Viva Las Vegas

---

Upon exiting our plane in Las Vegas, it was funny to see how so many cliches about the place popped up. One guy on our shuttle at the airport was talking about "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas..." and a lady was talking about luck or some such thing.

After our time at the Grand Canyon, we made the 5 hour drive back to Las Vegas, with the city first appearing out of a flat desert. The hotels of the main strip arose marking the centre of the tourist area. We drove up the strip from the south towards our hotel in the centre of the boulevard - Treasure Island appeared before us behind the beautiful waterfalls of the Mirage hotel. We parked our hire car and headed to the lobby past the multitudes of slot machines, poker rooms, restaurants and bars. The hotel lobby smelt strongly of cocount oil sunscreen, as it was located next to the outdoor pools. We decided the pool was going to be our first stop after we unpacked in our massive roon on the 33rd floor.

Pool

The pool area was a scene from a teenage movie with music and drunk girls dancing. Everyone was dancing in the pool and there were girls in bikinis with small sarongs serving drinks to those laying on the sunlounges. We found lounge chairs in the corner of the sun's reach, next to some Americans from the south of San Francisco. I bought a large plastic glass containing a Pool Passion cocktail that set me back $US17 (+ tip). I soon understood why so many girls were drinking beer, as Dan's beer was only $6.75 (+ tip). We were to get accustomed to tipping every time we went to the bar. Lounging around the pool was great and the crowd dispersed as the sun lowered in the skyline. It felt like we were at a beach resort, as you could not tell by the surroundings that we were in a town built on artifically bringing water to the area.

We spruced oursleves up and headed back into the complex of Treasure Island for dinner at 'the only Vietnamese place in Las Vegas'. We ordered only one entree and a main meal due to the large portion sizes that Americans serve. It was more than enough food for the both of us, plus it was all that we could afford in such an expensive location.

After dinner, we headed outside to watch the Sirens show put on by our hotel. The Sirens (or scantily clad girls on a pirate ship) taunted the pirates on an approoaching ship with their singing (and seductive dancing). The pirates attacked with their canons as the girls would not give them back one of their crew, but the girls rebelled with their luring and powerful call and the pirate ship started to sink. All a bit corny, but we were staying at Treasure Island and the men and women were attractive to watch!

On the way back into the hotel I purchased a margharita in a skull cup (it was better economy than the normal sized cup ok...) and Dan found his way to Breeze Bar, where he could play black jack on a computer at the bar. He hoped that they would give him free drinks just for playing, as that was what he experienced last time he was in Vegas.

According to the bar tender, Dan had to play the $1 bet games with a $20 entry fee into the machine before he qualified for a free drink, so Dan gave it his best shot meeting those criteria (expensive drink if you ask me - if youlose that is). I sat with my giant skull mug next to Dan playing computerised Keno and lost my $5. Disappointedly the computer version of Keno takes a few seconds to play a round instead of the usual waiting for the balls to be drawn in a normal Keno round. Needless to say, my money disappeared quite fast. After Dan had lost US$S25 at the stupid computerised game, we moved on to a Monopoly pokie where the machine ate $4.50 of mine in one hit. I couldn't figure out what the bet was or how many lines were bet at one time. Very disappointed to have lost so much in one hit, I played a few more rounds to lose $1.50 more, just so that Dan could get a free drink from the waitress due to our sitting at a gaming machine.

We wandered past an Ultimate Texas Hold-em table, on our way back to our luxurious hotel room. Dan chatted to a guy at the table who just happened to come from small town called Yovil in England, where we visited a couple of years ago to meet some of Dan's family that lived there.

--- The next day ---

Venetian and Palazzo

Our morning started with a walk to the Venetian, which was just across the road from our hotel. The canals, Rialto Bridge, Doge's Palace and tower from St Mark's square all dominate the front of the complex and our awe of the place was only increased by us visiting the inside of the building. We entered through the hotel lobby and found the golden globe monument (that Dan remembers from the Vatican City) in the centre of the room with the ceilings covered in Rennaissance-style paintings. Upon walking into the complex further, we discovered a remake of St Mark's Square with a beautiful blue sky and clouds painted on the ceiling giving the illusion of being outdoors. It was all so tastefully recreated with Italian Restaurants and coffee shops surrounding the square and narrow 'streets' that led from there to the main casino area. All of the restaurants were closed, so we left to find somewhere to snack for breakfast.

At 1pm, we had a booking for a Mystery adventure, which departs from a few blocks from the north part of the Strip, so we decided to wander in that direction checking out the casinos that were on our way. We thought that the Encore and Wynn Casinos had less personality than the elborate ones, like the Venetian and TI, and they have a higher price tag. We were glad that we didn't end up booking there. The north side of the strip seemed quieter as well with less vibe, so we were glad that we had chosen a hotel in the middle of the strip where all the action was at.

Circus Circus

We wandered into Circus Circus, an old casino that would have been one of the best when it was first developed and it probably is still one of the best for families due to the wonderful circus theme, shows and activities. There was a carousel that turned containing 1c slot machines, which Dan and I played on for a while. There is a whole section, on the 2nd level, dedicated to games that normally appear at the annual show, with the corny prizes to win as well. We watched one persistant guy try to win the '3 chickens in a pot' game where you had to catapult 3 soft leather chickens into moving pots in the centre of the room. Dan and I played a game of boomerang air hockey (the table was bent into a boomerang shape) with Dan being the victor. A stage, that was set up in the centre of the floor level, had a man performing on stilts juggling and a balancing a ball onto the end of a stick that he had resting on his chin. We applauded his skill before finding our way to the circus dome which contains fun park rides, like rollercoasters and stalls sellng all kinds of things like your name written on a grain of rice. We realised that by the time we entered the dome, we were limited on time before we had to start making our way to the Mystery tour office, which was a lot further away than we originally thought. It was only 2 blocks off the Strip, however each block is huge taking 10-15 mins to walk across each one.

