Trip Report - Japan Robot Hotel, Manila casinos 3/13-3/22/2018

From a wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_language_in_the_Philippines

"Spanish was the official language of the Philippines from the beginning of Spanish rule in the late 16th century, through the conclusion of the Spanish–American War in 1898. It remained, along with English, as co-official language until 1987. It was at first removed in 1973 by a constitutional change, but after a few months it was re-designated an official language by presidential decree and remained official until 1987, when the present Constitution removed its official status, designating it instead as an optional language."

 

Yeah. The Philippines has quite the colonial history. I had imagined that Spanish had died out by now. The Span/Am war was a long time ago so was surprised to see BACON in spanish on the back of that bus.

 

It's very interesting to hear Filipinos speak to one another. You'll hear a stream of Tagalog, then, out of the blue, a couple of words of English, then a stream of Tagalog, then a couple of words of Spanish. I was listening to talk radio in the cab last night and that's exactly the way it sounded.

 

The Philippines was a Spanish colony for about 300 years so yeah, lots of Spanish influences from the language to the food, and religion (Catholicism).

 

OK, 24 hours to go. So, we then went to SM Mall of Asia.

From the wiki:

SM Mall of Asia, also abbreviated as SM MoA, is a shopping mall in Bay City, Pasay, Philippines, near the SM Central Business Park, the Manila Bay, and the southern end of Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA).

Owned and developed by SM Prime Holdings, the largest mall chain owner and developer in the Philippines, it has a land area of 42 hectares, a gross floor area of approximately 406,962 square meters (4.38050×106 sq ft),[2] and attracts a daily average foot traffic of about 200,000 people.[3]

It is currently the 4th largest shopping mall in the Philippines and the 11th in the world.

Yes, it's a huge mall, with all kinds of stores and such. I went to the Fred Perry store, but seeing as I didn't want to pay $125 for a polo shirt or $50 USD for a ballcap, I just went downstairs to wait for Les.

We weren't ready for lunch just yet, and decided to wait.

Les and I ended up going back to Okada casino, the scene of my "non hand pay Friday night. I didn't have my card so I went to the Membership desk, expecting to have to pay for a replacement card, but the lady didn't charge me.

Regarding Okada casino, from the wiki:
"Tiger Resort Leisure and Entertainment then owned by Japanese businessman Kazuo Okada, was granted a license to operate a casino within the Entertainment City in 2008. In June 2016, the casino complex then named as Manila Bay Resorts was re-branded as Okada Manila.

This is a HUGE casino. The central fountain is called "the Fountain"


Also from the wiki:

"The Fountain
A large central fountain, dubbed as "The Fountain" is the centerpiece of the casino resort complex spanning 37,464 square meters (403,260 sq ft) and costs US$30 million.[8] The Fountain is dubbed as the largest multicolor dancing fountain in the world."
Total gaming space is 284,283.2 sq ft, which makes it equivalent to Venetian and Palazzo put together.

Photography is allowed in the non-gaming areas. Here are some pictures from the entrance lobby





Sorry, as you can tell, I'm getting a little tired and sloppy with my picture taking.

I made a more detailed survey of the casino and I discovered that there were some Buffalo and Wonder 4 machines. There was an "Asian-ized" version of Buffalo Stampede called Dragon's Reign. I sat and played that, hit a bonus and broke even.

But, I was sitting waiting for Les and got "stubborn" playing an FOB machine that I HAD to see the bonus. It cost me $200 USD, but right before I was ready to give up, I got 4 Bonus symbols. I ended up retriggering several times, got 68 spins, and at $1.80 a pull, made my money back.

We then went to the food court after I was turned away from the Japanese restaurant for wearing shorts. Les had long pants and laughed, because this was similar to when Les and i were in New Orleans and he didn't wear a collared shirt to Commander's Palace and had to eat with his jacket zippered up.
So, we went to the food court.
Les had Sizzling Pepper steak and I had Special Shabu Shabu

Les insisted that I put the shrimp "eyes up".

After lunch, I got some more presents to bring home.

Shortbread



Honey and Gorgonzola cookies from Tokyo Milk Company



So, I guess I've gotta go down and convert all my pesos. Les keeps some, so I'm keeping some "clean ones" so I'm not completely penniless for the trip home.

So, I ended up getting 53, the best rate that I could see. The Remington Hotel had run out of dollars, and the recommended me across the street to Resorts World. I stopped in at the local bank (Bank of Commerce) and the offered me 53, but I had to fill out a LOT of paperwork. Still, I got over $2100 in USD for the exchange.

So, I have about 10000 in pesos left over for the remainder of the trip.

Time to take a nap. Dinner is at 7PM.

 

OK, next to the last update. Dinner is over, we ate at the Japanese restaurant at Resorts World "Ginzadon", a Korean/Japanese fusion restaurant:

https://www.rwmanila.com/web/ginzadon/

Les and I both had the 988 peso "special", which was:

Japanese-Korean Unlimited
Enjoy unlimited servings of your favorites from two well-loved cuisines.

They served unlimited "selections" from their Japanese and Korean menu.

The sushi was maguro (tuna), snapper, and salmon (Limit of 3 pieces), several rolls were offered.

Also on the menu were tempura (limit of three shrimp), and several popular Korean dishes.

