AMERICA The 1st

Saturday November 2nd - LAS VEGAS Day 2

We did HEAPS today. And I reckon afterwards we could have done with an extra day just to take it easy and do nothing here. The day started off by us getting up relatively early to get down to teh Pool area for breakfast. Apparantly we were not the only ones who had that idea as teh Poolside Cafe was pretty busy. Sherry had Eggs Terry Benedict. Hahaha - No just Eggs Benedict, and I had French Toast with cinammon butter and syrup. My God they were good. Fresh orange juice and latte's sealed the deal for probably being the best meal we had eaten in America so far. The late's tasted exactly like a Melbourne late. As a matter of fact, most of the food served at Bellagio was of a high quality, very homelike. I wonder if 'The Buffet' held those lofty standards as well.

After eating brekky we thought we'd try to have a bit of a sunbathe. But there wasn't really any good spots left. Curse you tall buildings. Al Pacino we are going to break the bank. We then got changed and walked around Caesar's Palace Casino. The place was very granduose and payed tribute to its leaders with statues, murals and fountains. Inside the ceiling was painted to resemble a dark blue sky. We then found out that the one of the highlights of the various shows was happening in Caesar's in about ten minutes. So we had ten minutes to miraculosly find 'The Fall of Atlantis' show.We ran around frantically - I think covering all of the indoor floor area of that entire casino. Its times like these when females can get quite annoying, Us men, built for purpose rather than presentation have no trouble in getting from A to B - but women - often wearing shoes to make loud noises to attract attention, rather than actually move anywhere. (Hhahaha - men wear quite shoes to sneak up on women, while women where loud shoes to attract attention) Plus you have the bags, but also i think women could put the shoes in their bags and run. You and I know the real reason is they just don't want to geet sweaty, or risk have perpseration appear on any garment. See i dont understand why women carry a bag thats meant to prepare them for all occassions, when in fact it tends to hinder that actual ability. But yes. We did make it to 'The Fall of Atlantis' display. Sherry had a map in her bag.

In hindsight, considering how much we hurried, it probably wasn't worth it.l But we did make it their just as it started so its not as if we had walked 30 minutes and waited 20, we had ran 10. So it was a maximum efficiency show for us. I need to upload of the Las Vegas videos. Blogga has been having issues with my attempts so far. Anyway the story in a nutshell is 'The Ice Queen (lets call her Megatron) and the Fire Prince (lets call him Optimus Prime) didn't get along. And when Ice and Fire clash the allspark gets lost and you have water. There was cool aquarium behind this fountain which had exotic fish and stingrays.

After viewing the show, we slowed down knowing that the next show that we wanted to see was a fair few hours off. So we got a few snaps of the shops in Caesars- the casin we would have easily spent the 2nd most time in - Paris a close 3rd. We ended up walking down the left side of the strip from the Bellagio.So past harrah's, Treasure Island - unfortunately the Volcano show was closed, and onto the Venecian.

Here at the Venetian there was a Madam Tussauds exhibit which we thought would be fun. But we had a bit more a look around first. Some good photos here at the Venetian - with The Mirage, just over the road. Sherry wanted to go on a Gondola ride but I talked her out of it. I thought it looked too small. Hmmm. I regret not doing these things, but then again we may not have had time to do everything else.

Madam Tussaud's was amazing. Well not amazing - but damn good fun. Check out the shots below.

James Foxworthy

This is my 'Gaz beta video game pose' Ooosh Hollyfield.

Just after this display with Spiderman there was a free 'Screamers' haunted house exhibit. It made up for not going to the one outside New York New York. It was a much cheaper 'ride' I'm guessing to the other one, but it was just right for me. We had to go in groups of 5 single file. I think I must have given too much cheek before we went in because one of them said 'get the guy at the back good'. Haha. I tried to suck up. 'No No'. At first I thought being at the back was good because i wouldn't get people jumping out at me - but i did get people coming up from the back and that was terrifying. I even turned around and saw some of them coming and that was scary as - let alone them tapping me on the shoulder. If they had gotten that far I may have wet myself. The guy's mask was freaky. When he came towards me i started pushing everyone forward. Haha. Sherry said she squeezed the guy's shoulders in front of her pretty fiercely at one point.

The only reason im doing this is because of the 'Great American Hero's' sexuallity.

We then had a look in the gift shop. At certain points around the display you couldn't get photos with certain stars - you had shots taken for you buy a professional and these shots were up for sale int he gift shop. I cant even remember who they were. But there were cool sunnies and t-shirts. I purchased a set of jimi hendrix coasters (which to this day remain unopened - they will get used when we get our own place) and a Jimi Hendrix mug. I use that mug all the time.

After the wax experience we decided to head back to the hotel room. It was a fair walk and it would have been around 2 by now. A good time to have a quck relax and recharge for the night. Plenty to see on the way back - this time we walked along the street past Caesar's so we sawsome cool stuff that we didnt get to see on the way up through the actual casino.

