MACAO....THE VENETIAN AND GAMBLING...

Chocolates in the Venetian, Macao

On March 7, we had half the day in Tokyo, with a lobby call around 1:30. We got to Haneda Airport…went through the departure routine through immigration and customs and boarded up. We were delayed a bit…were supposed to have wheels up at 4, but it wound up being a bit after 5. Landing time was supposed to be 8:30pm, but with the delay and a fairly strong headwind, we didn’t get there until a little after 10. Our good friend Herren Hickingbotham was already there with his partner Todd Hill of Park Hill Collections. Herren has been a financial partner with the company for years. They make some classy high end furnishings and accessories for interior designs….a top notch outfit.

We didn’t really plan on getting up with him, but I gave him a call just to see if he had arrived…he and Todd had been in Hong Kong the day before and I wasn’t sure if he would be there. He was…and told us to meet him at Morton’s Steak House in the HUGE Venetian Hotel where we were staying and where we would play. We welcomed his offer to buy us a couple of cocktails and have a light bite with them. 

Casa Leavell

That put us in a nice relaxed mood and after saying goodnight to them, we went off to wind down and go to bed. 

3/8

An off day for us. Since the air quality was so poor it didn't really appeal to us to go for a walk.  Plus we were in quite a remote area and not near the Portuguese part of town that was the old city. In fact the only thing left of the old town was one wall of a historic building.

View from our hotel window

We explored the facilities…which was crazy…hundreds of shops in what we were told is the world’s fourth largest indoor structure. Every designer shop known to man was represented there, and many other boutique shops we’d never heard of. There was nothing we wanted to buy, so it was all window shopping and walking around. We were also amazed at the size of the Casino at the Venetian…and with the construction that was going on around the complex that we could see outside the window of our hotel room. Later someone told us that Macao gets more than 7 times the casino revenue per year that Las Vegas gets. Amazing….and that caused me to investigate some gaming stocks that I wound up investing in a few weeks after we returned to the US.

The Venetian Shopping Arcade

Later that evening, we wound up having a drink at the Four Seasons hotel at Herren’s suggestion. While we were there, a group of folks at a table not far away recognized me and one of them came over to introduce himself. He was a Chiropractor, named Tony Dawson. Very nice guy, and invited us over to meet some of the others. One was Royal Rowe, the manager of the Four Seasons there and who apparently is responsible for opening up several other Four Seasons in that part of the world. Another was Linda Switzer, who manages the MGM in Macau and who is a huge Stones fan. I wound up getting her some hospitality passes to the upcoming Shanghai show. We had a nice chat with all of them and then went out to dinner with Herren and Todd at Portofino.  Then, we retired for the night.

3/9

Show day…this was at the Cotai Arena in the Venetian, a capacity of just over 10,000. Very similar to doing the MGM Grand in Vegas, which we have done so many times. A good show, and a very responsive crowd. There were quite a lot of ExPats in the audience, but there were more locals that we thought there might be, which was cool. After the show we had some drinks with Herren and Todd back at Morton’s. The manager of the place was very good to us, as it was after hours for food, but he accommodated us….with drinks as well. It was a nice way to ease down from the show and to spend time with good friends. We said goodnight to them and headed up for bed. They would both be coming to Shanghai, so it was only a temporary separation.