And so... we were once again back at Long Beach Airport on Day 9 for our Jetblue flight to Vegas, sometimes referred to as the Sin City. If you look down on Vegas from the plane as it flies in from the west, you can see that Vegas is actually nothing more than a city in the middle of a desert, Mojave Desert to be exact.
Unlike the previous 2 cities where we had either booked our transfer to the hotel or met a kind lady to show us to the Metro, we had to find our own way to Luxor Hotel. Had it not been Lyn Soon who recommended this hotel to me, I might have gone the ways of motels like in SF & LA. As you can see from their webby, Luxor is a pyramid shaped hotel located near the southern end of the stretch of Vegas where all the mega-resorts (and casinos) are located. This stretch is commonly referred to as The Strip. The casino takes up the majority of the concourse space. One can see rows upon rows of slots machine as well as the various table games. Going into the elevators, you'll realise the most interesting thing; the elevators are not vertical-lifted, they are side-lifted. As they move, you can feel the motion going sideways! The hotel room doors are inward facing towards the hotel concourse just like either Oriental or Mandarin Hotel in the Marina area. Our room had a slanted window facade, something which one do not see in a typical building, much less hotel... To be honest, I'm extremely thankful to Lyn Soon for her recommendation.
Having freshen up from our 'long' journey from LA, we hopped across the street, 2blocks away to the Showcase Mall where outlets such as the M&M World & The World of Coca-Cola are located. M&M World is a 4-storey retail store where you can find M&M merchandise from their signature M&M milk chocolates to clothings to kitchen-ware to beddings to glassware. At the end of the estimated 2hrs we spent in there, our 'loot' consisted of chocolates, tshirts for her, poker cards and a very interesting black-coloured coffin-shaped Halloween-themed cookie jar. We were halfway thru at Coca-Cola when I received a call from a long-time-no-see friend, Mel, who happened to be studying in Vegas. I'm supposed to ring her once I reach Vegas but as luck would have it, I was unable to make calls from my HP despite having enabled my auto-roaming. I was intending to go back and use the room phone to contact her for a meet-up either on the next day or the next next. Well, since now she called and suggested dinner, why not?
She arrived in a grey toyota without a proper license plate together with her classmate, SP. Somehow, we keep forgetting her name until she said something abit 'lame' which did the trick for us to remember her by.... its goes : Those who SIN, PAYS.... :p Mel drove us to this place located in the southern end of The Strip called Townsquare Mall. Seeing there were boutiques there, SO's eyes immediately lit up like a cat having smelt fresh fishes nearby. Luckily, its rather late by now (9ish) and most of the shops just about to close. Mel recommended this very interesting store, Yogurtland, for a snack since all of us weren't hungry nor full. What I find interesting here is that you get to mix and create your own frozen yogurt, complete with toppings! I always enjoy mixing and matching, coming up with my very own creation! :) I figured that this place must be extremely popular judging from the queues at the self-served frozen yogurt dispenser. Enjoying cold yogurt on a cold evening (despite the place being in the middle of a desert) reminds me of my trip earlier this year to Shanghai where I ate ice-cream out in the blistering sub-10 degrees cold!
With most, if not all the shops already closed for the night at Townsquare Mall, the only options left were to either retire to hotel or to explore The Strip. There is only 1 very obvious decision here. Mel drove us down the entire stretch of Las Vegas Blvd, aka The Strip. Not too sure who was it but I suspect is Mel who hatched the CRAZY idea of trying out the rides located at the top of the Strastophere! SO supported the idea wholeheartedly while SP and myself were trying to wriggle our way outta it. Can you imagine being suspended 109 storeys in the air? THAT IS CRAZY!!! Under intense persuasion and coaxing, SP and I reluctantly went along with them for Insanity, The Ride. It was at this precise moment that I kinda regretted meeting Mel up :p The ride isn't actually that scary, except for the moment when you are suspended up there waiting for the ride to begin & at the end while waiting for the robotic arm to move the suspended portion of the ride off the suspended area. Mel drove down the other side of The Strip again on our way back to Luxor. We passed by the famous Bellagio Fountain and saw a huge crowd lining the entire length of the fountain watching the on-going show.
Day 10's gonna be another long day and I'm fearing for my legs... According to the itinary, we're going to the Outlet Malls in Downtown Vegas. Knowing how SO shops, it'd probably mean being there from dusk till dawn.... Waking up bright and early, we popped over Bellagio for their famed buffet breakfast and it indeed is! One can't complain about the lack of variety here for you have the usual sausages, bread, pastry, cereal, etc... and much more such as pizzas and prawns. This is truly one of the best breakfast buffet I've had around in ages! The Forum Shops next to the Caesars Palace was our next stop. I needed to help Mat get a Coach bag while SO wanted to get a bag from Kate Spade. Taking about an hour to accomplish our targets, I suggested dropping off the bags in your room before heading out to the Las Vegas Premium Outlets, which we did.
