Celebratng My Man

Let me start at the end by saying we have decided to begin planning our next trip!  Yeah…it was that good.  We got to the hotel (I picked the cheaper hotel that was still nice but not attached to a huge casino…but close enough) where we learned that they upgraded our room for free.  I booked the room through the Chinese version of Orbitz (giving us an excellent deal) so the only reason I can think of that they upgraded us was because we were Americans.  Our first night we took it easy and went to one of the big casinos close by. 

After 3 hands of blackjack each and 2 hours on a slot machine we were down 380 Hong Kong Dollars (FYI: I budgeted for 1500 in entertainment gambling which is under $200 US).  Saturday I had tons of plans but we ended up spending the day at the casino…it’s really fun to watch people and to try a little luck yourself.   Last time Adam had luck at the roulette table while I stuck to losing money at the 2c slots (with the exchange rate it comes to like nothing in US).  This time we teamed up and conquered the house at roulette.  Well made a small dent in their large profits. 

When we walked away from each table we made a personal bet with no money on the line...after being up 2000 HKD Adam's personal bet was put everthing on 24...

This is adam's face after the marble landed on 24 with none of our money on it

Adam kept track of numbers and I was in charge of picking the combo’s and saying when to leave the table.  Now with Adam’s good number sense and my instinct and hate of wasting money we made a pretty good team.  We walked away from the first table up 500 HKD (after you count the money we started with and the money we lost the day before).  We went to another table and lost the 500 (mainly because we started getting aggressive).  After being back at 0 we went to the Hard Rock casino and saw a show (YAY FOR FREE SHOWS) and went back to the tables.  This is where we perfected our strategy and won 3525 HKD (after subtracting what we started with).  We started with 500 and played conservatively splitting chips among 4 numbers (4, 14, 24 and a number that hadn’t been played in a while…our 14 and 24 are our birthdays and 4 is our anniversary) once we collected a few times we would split between 2 and pick 1 number to put a chip on.  Once we collected from those we set aside what we started with and started playing more numbers that hadn’t been picked in a while.  Then when we were VERY safe we became more aggressive.  Since it was raining we went to ANOTHER casino after dinner at the Macau Tower (the highest place in the world to bungee jump from…or something like that) and went back to the roulette tables.  We were a lot more aggressive in the beginning and that was our downfall…we lost 1000 of our winnings.  In the end because of what we won we were able to pay for the hotel room and the ferry tickets, all our cab rides and 2 meals…so basically our weekend in Macau cost a trip to Starbucks, a lunch and a small dinner.  On Sunday we decided to do the sightseeing that I planned for the day before but it turned out that it was the same place we went the last time we were there…oh well it’s always nice to see something a second time.  We really didn’t do even half the stuff I planned but we had a good time and hardly knew it rained a lot.  We (control freak Lindsay and Adam who is better at everything then I am, plus with our competitive nature) really learned how to work as a team…I know it’s an odd thing to learn at a casino.  Adam had a great birthday and personally I am much happier giving him a trip rather than a present he doesn’t need.

Macau For Adam’s Birthday

Rather than gifts for birthdays or what not we go on small trips to create memories.  Being in China has put us close to many exciting short trip places.  This weekend we will go back to Macau.  The last time we were in Macau we barely spent 1 day there.  This time we will have a chance to do some sightseeing a little gambling and see the city at night.  Not to mention trying some local cuisine.

Macau

Our first trip in China together.  We went to Macau for the day with Adam’s Durham and Malaysian co-workers who are here for the tool instillation. 

Adam's coworkers on the ferry

Adam and I in front of the ferry

We had a blast.  The cool thing about Macau is all the signs are written in English, Chinese and Portuguese.  We didn’t run into anyone that spoke Portuguese but Macau (like Hong Kong) is independent of Chinese rule and they used to be ruled by the Portuguese.  We saw a church that had burned down years ago and the only thing they built back was the front wall.

We had a noodle lunch (apparently they were known for their noodles so we weren’t allowed to order anything else), and went out to the Casino’s.  We each started with $400 RMB (about $50) I won then lost then won then lost and eventually gave up.  Adam wants me to say that he did very well playing roulette and made our trip cost neutral with his winnings.  I played the 10c slot machines and Adam played the high rolling games.  We had dinner at the Hard Rock Café in Macau

Cree people having dinner

and took the Ferry back.  All in all a WONDERFUL trip, so wonderful in fact that I booked a hotel for the weekend of Adam’s birthday so we could spend more time exploring, hopefully find some Portuguese restaurants and I am counting on Adam to make that trip cost neutral as well (even if it is an inexpensive trip thanks to the Chinese cheap ticket website.