours earlier than him and I could not check into the hotel without him since he was the one who won the package at Grand Lisboa.
On board the plane, I was sitting beside a young boy and his mom/aunt. Couldn't tell where they were from. Their Mandarin seems good but it doesn't contain any thick/heavy Beijing/Shanghainese accent so I wasn't too sure if they were Singaporeans or not. The boy was kicking me a lot when he was sleeping. After that I got bored and started playing Chicken Invaders on my netbook and he was staring very intently at my screen. I almost wanted to let him play 2 players with me but the controls was too cramped up together so I changed my mind.
Upon arrival, there happened to be free Wireless Internet at the airport so I messaged JX on facebook to meet at the reception at 1830. I had no idea whether he received it or not so I felt very uneasy. If I could not find him I probably had to go book some random hotel on my own.
It seems there are two ways to go to Grand Lisboa from the airport. Either take the shuttle service to the Ferry Terminal, then change to another bus. Or you could take the cab. The cab only costs 60-70 HKD (10-12 SGD) so I was more than happy to take the cab.
At 1015 I arrived in the lobby of GL. The taxi driver dropped me nearby so I assumed it was the building but I wasn't entirely sure cos I could not see any sign anywhere. I approached a security guard and inquired whether the building we were in was the Grand Lisboa. He told me "Zhe Shi Pu Jing Jiu Dian" (This is Pu Jing Hotel) and I was like wtf where is Lisboa? Basically there are 2 hotels/casinos. One is Lisboa which is the older one and Grand Lisboa which is the newer one. I started walking out but I saw a road sign pointing in the direction I came from, then I finally realized that Pu Jing was GL in Chinese so I turned back.
Next, I approached the reception asking for any wireless internet. they informed me that it was only available for hotel guests so I found a place to put my bag down and started exploring the place.
First Stop: Grand Lisboa Casino
The age restriction in Macau was 18 and this is the first time that no one actually stopped me from entering. All the white dudes in Vegas/UK thought I was some 15 year old kid when I tried to enter previously.
Baccarat is definitely the most popular game in Macau, unlike Vegas. Da/Xiao (Big/Small) is also quite popular but I hardly saw any BlackJack tables. I went around asking for directions to the Poker Room in GL and they directed me to the second floor. I recalled going up 2 levels already but they have stupid stuff like "Upper First floor" so I had to go up a few more levels.
Second Stop: Grand Lisboa Poker Room
This is where PokerStars is holding its Macau Cup tournaments for the rest of the week. I'm probably not playing any of them cos I have not practiced playing for tournaments and I would probably throw my money away with some rash moves. More in the Poker post...
Third Stop: Wynn
I just finished my session of poker. Feeling good about my small winnings, I decided to head to the Wynn to play higher. I also wanted to explore the place since I needed to kill a lot of time before JX arrived at 1830. So I headed there. Apparently it's like 2 min away from sight, but you have to walk in an underpass which would waste another 3min of time but it's ok. There's a nice musical fountain outside with some random spraying of water.
Wynn seems more posh but the tables and slot machines seem quite desolated. I have no idea why but I don't care since I am only interested in poker and Wynn has the best games in town. I started playing 50/100 at 1230 and ended at 0415 after busting. More to come about poker...
Anyway while playing I was getting quite annoyed at the smoking at the tables. In Vegas smoking isn't allowed but all the stupid Mainland Chinese/Hong Kongers have no proper etiquette/table manners. Approxiately 25-30% of them smoke and sometimes I want to punch them in the face whenever they puff their cloud of smoke at me. I felt really hungry after two guys ordered some Char Siew Rice and Dumplings so I ordered Beef Kway Teow. Costed me 100 HKD which is ridiculous (but you could argue that it was only one Big Blind). I was up 5k at that point so I didn't really care but I lost money after my food arrived.
Fourth Stop: Star Galaxy
After losing a bunch of money (14000 HKD) at Wynn, I had no choice but to wander about. The next closest casino was the Star Galaxy so I headed there. It's just across the road. They have some pretty hostesses there to seduce u into playing their casinos. and all of them are super tall, like 1.8 or something (including the height of their high heels). I think a few are Thai so I suspect some of them are trannies.
I walked around in the casino and visited the Poker room there too. It was empty but apparently the movie Poker King was filmed there. After that I watched some performances in the lobby for a while. Seems that the performers in Macau are all whites and not Chinese.
Waiting
I was done at about 1630 or 1700 and I still had to wait for a little longer so I went back to GL. I needed a place to rest so I went up to the VIP lounge to sit for a while but they chased me away. I ended up waiting around the lobby for about an hour. Even tried calling JX with the payphone (who ever uses the payphone these days??) but his phone had no service in Macau.
JX arrived exactly at 1830. Apparently he saw my FB message. He took about 45 min longer than me to arrive and he said it was because everyone was snatching cabs from him. Pretty strange, there was a long line of cabs at my time and I just took the first one I saw.
Hotel Lisboa
Hotel Lisboa is super badass. Best hotel I have ever stayed in my life. It has 2 double beds (with some seat in front of it for duno what reason), a TV in the shitting room [place where the toilet bowl is] (ultimate baller), some soothing music and a display screen at the mirror/sink, a jacuzzi, and a steam bath. It costs about 250 USD per night if I'm not wrong. Pokerstars is paying for everything, including drinks and movies so I'm just going to abuse it and make them pay for raking tens of thousands off me.
Dinner time
JX and I went to the nearby Macs to eat dinner. A MacSpicy Meal (without upsize) costs 27.50 HKD (4.50 SGD) which is quite cheap. A MacSpicy Meal in school would cost 6+ and a meal outside would cost 7-8+. After that we headed back cos it was already 1930 and there was some late night ShootOut Tourney. JX asked if I wanted to buy his action (5000 HKD) so I bought half.
Tourney time
JX bought into the tourney. afterwards when he came back after busting, he said he was playing 40% of hands, really loose and aggressive. He lost AK vs AJ preflop allin which is pretty sad cos he would have been the chip leader if he won this all-in
That's all for today. I will probably not blog so much tomorrow cos I will be grinding at the Wynn I think. So I will be mostly writing about poker hands and stuff like that.
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