Not a good time to 'lose one's head'

Thats not the way to get ahead in life

He'll never be the head of a major corporation

Back at the Bellagio we decided to go for a swim. Not many peopl ein the pool and i felt like a bit of an exhabitionist swimming. noone else was in there and here i was swimming Ian Thorpe style. We didn't get much time there however, as the pool area was about to close. I couldn't believe it. That early? it was onyl around 4-4.30 i reckon and they could have really kept it open at least until it gets dark.

So we then headed back to our room and got changed for our dinner at the Jasmine restaraunt. This palce served Thai style cuisine and featured pretty good views of the lake. The food was nice - just not enought of it considernig what we paid. I mean - It was kind of like eating at a poor man's Red Emperor - only not as much food and not as good. I had a hot & sour soup while Sherry had dumplings for entree (or appetizers in the U.S - entrees are actually what they call their main meals). Both of our appetizers were nice, but our entrees (mains) were disappointing.

After dinner we headed over to the Paris Casino. The Arc d'Triomphe was out of view from the main street so it was good to see that. Inside they had a similar sort of roofing style to Caesar's - with the fake blue sky - although in here they went for a bright blue - more of a natural daytime blue.

We wanted to go up to the observation deck of the Eiffel tower. It took us a little while to find where to go - but once we did we didnt have to wait long before we got in an elevator. I have to say 'It was the scariest elevator ride I ahve ever been on'. No joke. It was jsut as scary as the Rollercoaster. I honestly felt like it was Charlie & The Great Glass Elevator. Just had to hold on - i didnt know whether I was going to fall out or what.

I breathed a sigh of relief when we got up to the top. Stepping out of the elevator put us on the deck and I immediately felt more secure because we were behind the cage guarding that encircles the perimeter of the deck. The view was amazing though. It seemed so much higher on the deck than when we were on the ground. You could see all around and it was probably the best way to see the strip in a nice panaromic shot. Certainly beats the cityscape of Melbourne as seen from the Rialto. I dont think teh Bellagio fountain looks good from here. The magic or illusion of it is spoilt becaue you can clearly see where teh lights and water streams come from.

The Bellagio on the right which is dwarved by the new Casino Complex going up to it's left. With this year's economic recession rumours of this building never being completed have begun to circulate.

After spending a good 20 minutes atop the Eiffel Tower (5/8ths scale of the original) we had to wait a little while for an elevator down. At least there were things to look at.

Vegas is so prety at night. Some of the signs are as impressive as the Casinos themselves. Many are famous.

So for the 2nd time today we walked up towards Treasure Island. This time to see the 'Psirens of Treasure Island' show. It was supposed to be pretty cool and was supposedly a bit of a draw card for the Vegas tourist. We bought a frozen Margharitta which gave Sherry brain freeze. I then stuck both straws up my nose which grossed out Sherry enough to make her storm off and get some more. Hahah sorry about that, but it's funny now.

We waited for about 30 mintues for the show. Im glad we got there early as we had the best vantage point. And there i'd say a good 500 people or so watching. Maybe thats not accurate - it could have been more. It was packed. Everyone put on a good show though. Music, dancing, fire, explosions. The dancing for the Oh yeah! The flames were hot. Really hot! I dont know how the dancers handle it. And then the catch at the end: they all shew you into the Treasure Island Casino!

We only walked through here to the tram that took us directly to the Mirage. This shortened our trip back by a bit. Sherry also staretd talking to a guy and 2 girls. I can't remember much about the conversation though. I think the general gist of it was about some billboard and whether the person was a guy or a girl. The Mirage was a sleak Casino. Probably my second favourite behind the Bellagio. I think it's called the Mirage because its an Oasis in the middle of the desert. Ooutside it was actually raining now. Looking back I'm trying to work out if it actually was riaing all around Vegas or just outside the Mirage. From everything i've seen in Vegas i wouldn't be suprised if a Casino would do something like that. Who wants to get rained on though? Nah it had to be real. I think this was the first U.S.A rain i had felt. Hooray! My skin didn't melt. Inside They had an awesome rainforedst feature inside the main dome. There were meant to be other cool exhibits and gardens hear but they were all shut and Sherry was ready to get back to the Bellagio for some gamlbing. I decided to quickly run (pretty much my Caesar's jog) through the Casino to some exhibit that was meant to have dolphins. I got outside and saw a cool pool area that reminded me of Port Douglas or Daydream Island, but everything else seemed to be shut.

Catching that tram reallyt saved us time as we got back in time for 2 more Dancing Fountain shows. We then went inside for an awesome two hour pokie session on possibly the worst machine in the history of pokieness. We played 10 lines with the aim being to get free spins by filling up a cascade meter in succession. We had fun playing and had even more fun once we found out that it was free drinks for people gambling. Hooo Yeah!! All you have to do is tip the waitresses. So for our last night in Vegas we sat drinking and smoking and playing pokies. We got a good buzz going too i recall. Sherry had teh biggest drop which was something like $12. Shery was doing pretty well. But we were enjoying losing our money - yelling out words liek asparagus! to try and help us win.