A nearly empty parking garage at past 3 AM in the morning might not seem like much. This is however where things started to change for me. Switching Worlds is a new series of content where I’m leaving the safety of my room and adventuring out into the real world.
I’ve been rather tired for quite some time of being in the same place. While I’ve always been quite the introvert. I did not like what I saw with how the world was transformed by COVID-19. You average people are supposed to enjoy getting out and most importantly leaving me the heck alone in my room! Since watching the world turn into introverts I’ve wanted to crawl out and have my adventures.
While going to the casino might not sound like much. For me, it quite is a lot to get out and interact with others in the random fashion that occurs at a casino. This series also won’t just be about casino trips. I’ve now been on quite a few different adventures.
Not that long ago I talked about using Pokémon Go, Alltrails, and some other looser plans I had. At the time I did not have a name for this series. A few things had already transpired but not enough to understand how I was going to approach this series.
This is not my first time talking about the casino and I do end up going to quite a few different ones in this series. It seems this is only fitting where things truly started from.
Just before this short trip to the casino, I had finally gotten my first smartphone ever. This opened up quite a whole new world and the ability to engage with the world that I could only do through my computer at home.
This also meant I had a massive upgrade to my ability to take and store photos. In the past, all my photos were taken on a cheap little camera off Amazon that chewed through double A’s like they were going out of style.
Those photos were not that great. I was also many times stuck with dead or near-dead batteries. I also could not see those well on the tiny screen in real-time so I was often stuck hoping I took good photos. This all rather hindered my ability to share my experience as I like to do on my blog like I’ve been wanting to for quite some time.
Now that hurdle was passed with a new phone. It was time to start getting out more often. I do deeply miss the woods and quite a lot of activities that I traded aside to always just be playing video games on the computer at home.
Life has not been going great for quite some time for me. Perhaps this little bit of a shakeup will change things for the better. I still have no idea how far or not this adventure will end up going. All I do know is I’ve stalked piled a couple of adventures before I started to write on this series. I can only hope I end up doing some amazing things and having one heck of a good time.
As far as the casino trip itself. We rolled in past 3 AM. It takes a couple of hours to get here. Thankfully there was no traffic and we did not have to go along any major detours to get here. The highway that leads here is always under construction so that can many times be an issue.
We end up going up to the fourth floor of the parking ramp to the casino before finding some decent parking. I took a photo of Orient Road Garage 4A as a reminder of where we parked.
We had some drinks with us before heading over to the elevators. We are usually in the section that requires you to take the garage elevator down some floors. You then had to walk across a short corridor into another set of elevators into the casino.
The garage itself was now the home of many small birds. Despite the staff's best efforts some birds had nested in the garage cement pillars. Even at this hour of the day, they were signing joyful tunes away at our arrival.
Sometimes we would stay at the casino for a couple of days. This time around however was just a quick short stop. We would end up low roll gambling mostly for eight or so hours before having to head back through some nasty traffic.
This trip however would be a bit different. It was near the holidays at the time back in December. Yes, this series has been something in the works for quite a few months now. As such there would be a divergence from our normal only low-level gambling of a couple of shots in a high-limit room.
Our first stop after the bathroom in the casino was a high-limit area. It was my first time spinning for $5 a spin. The most I had ever done before that was $2 spins on Game of Thrones which they removed a while back. As a result, my heart was pumping quite a bit.
This was just going to be a $140 shot. At worst that would only be twentyeight spins. A couple of spins in and I thought this is going to go fast. Then I hit a bonus by landing six balls on Happy Prosperous.
While a $265 win is nothing insane. The fact I even got a bonus at all and it was more than $20 was incredible. I ended up spinning after the bonus for around 5 more spins before deciding to get off and out of the high limit with some profit.
We then headed down the escalator to the main casino floor. Not sure what I wanted to play next I did a little walking around. It however did not take long before I found my new favorite slot but one I’ve not seen on my adventures elsewhere.
While the name of the slot escapes me I could not say no to a pirate cat! The theme alone was calling my name and I just had to give it a try. Even more so since the last person to play it left behind wilds that would stick around for another spin.
I do love a good advantage player slot. I was shocked to discover that no one had sniped it before once I learned the rules.
As long as you kept landing the cat or a cannon the wilds would stick around. The cats would turn into further wilds that you would keep for the next spin. While the cannons would shoot up and unlock another spot on the wheel. If you unlocked up to the top you got to open a chest usually just for $2-8 nothing amazing.
Most times you would get some wilds and they last maybe one spin further. I on the other hand went on a bit of a winning streak of the wilds sticking around for a few spins.