Mystery Tour

We joined 6 other people for our mystery tour and we all had a wonderful time finding clues and hidden mystery rocks. We were all assigned as amateur detectives with a case to find a woman's heart locket necklace, but before we left on our journey to the video store owned by the lady and her husband, we hear of a shooting that has occurred at the video store. We discover that it is the husband who has been killed and we enter the video store after the body has been taken away to start our investigation for the locket.

I worked out the password for the computer and Dan quickly found relevant documents and CC TV footage that could be relevant to our case. The footage shows someone carrying what appears to be a body or body parts down the stairs outside of the video store. We find mystery rocks around the office and video store after finding clues hidden in the worker's lockers, which we opened after discovering keys and codes for the padlocks. We found an address and key for a place that we decided will be our next destination in Las Vegas to continue our detective work. Once we have exhausted the clues at the shop, we move onto the office of a newspaper reporter who works closely with an employee of the video store.

In the reporter's office we find all sorts of information on UFOs etc that he has been investigating. We found a safe that we cracked the code for and uncovered more details relevant to the case. We gained access to the reporter's computer and read his notes and emails and Dan wrote down information gathered, adding to the info we accumulated from the last location. Next we moved onto a doctor's office who was actng as the employee's psychiatrist. There we discovered a secret room leading to a surgery where we found body parts and I also found a safe hidden in a cupboard. Dan worked on the doctor's computer and Dan and I worked out the code for the safe to find the heart locket inside. Other information found on the computer helped us understand that the employee had been killed to supply a heart to a local politician, who recovered suddenly from heart problems. We worked out that the doctor was illegally harvesting organs, obviously killing people in the process. Our group had solved the mystery and proved the doctor guilty of murder for him to be charged. We found all 18 mystery rocks (which were just an extra part to the fun), and we were told that not all groups were able to achieve finding all the rocks and working out the truth. We got a prize for finding all the rocks.

Cheap show tickets

We were told that some good shows in town are the 'Greatest magicians on Earth' show and a show performed by Mat King, a comedian and magician. We visited to cheap tickets stand - Tickets4Tonight - and the man said that the magician show no longer runs. We went to Harrahs, the casino where Mat King was showing to get a free ticket to see him. We got the freebies, only to find out that he wasn't performing until Tuesday night, which was the day we left. So Dan and I were feeling a bit disappointed and weren't sure what other shows we wanted to go see.

Cheap drinks

We headed to O'Sheas, an Irish Casino, and ordered a yard glass margharita for US$15. We should have known from the cheap price that the drink would be nasty, especially as we had seen the yard glass sold for $35 elsewhere. Dan said it was like drinking alcoholic cordial and I couldn't drink it without making my stomach upset (my stomach was still a bit iffy after my drinking the night before). We tried to dilute the tartiness of it with soda water, but nothing was going to make the drink palatable!

Paris

We wandered in and out of the casinos down the strip and happily arrived at Paris, where the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triumph are built on a miniture scale. We had been told that the tower was built exactly to half the scale of the original. $10 to go to the top of the tower during daylight and $15 to go up during the evening. Nothing in Las Vegas is cheap! Once inside the casino, we were once again in awe of the beauty of a place. It was another classy establishment, with wonderful French streets created under a painted sky that looked like it was constantly dusk. Dan and I hummed and harred about going to see the Hypnotist show that was on at 9pm. We decided against it, as we knew we could get cheaper tickets if we bought them elsewhere and so chose to see what show deals we could get tomorrow.

Dan and I were keen on having French food for dinner, but due to the extravagent prices at each of the restaurants and cafes, we settled on eating Asian food once again. The restaurant was till part of the Paris complex and we sat outside on the strip, so we could people watch and enoy the heat of the evening. We didn't realise, but the Bellagio is directly across the road and we were lucky enough to see the fountain shows every 15 mins when it was scheduled for the fountains to appear in time to music and at different forces. The finale always climaxed in the water being shot extremely high in the air, at a guess I would say 20 stories high. So it was nice to have the free fountain shows whilst we ate our meal.

City lights

'
Walking back to our hotel was great, seeing all the brightly coloured and lit signs on each of the casinos. We walked through Caesar's Palace on the way back and found it to be another interesting place. The casino area wasn't so interesting, but the restaurants captured our attention. We found an Asian restaurant that had 2 rows of massive fish tanks that were full of large gold fish and nothing else. It is like walking between 2 tall walls of gold fish swimming around you. Bette Midler had her show at the Colloseum for the past while. Cher and Jerry Seinfield will also be on show there soon.

--- The day after that ---

We had a full day to explore the other end of the strip, which was full of action and plenty of people. The list of casinos is too long to list that we walked through, but the main ones that stood out where Excalibur - a cheesy fairytale castle with English knight decorations, MGM - live lions were on display in a big glass cage (don't worry they rotate the lions every 3 hours and they live on a big farm out of town), New York New York - had Manhatten streets inside (not as well done as Venice or Paris), Luxor - the biggest modern pyramid built and Caesar's Palace - a beautifulmedern establishment, where we watched the moving statues. We probably walked around for 9 hours and were exhausted by the end of the day. The strip is huge! We left the next day to get some rest and relaxation at our friends' place in Laguna Niguel, California.

---

Photos

Our hotel
Treasure Island

The Venetian
A miniture venice

Inside the Venetian
Looks like outside!