Me gracefully diving into the langham hotel pool

“Rohan is a total sleaze who sleeps with anything that moves and is a gambling addict”

Well…….

***** Hand History for Game 1351354175 ***** (Absolute)
$1000.00 USD NL Texas Hold’em - Saturday, April 04, 03:50:27 ET 2009
Table FRANKLIN ST (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Seat 4: RAVROB ( $523.73 USD )
Seat 6: RAIDERDUCK ( $1369.27 USD )
RAVROB posts small blind [$5.00 USD].
RAIDERDUCK posts big blind [$10.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to RAIDERDUCK [  9d 9h ]
RAVROB raises [$55.00 USD]
RAIDERDUCK raises [$170.00 USD]
RAVROB calls [$120.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 3s, Ks, 9s ]
RAIDERDUCK bets [$130.00 USD]
RAVROB raises [$343.73 USD]
RAIDERDUCK calls [$213.73 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ Td ]
** Dealing River ** [ Kh ]
RAVROB shows [Th, As ]
RAIDERDUCK shows [9d, 9h ]
RAIDERDUCK wins $1046.71 USD from main pot

***** Hand History for Game 1351341619 ***** (Absolute)
$1000.00 USD NL Texas Hold’em - Saturday, April 04, 03:36:28 ET 2009
Table FRANKLIN ST (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Seat 4: RAVROB ( $1100.12 USD )
Seat 6: RAIDERDUCK ( $810.88 USD )
RAVROB posts small blind [$5.00 USD].
RAIDERDUCK posts big blind [$10.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to RAIDERDUCK [  Qd Qh ]
RAVROB calls [$5.00 USD]
RAIDERDUCK raises [$30.00 USD]
RAVROB raises [$330.00 USD]
RAIDERDUCK raises [$770.88 USD]
RAVROB calls [$470.88 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 4c, 3s, 4s ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 5c ]
** Dealing River ** [ 7d ]
RAVROB shows [Ac, Jd ]
RAIDERDUCK shows [Qd, Qh ]
RAIDERDUCK wins $1621.01 USD from main pot

Woke up early listening to the calming sounds of pokerstars beeps and andy playing a session. Think I eventually got up about 11-12. We got on the train and went to Hong Kong island to check out the peak, which is a massive lookout over Hong Kong/Mongkok. There is a tram thing that goes up a steep hill which took about 20 minutes. It was a good experience. We got some photos of the smog. On the way down we ran into a group of 7th day eventists/mormons from the USA which was cool. It was funny listening to them refer to each other as “sister” and “elder”. I might become one.
After we got back we went to the temple street markets again and bought some watches. They are not bad l0oking, just need to adjust the size of them slightly. We also had dinner in an outdoor restaurant where I ordered some sea snails. They werent too bad, kinda like an oyster except stronger.

When we got back we had a look for the $6,000-ish I had earlier misplaced in the room. Well not misplaced, but left in my laptop bag earlier that day like the life fish that I am. We had no luck finding it so I reported it to the lobby security staff, and then to the police station at around 1am. The police/hotel staff reviewed the security tape and saw that the housemaid had made up our room as we were gone, so its pretty obvious where the money went. It was our word against theirs with no proof so theres not alot I could do. Ended up wasting like 3 hours at the police station until 4am getting a report translated. They wanted to come back up to the room but I couldnt see the point, so I let it go.

Money is the root of all evil anyway rite??

I had played a 3500 hand session until 3am the night before, so once again it was hard to get out of bed in time for breakfast. All I could manage was 2 bowls of cereal and some yoghurt, which I was severely regretting after we left our room and got onto the 1 hr ferry ride back to Hong Kong. It was a million times rougher than when we came out the other side and I was feeling really ordinary. I almost had to reach for a sick bag but kept it down. I kept myself busy taking awesome photos with Andys camera while he blogged. Once we got through customs we had another excellent feed at a place in the ferry terminal, which I badly needed. I got thai noodle soup with sausages or something like that. We got a taxi to the Langham hotel, which was great. Mongkok is the suburb we are in and it is apparently the most densely populated place on earth with 131,000 people per square kilometre. The streets were obviously packed, with lots of shops crammed next to each other selling everything you could imagine (we saw a shop that seemed to only be selling ladders?).

Once we got into our room we tested out the internet connection then went to the 41st floor which contained the health centre. It was very impressive. We firstly did a gym session while looking out over the city, and got some great photos. After that we headed to another part of the floor and went in the heated pool. Andy and I had contests over who could swim under water the longest. After the pool we headed into the locker rooms which are awesome in themselves. There is a guy who works full time in there, just doing stuff like replacing towels and drying the floor after people get out of the shower. It contains lockers, showers, changing areas, a part with mirrors which has sinks and hair dryers and shaving gear, a 40 degree spa, a sauna and a steam room. Also you can just put on a robe and walk around which is cool.

I didnt know there was a difference between a sauna and a steam room. I thought a sauna was sposed to be steamy. Anyway we gave it a go and lasted about 2 minutes. It was just a really unpleasant heat, not good at all. We hit the steam room after that which was slightly more bearable. At least its kinda a nice heat. We stayed in there about 5 minutes.

We headed back to our room for an online session and got room service, and around 8pm we went to the markets, firstly the “temple street markets” and then the “ladies markets”. Which are supposed to be the best and busiest markets in Hong Kong. It really reminded me of the Bangkok markets, selling the same kind of stuff anyway. One massive difference between them is that they do not seem to hassle you to buy stuff here like they do in thailand. The shop owners pretty much just stand around and let you look at stuff. There is still the somewhat painful negotiating though. I bought a poker belt and some bracelets, and Andy got a hoodie, underwear and a couple of T shirts. No doubt we will be heading back over the next couple of days to get more stuff. We bought some cokes and stuff from the 7/11 and then came back home, where I played another session and Andy went to bed.

I got up kinda late and was feeling a bit under the weather from our big night at the wynn. We went to the pool/spa again and got photos of ourselves frollicking. We played online for a little bit and then started our last live session at Grand Lisboa about 4pm. We saw a couple of the regs, and ran into James again. We played until about 8pm and then headed out across the road to a small place for dinner. It was one of the best meals since we had been here. I ordered the same stuff as I did the first night (chicken noodle or something) and it was really good. It was right next to a TAB-equivalent where there were people shouting at the dog racing., it was a good atmosphere and only about 10 bucks AUD each. I have much preferred the small street places to eat over the expensive and often crap casino restaurants. It also seems like every time we eat in a casino restaurant they sit us in the back? Andy reckons its because they are racist. My theory is that we are TOO good looking, and they do not want us distracting the other customers…yep.