I ordered maguro and salmon sushi, and a california roll, along with japchae (Korean sweet potato noodles with beef), and miso soup.

Les ordered the ebi (shrimp) tempura, Japanese fried chicken and shared in the sushi.

We went downstairs and I cashed in my loose change. The rest will be for housekeeping, along with uneaten (sealed) food that I can't bring home.

Les was going to make one more pass at the craps table, and was tempting me to make one more pass at "Lulu & Luigi", but I declined, since I left my player's cards upstairs. I have about 8800 pesos left for tomorrow, and I'll probably cash them out at the airport.

So, 9PM sitting in my room, packing my things. It's been a good trip, but I'm ready to come home. Got many of the things on my list accomplished. All in all a fun time with my BFFs. Les and I are going to Lake Tahoe next weekend for a GGWU event and more good food.

Final thoughts upcoming. Thanks to all who read and commented.

 

Thanks for a fantastic read! Did you ever tell us about the craps strategy Les was going to try on this trip? Interested to hear more about this. And congrats on both of your “American” hand pays!!!

 

Awesome and unique report. Really enjoyed following along.

 

Caught back up to this. What an outstanding report! A great guide to Japan and the Philippines! Have a safe trip back to the States!

 

Really, really enjoyed this. Thanks!

 

Thank you for this outstanding and informative trip report.. Thank you so much..!!

 

Bravo, Bravo

 

Great report. I really like the detail you put in that would appeal to us.

 

Thanks for the world wide trip report

 

So, about the craps strategy. At Conner's local 60th b'day party, he met up with a CET 7 star that we had known since our earlier days. He described a craps strategy that he is using. We have dubbed the strategy "The Bel Mateo" strategy.

The way it works is:

This strategy takes a LOT of money, so the Philippines was a great place to try this out with it's lower minimum bets.

You bet 2X the table minimum on each of the back line numbers and round up for the 6 and 8. If you're playing on a $5 table, you put $10 on the 4,5,9,and 10, and $12 on the 6 and 8. So, a $5 table would require a bet of $64, a $10 table $128, a $15 table $192, and so on.

If the shooter hits two numbers, you've broken even, and you decrease your bets by half. If you hit two addl. numbers, raise your bets. Play until shooter rolls a seven, and then start over again. I was not privy to this discussion, so I didn't hear details and Q&A.

My thought is if you have shooters with bad streaks of rolling a number, and then a seven, this could get expensive quite quickly, but if a shooter continue to roll numbers, (Les said one shooter threw 15 numbers in a row) you could win big.

Les played this strategy a few times in the Philippines and he won a couple of times and lost a couple of times. He said that he would never play this strategy in Nevada because it just costs too much. a $10 table would be a bet of $128 (4 x $20 + 2 * $24), since the table minimums were 200 and 300 pesos ($4 and $6 USD) it was reasonable to try. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to play it since I was in "protect" mode after hitting my first jackpot.

 

This TR has been thoroughly enjoyable. Thanks very much.

 

So, while I was playing "chicken" and staying in the room. Les went downstairs for his last session of gaming, he cashed in 3 times for 45,000 pesos each time, which came out to $850.00 USD. I asked him why, and the reason he did that was to avoid the paperwork that I had to do earlier that day. Over 50,000 pesos triggers government paperwork.

He won it playing craps and not using the "Bel Mateo strategy". One guy held the dice for an hour, but it took 2 to 3 minutes per roll because of several issues that were complicating things. We now found out that the betting strategy is only half the total strategy. The 7* guy that we knew and his group of friends are also convinced that "consistent dice setting" is a part of optimizing the strategy.

So, Les came out a winner for the trip as well. Considering that we're both going to Lake Tahoe next weekend (weather permitting) for a GGWU promotion, that works out very well. The promotion is 2500 GGWU points for every 100TC earned.

I went to breakfast early. The buffet breakfast was much better.
Garlic Rice
Scrambled Eggs
Chicken Adobo
Pork Longanisa




Les joined me and he ate breakfast sometime later. We took the bus to the airport. It took 45 minutes to go 2.5 miles to the International terminal.
EVA has only 3 flights a day, so they don't have a permanent presence. We got there VERY early. Got checked in and went to the "very sad" lounge.
Of course, I was in a hurry, so I didn't see that my coffe cup had two handles. Yep, it was a soup bowl . . . .


Had some hot food, just enough to tide me over for the short flight to Taipei.
The flight from Manila was almost an hour late leaving the gate, but we made up 15 minutes in the air.
The meal was



As usual, an excellent lunch.

We are now sitting in the EVA lounge in Taipei, waiting for our homeward bound flight, which leaves at 7:30PM local time.
Sitting in the EVA lounge. Now THIS is a lounge. Courtesy of Les, who's a "dai boss-ee". He is Star Alliance Gold, and gets access to priority seating and lounges domestically and internationally. "It's nice to be king", Les says. I agree.

Here are some pictures of the food items available . . . .


And of course the booze

Another hour here in the lounge, and back on a plane and back to the real world. Wake up early and make breakfast for my son and ex-wife. I took the day off to recover, but then back to work Monday morning. it's been a good trip. Hats off to Les for arranging this for Conner and allowing me to tag along.

 

Thanks for writing this excellent report. I really enjoyed it.

 

Have a safe flight, great report!!! Have fun in Tahoe next week.