Now, I could just tell you it was an awesome trip, throw you the cliché "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" and walk on, but that's just not me, so here's a summary of my week-long experience at Las Vegas, Nevada!
As much as Vegas lingered on my mind for months before my trip whenever I thought of a place for the winter break, it never really got stuck until the day Julian sent me a message with the flight and hotel details of our trip.. it really was quite out of the blue, but some slight adjustments to my break plans and I was all set for the City of Sins. As usual, no trip of ours is complete without a stopover at Des Moines, so once again I began with a half-day bus trip to Des Moines. I barely spent a couple of days there before we were off to the airport. A short transit at Detroit gave us some time to grab some lunch at McD's (how typical.. lolz) before we were got to Las Vegas.. oddly, we had none of the usual travelling blues this time around.. the trip really was a pleasingly smooth one.
Within a minute at the airport we were at the slots. Lol. A great idea I'd say.. slot machines at the airport.
We had an interesting cab-drive to our resort for the trip, Luxor (the big black pyramid with a beaming light shot to the skies that some say can be seen from space wtf).. Our cabbie parted some advise, which I guess can be summarized as - stay away from the strip clubs! :p We checked-in and got into our room before heading out for some dinner at Mandalay Bay. We then took a short walk outside along the Strip for some photography before Kwong Hann and CK slept off whereas Julian and I made our way downstairs to the casino. Heh.
We soon decided on some video poker, and a while into our game we had a waitress come up to us and ask us what drinks we'd want.. In a flash Julian says "Margarita, please" and 'quick-thinking me' says "I'll have the same." Lolz. We were there for quite a while you see, so it was only natural that another waitress dropped by to take our orders and this time we went with the Strawberry Daiquiri, a drink I had heard about on That 70's Show (lolz). The margarita was ok, but I have to say the daiquiri was splendid. We did order the same cocktail at other casinos later on in the trip, but none came close to Luxor's.. A couple of bucks lost, before we finally called it a day.. I mean night.
The next morning Kwong Hann is up early and takes a walk along the Strip with his D40 while Julian and I.. err.. sleep through the entire morning! Well anyway our day finally got going and we were off to Excalibur's food court, a good place when you're looking for some cheap bites since the prices around the Strip were quite inflated. Well I guess this really isn't turning out to be much of a summary, so I'm going to skip some.. and then more. Anyway, I'll be putting up another post right after this one with photos, sans the words; especially for those of you who hate reading..
The Mirage buffet the following day was really quite forgettable, except perhaps the dessert. Then we went for Terry Fator's final show for the year of - A Very Terry Christmas. Finally, I had witnessed a ventriloquist in action, and it was quite fascinating.. It is really quite hard to appreciate the fact that it is really ONE person talking all through the showQuite a big portion of the trip was really sightseeing, and the occasional casino splurge. I tended to restrict myself quite a bit on the gambling though, perhaps a little too much.. Anyway, the best part of our Vegas trip centered on one single day - the 27th of December 2009. The day began quite normally, with us grabbing lunch at the Excalibur McD's before we waited for CK and the car we rented for the day. Now, we looked around for the cheapest cars online, and rented it the night before. Here is where it all began..
The 2010 Ford Mustang.. a Top Gear moment indeed. First we were off to Stratosphere to purchase tickets to Bite (a topless revue), and then the Hilton and Hard Rock Hotel which were quite a distance off the Strip. Now we never did get into the Hard Rock Hotel, as we were simply mesmerized by the view of the Strip from the car park. A few snaps later we were back at Luxor to change into more formal attire for our big dinner.. at the 2-Michelin Star Picasso, one of the top restaurants in Vegas, and all of the US for that matter. We were soon all snazzed-up and good-to-go.. it was only valet parking from then on for us.
The dinner itself was exquisite.. as I constantly drew comparisons to my experience at the KL Mandarin Oriental's Pacifica with Henry (where the Sultan of Selangor dined on the table next to us.. woot!). Anyway, as far as appetizers go, Pacifica came out tops, but that was as far as it went.. For the main course I had venison medallions, which were succulent with an exquisite taste and texture. And then came the best part of it all - the dessert.. A sweet chocolatey dessert- a blend of a warm cake oozing with chocolate and malt ice-cream.. The Warm Chocolate Fondant; orgasmic, to say the least.. Perhaps the best dessert I have had to date.
Now, for me.. in a day filled with the most spectacular parts of the Vegas trip, delving into the Chocolate Fondant in Picasso was the highlight of it all.. This however was not the case for the rest of the troop, as they dropped me off at Luxor before making their way.. err.. somewhere else. A little time alone gave me a chance to have another go at video poker, and this is when I hit the Royal Flush, winning myself 15 bucks! That's really quite an amount given the small denominations I always play on.
A couple of hours later and I was still in the absence of company, so I decided to take a walk along the strip with my camera. After walking for more than an hour, I was way past the halfway point of the Strip, and finally received a call from Julian. As we spoke on the phone, he suddenly tells me to "come down with Kwong Hann's tripod," assuming I'm sitting in our room back at Luxor. Before I could correct him, a very familiar car turns the corner right before me.. WTH! It was them! What were the odds huh? Well, this was Vegas after all..
After picking up the tripod, we then went back to the Hard Rock Hotel car park to take shots with the Mustang before the amazing view of the Las Vegas Strip. And with that an amazing day drew to a close. The next day we had the Rio Buffet, which was much, much better than the Mirage Buffet but this time the desserts were frankly quite terrible. The following day was about Downtown Vegas, and the Bite show at Stratosphere. This was followed by our final day in Vegas, which we spent visiting all those casino resorts we'd failed to visit up to that point.
It was an excellent trip all in all, and by quite a margin the cheapest for me. Despite our exploits, we got quite a lot of rest on this trip, with about 7-8 hours sleep on average (which is amazing in comparison to what we had in the previous trips). I have to add though that you don't really need too much time to see Vegas, and around 3-4 days would actually suffice. Then again, it wouldn't be as relaxing as what we had. At present it doesn't look too promising, but I really hope this isn't my last Winter Break trip with the gang.. Reminiscing back, I had so much fun through it all - from the commute-crazy NY trip, to the ventures in sunny California, to our sinful exploits in Las Vegas (well kinda since gambling qualifies as a sin)..
Kabhi alvida na kehna..
From herein.. lest not we say goodbye..
