the humidity here makes it so much worse! It's quite the difference, when compared to being in Las Vegas with its lower humidity. In Vegas, you get the feeling that you're being baked. In Calgary, it's more like sitting in a "mild" sauna, in that your arms feel sticky (though not really glistening with sweat!) I think I preferred being baked! =P
Time to recap my trip to Vegas! I was planning to blog daily/nightly, but I often got tired when we returned to our hotel rooms at night.
The first night was rough, since I wasn't able to sleep till around 4:30 AM (5:30 Calgary/MST) since I usually find it hard to adjust to a new environment. Of course, that meant that I woke up at my usual time of around 7 AM (8 AM in Calgary... I think you get the point). Since everybody else was fast asleep, I went back to bed and reawaken at noon. Due to the lack of sleep, I had a massive headache.
We walked towards Bellagio and had our first buffet there. Bellagio's buffet was nice looking and there was quite a decent selection of food for lunch. I was amazed by the different drinks they had to offer, but due to my headache, I chose to go with my ol' trusty ginger ale. After lunch, we walked around the strips and visited different hotels. I can't remember all of them, but I believe we went to Caesar's Palace. How I remember is due to the small show they had in front of the Nike store there. The show was something about Atlantis, but I couldn't quite catch everything since the actors were robots/mannequins. I recall how it was quite impressive with all the fire effects, such as coming out from a man's sword.
After Bellagio, we visited the Fashion Show mall. Sure there were a lot of shops there that sold clothing, though there wasn't really anything that caught my eye. I wanted to purchase some things from the Superdry store, but I decided not too in the end.
After shopping for a while, we took a taxi backed to our hotel. We lounged around our rooms for a while and then went down to see Cirque du Soleil's Ka. To be honest, I had mixed feelings about the show. The beginning was a bit boring for me since I've seen similar things from other performers. However, it got really exciting when the performers performed extremely dangerous stunts. For example, climbing up, what seems to be 30 meters to reach the top of a stage, or the death wheels, where it seems like the performers were running on top of a hamster wheel without any visible safety ropes! Onto a side note, the day after we saw the performance, a performer passed away after a fatal accident. It reminded me of how these performers put their lives on the line to entertain us. May her soul rest in peace.
Soon after Ka, we scoped out a Sandwich shop, though I don't recall the name of the shop. I just remembered that when we reached the front of the line, they closed down for a while for some maintenance. It was past midnight and I was getting hungry =P. Fortunately, they reopened after 10 minutes or so and I got to get my sandwich. It was a good sandwich, and I had a salad on the side since I wasn't getting my greens in. =P After dinner, was back to our hotels for sleep!
Onto the third day (Saturday). We woke up late again, so we headed off to lunch. We went an AYCE sushi and seafood place. I can't say that I enjoyed the sushi, since the pieces weren't presented well, and the selection was small, but they had an amazing selection of dessert. After lunch, we walked for a bit and then took a taxi to the North Outlet mall. There were many brands up here, though I didn't find anything that I really liked. After shopping, we headed back to our rooms to relax for a bit before dinner. Since Vegas has a ton of buffets, we decided to try out the one at the Rio hotel.
The buffet at Rio was AMAZING. It was ENORMOUS. I barely ate 1/3 of the food selection they had there and I'm quite confident of my eating skills (trying to cut back on the amount of food I eat of course!) When I was on my fourth plate of food (trying out the Mexican cuisine they had), I was getting sick of food. Too many buffets in such a short amount of time was making me feel ill. It made me think of how lucky I am to be able to eat all this food while the vast majority of people don't have the same opportunity that I do.
After dinner, we headed back to our rooms and just talked for a couple of hours before bed.
Our fourth, and final full day in Vegas started out late once again. Since some of us was missing Chinese food, we went to P.F. Changs for lunch. We ordered a whole bunch of food, and somehow managed to finish. It was difficult to finish since each dish pretty much tasted the same. Nevertheless, we got our fill of Chinese food, which allowed us to go walk around more hotels and shop at the South Outlet. The South Outlet had a "cheaper" feeling to it, which suited me quite fine! I purchased a couple shirts/socks at Puma as souvenirs for my family and bought myself a new Coach wallet. (I could have bought the same wallet at CrossIron, but meh =P)
We taxied back to our hotel room to relax before going out for dinner. We tried an Italian place at New York New York hotel. I knew that Italians are mostly known for their pasta, but I got myself a steak instead... I can't say it's as good as Alberta steaks (not as tender I find), but it was a decent meal. Right after dinner, we went and played a bit on the slot machines. I put in $25 in total, and came out with $0... I wasn't having any luck in Vegas. =(
Fifth and final day... Got up and cleaned up our room before we checked out. We then went to a couple more hotels, which included Excalibur, Lux and Wynn (I believe). We went to shop for a bit and tried yogurt at yogurtland. Amazing yogurt! I need to find an equivalent in Calgary, where you can mix/match your own flavours and toppings!
We were soon pooped from the shopping, so we headed back to MGM to relax a bit before picking up our luggage and head back to the airport. It was extremely quick to go through security. After dinner at Pei Wei (a branch off from PF Changs I believe due to how similar the food tasted there), we boarded our plane back to Calgary. I had to say though that I wasn't disappointed since I was getting bored of Las Vegas. It's a great city, but since I'm not the party type, it wasn't that intriguing for me.
What I did realize on the trip was how vast the world is. I never really gotten the feeling in Calgary since I would see familiar faces on a daily basis. Calgary felt kinda like a huge town to me. Las Vegas, or more specifically, The Strip, probably (no research done) had more visitors than residents. There wasn't a single face that I recognized as the days passed by. I guess that fact really hit me and made me realize how many people there are on this planet!
All in all, Las Vegas is a great place to visit, though not really my cup of tea. It was a good experience though, and a well-needed vacation. =)
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