Hong Kong & Macau 2008 Day 8

Smooth and fresh-smelling bedsheets and comforter provided a good night's sleep and as soon as we woke up, Slug was raring to hit the jackpots again. In an effort to distract him from gambling, I made him accompany me on a trip to Yaohan, the major department store in Macau. It was a seventh-storey department store with a huge supermarket stocked with an extensive range of Japanese foodstuffs. The foodcourt there served tasty but expensive food. And also I noticed the makeup products sold there was much cheaper than those sold back home. Other than that, nothing much.

Yaohan department store

My lunch of seafood ramen with a huge bunch of my favourite seaweed

Slug and I by the roadside near Yaohan

After a while, Slug started whining, and a hurried trip to Rio shut him up immediately. The whole afternoon was spent (or maybe, wasted) fiddling with the jackpot machine, lapping up the free flow of Coke, and experiencing short spasms of excitement whenever we attained the bonuses. We made some more winnings, before going for dinner at our regular cha can ting again. There are really not many food outlets around.

Dinner of fried fish strips with rice, and mantis shrimps with salt and pepper

Our favourite hangout in Macau

We realised we were on a losing streak when we lost all our profits from yesterday and this morning within a few hours to the jackpot machine. However, we still refused to wake up from the false hope that we could recoup our losses as long as we continued playing. I was so reminded of the National Council on Problem Gambling advertisement that haunted TVs some time back, especially the desperate "再 多一把". It describes our situation perfectly.

We ended the night several dollars poorer and resigned to the fact that ... we were just meant to hand over our money to casinos! See why I hate coming to Macau?