Macau: Day 10
Hard to believe I've been here for a week and a half already. The days fly by.
Right now we're on the second leg of this three-leg tour. The first leg, the Asian Poker Tour, ended with 20-year-old Yevgenniy Timoshenko taking down the top prize of $500,000. For the APT, we were based out of the Rio hotel and walked a few blocks every day to the Galaxy StarWorld. The accomodations weren't glamorous but they did the trick.
Macau has two "sides": the peninsula, which is Macau proper, and the islands, which are called Coloane and Taipa. The "Cotai Strip" is reclaimed land between the two islands -- Cotai being an amalgam of Coloane and Taipa. All of the mega-resorts are located on the islands. On Monday we moved out there for the start of the APPT.
I have to say, I like the peninsula better than the islands. There's more building density and more street life on the peninsula -- more population density. It feels like a real city, and even more than that a real Asian city. Out on the islands, it feels like a mix of Tunica and Las Vegas, and not in a good way.
Not only that but we had a bit of a snafu with our accomodations at the Grand Waldo and were redirected to the Hotel Taipa Square, which must be Chinese for "mildew-filled flophouse with concrete beds". I have never slept on a harder bed in my life. I think if I ever tried to bring a hooker back to the room, she'd insist we have sex standing up.
Still having fun though. The APPT event has only been scheduled for seven one-hour levels each day, leaving us plenty of time to get up to shenanigans at night. I've also developed a
More details eventually, but we're soon to be underway for Day 3 and the craps table is calling.