It did not take long before I found myself winning $4, $6, $12, and a decent $29 line hits all in a row without needing to be in a bonus. Once the wilds no longer stuck around I had doubled and it was time to go off and play something else.
I’d later return to this pirate cat slot machine a couple of times over. Each time walking away having doubled up what I put into it. I got to say I rather love this machine and can only hope it will treat me so well in the future.
I had a couple of losing slots after that one that I don’t quite recall the names of let alone what they were. I was however having a fantastic time.
I then sat down at a lock link cats, hats, and more bats where I ended up getting a bonus. I have always loved how when you land the bats and get the bonus they smack into the screen and slide down. It is both rather funny and thrilling as you know you got a bonus.
To my shock I also had some decent denominations land to get me started. Each time you land another bat in the bonus and it connects to the centralized group they all get your bet added to them. As such you want them to land once per spin.
I did get a couple of bats to land on a single spin. Those always feel like a bit of a waste. All that mattered though is one of them at least connected with the main group and the bat spinning remaining reset to 3 spins.
I had yet another double and was off to play something else. One of our favorite games to play is what many call the bag game. For those not in the know this version was called Fu Dai Lian Panda. Since the bank of machines was full I opted to play something else.
I ended up playing Spin It Grand. While the amounts if you get a bonus usually are not that great. I noticed some larger amounts had been building for a while. I ended up getting the bonus a couple of times. Only getting the lower amounts, however.
I ended up walking away about break-even on this. Sometimes just getting to play a game you have not for a while for free is preferred over losing money on it. It’s a shame I could not get the higher amounts that were building even higher after I got done playing Spin It Grand.
It was then time for a break. We had been on the casino floor for almost three hours at this point. It was time to head out to the parking garage for some fresh air, drinks, and any food we brought along with us.
After that, it was back into the high-limit room for some Dragon Link Autumn Moon. I lucked out on the $5 bets again and got another bonus. This one was quite smaller than the last one only $140. I spun like one and left slightly up.
I was just thrilled to even get that win. I had almost spun down the amount I had put into the slot. I for sure thought I was losing $100 that time around. Walking away slightly up on something I never play at a bet level is a win.
This was also the first trip I got to see the new Huff N’ More Puff Game or as we just call it the Hat game. I ended up landing the bonus a couple of times. Including the Mega Hat Feature. I ended up doing quite well and got 6 mansions for a total of $87 win.
I had so much fun playing Huff N More Puff I ended up playing it another three or so times during the rest of this trip. For some of them, I hit the bonus and it went well. While others do nothing. I still walked away overall on this new machine.
It was quite a blast. It’s always a thrill when you get to see a bonus on a new machine. I swear when something is new it seems to hit a lot. Thankfully I have found this machine in other casinos since and I had a decent time when I did get a bonus.
A couple of hours later, meeting some new people and a whole lot of walking around. It ended up hitting what we consider our “dead hours.” AKA nothing seems to be hitting for us. It was starting to get close to leaving time.
I never really play these older school 3-line slot machines. I’m more into fancy graphics and lots of different bonus kinds of things. We however were looking for something cheaper to play and at just 50 cents wanting to sit for a while, I thought why not try something new?
I was also kind of shocked that most of these machines were also filled. It seems the older gamblers love this one. You can tell the dashboard of this one was quite worn. It has seen a lot of action over the years.
To my shock, I kept getting decent line hits on it. Getting a $10 win on a 50-cent bet is not that bad. I don’t think this machine had any kind of bonus. As such the line hits seemed to be amazing.
This is one of those slots if I recall that even has the pull arm. I gave it a try a couple of times. I’m more of a button pusher than a reel user. It was fun to play it old school, however.
After a while of getting used to this older slot machine, I looked down at my balance after getting a few good line hits and realized since I was playing at 2 cents I had almost doubled. It was not quite a true double but we had been on this one for quite some time and I needed something with a bit more going on. So we got up and hunted around for some other slots.
Final Thoughts
While I did play a few other slots not much else was hitting. At one point we realized it was going to be noon soon and traffic on the highway back was going to suck. It took over twice as long to get back than it took to get to the casino. Traffic is always a nightmare getting home.
I ended up having quite a fun trip. Excluding the high-limit action I did not do too badly. Once you add in those high-limit wins I came out rather nice on this one. It was just nice to get out.
This was also the first major trip I battle-tested out playing Pokémon Go. I did not have settings set right on the phone so the large amount of walking I did ended up not counting towards hatching eggs. At least the testing during this trip allowed me to discover that and make the needed changes for future longer trips where I would do some rather crazy amount of walking and even hiking.
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Photos were taken and content was written by @Enjar about my personal experiences in the real world away from the computer at home.
