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Published: June 14th 2007
Vegas at night
The view from the 'Mix' bar at Mandalay Bay Casino overlooking the Luxor pyramid So we finally made it to Las Vegas.
After miles of smooth and arrow-straight highway through rock and sand, we suddenly saw Vegas appear in front of us. We expected to see a strip of tarmac, a row of casinos either side and then just desert, but actually it's a surprisingly sprawling place. Nevertheless, The Strip is unmistakeable in the middle with its huge buildings even in bright sunshine when you can't see all the neon. Interestingly Las Vegas is Spanish for 'The Meadows', which is a bit odd considering it was 105 degrees F in the middle of the Navada desert with hardly a blade of grass in sight!
Imogen expertly navigated us to our hotel, which was a bargain. Their slogan was Just off the strip, right on the money. And it was! The room was great with our own lounge and kitchen area. Once settled in we went for one of our now trademark exploratory walks over to The Strip. We had to wait until sunset before it was feasible to walk more than a couple of hundred yards due to the heat. The Strip is actually much longer than we thought (about 4 miles) so
Cooking up a storm in Vegas
We were treated to an amazing meal in this 'Japanese steak' house we only made it perhaps half way. It was so crowded, like Oxford Street 2 days before Xmas. All the casinos have stuff going on outside them, like Caesars Palace with some kind of crazy volcanoe, or The Venetian which has gondolas for hire. All plastic of course!
We stopped for a drink at Hurrahs casino as it had an outdoor bar with crazy cocktail waiters throwing bottles around Tom Cruise style. There were 2 American guys next to us each drinking a yard of margharita. They thought it was a bargain at $32. And we thought we were bad! By 11pm we were getting hungry and went looking for somewhere to get a steak. Oddly enough, this proved a bit of a mission as everywhere seemed to stop serving at 11pm, but in the end we found a Japanese Steak House. Ever heard of one? We hadn't either, but you must go - 'Bruce Lee' the chef cooked the food in front of us while doing cocktail style throwing of ingredients, condiments and instruments, culminating in something quite amazing. Then we waddled home for some sleep.
The following day we were up early to head to the
The Strip at Sunset
Imogen on the Strip (oo-er!!) Stratosphere. This is a casino/hotel at the bottom of the Strip which has a 1,149ft tower on top. At the top of the tower is a big spike and some rides. One fires you up the spike on top, another dangles you off the side and spins you round (see picture) and the third makes you think you're falling off the top. So we had to go there didn't we!? We did the 'shoot up the spike' one in the end.
Next it was home for a bit of a lie down after that, then to another casino called New York New York which sports a huge roller-coaster round the outside (hope you're noting this, Mr Culver!). This hits 67mph and has full loops and twists. After all this we needed a drink so we headed over the road to the Mandalay Bay casino (currently the biggest with over 5,000 hotel rooms) and found their uber-trendy Mix bar on the top floor with incredible views of Vegas. Cramming so much in meant we had to retire for pizza and beer in our hotel and get prepared for Imogen's birthday the following day...
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