Getting there is straightforward, take The Deuce to the intersection of Sahara Ave and Las Vegas Blvd before alighting, cross the road to the bus-stop behind Denny's and board Route 108 to South Grand Central Parkway. This is the place where I've been waiting to raid since the merchandise here are expected to be lower priced. Some of my prized catch included a pair of Levis for 32USD, 2 Banana Republic dress shirts for 60+USD and some other items which I can't recall at this moment. No doubt I managed to grab some bargains here, I'm somewhat disappointed by the lack of items which caught my eyes. Perhaps the general perception of an outlet store is for 'clearing old stocks', which explains the apparent lack of variety or latest range of merchandise. Despite this disappointment, it still took us about 4-5hrs to cover the 100 over shops here before Mel & SP met up with us for dinner which we had at Denny's. For a while, I thought Mel is going to suggest the Strastophere again. Lucky she didn't or I'd be tempted to knock her on the head :p She brought us to The Venetian instead. There is an interesting anecdote on why the ceiling of The Venetian were painted the colours of the sky, complete with clouds... "It's so that the punters here would gamble all day and lose track of time due to the never-changing sky-colour". This sounds logical enough but I thought the punters would look at their watches instead of the sky for time. Hmmmmm...... I stepped into this shop selling interestingly worded tshirts for about 25USD. The 4 of us walked out of the place with a tshirt each. According to SP, the same tshirt retails for about 60SGD at that Ah-Gua shop, NewUrbanMale, seemed like we've gotten ourselves a good bargain. We later on invited Mel & SP up to our room to 'watch' TV since they claimed they do not possess a TV back in their dorms.... poor thingys :p
We're going to the Grand Canyon on Day 11 of our 'USA Western Adventure'. Boarding the bus at the coach drop-off/pick-up point in the neighbouring Excalibur Hotel at 630am is no joke! We had to get up at 530am while sleeping around 2am. It was an estimated 3hrs drive to the canyon from The Strip, passing by Boulder City, Lake Mead and also a 10min photoshoot at Hoover's Dam. According to the boring-toned elderly lady who was our driver cum guide for this tour, we have another nearly 1.5hrs to go. Unlike the rest who proceeded to dreamland, I stayed awake to enjoy the scenary along the way. :) The was nothing really fantastic along the way but I kind of enjoyed the scenary anyway. I remembered the coach driving pass this town in the middle of the desert called Dolan Springs. I saw a Sheriff's office, a bank and a few ranches here. I find this sight rather interesting as in that how often do we get to see a desert dwelling? Must less a ranch! The coach came upon a 14mile unpaved stretch of track not long after driving pass Dolan Springs. The track is narrow with barely enough space for 2 vehicles to pass each other, plenty of dust churned up from the track whenever a vehicle drives over it and also, its an extremely bumpy ride. Those who were awake around this time most probably did so due to the 'turbulence'. I can't imagine walking or even driving with the windows down along this track. Personally, I can't wait for this 14mile to end. After what seemed like eternity to me (and most?), we came upon paved roads again! Yippie!
We finally reached the drop-off point where we are supposed to hop on to a 'Grand Canyon Shuttle' to the 2 nearby lookout points (Eagle Point & Guano Point) in the Grand Canyon West Rim. Boarding the shuttle, our first stop was Eagle Point which is so named because of a rock formation there which resembles an eagle spreading its wings. It's also here that the Grand Canyon Skywalk is located. This is a horse-shoe shaped structure which allows one to walk out over the canyon at a height of about 1200m. SO & myself went on it. From my understanding, the flooring of the Skywalk is separated into 2 sections; one with CLEAR glass, the other with FROSTED glass. I initially thought I would freak out slightly due to my fear of heights (extreme heights in this case). However, I wasn't having jelly legs at all and was even able to stand over the CLEAR glass portion and admire the sights 1200m down! Forget it if you're thinking of snapping plenty of pictures here as all photography except for the 'official' ones are prohibited. We bought our 'official' picture from them at 30USD and it comes nicely framed up. Not too bad for a keepsake but the price is abit steep I feel. Anyway, its once a lifetime kinda trip, so I shan't complain too much.
Hopping back on the shuttle after completing the Skywalk, we arrived at Guano Point. This place is so-named because bat dung (guano) used to be mined from a cave across the canyon and transported back on cables. Some of the mining relics still exist and are very interesting. Lunch is served here and we were able to dine at picnic tables outside under a large tarp. It was comforting to see the natives and workers also eating the same meals. We were able to do some hiking and discovery after a 'heavy' lunch. By far, this was the highlight of the tour, and provided many perspectives of both the solitude and natural beauty of the Grand Canyon and Colorado River. As with the other sites, caution should be exercised as no fencing or railing is provided along the paths. There were also many vendors offering handmade Hualapai Indian jewelry and art for sale. The prices seemed reasonable but are negotiable.
We arrived back at The Strip at about 630pm, passing by the same places as we did earlier in the morning. This tour is easily one of my favourite as I've finally been able to visit yet another 'Wonders of the World' after I did Rome's Colosseum back in 2004. As there were no stops along the way for snacks, we were pretty much famished by the time we head out to the Fashion Show Mall along The Strip for dinner.
Day 12 is our last day in Vegas. Our flight back to SG departs from SF at 1am the next morning while the flight back to SF from Vegas departs at 6pm. We basically have until 4pm to 'waste' until we first say bye to Vegas followed by USA. We spent our time going to Townsquare Mall once more and stayed there till 3plus. Thereafter, its a long journey back home. 28hrs from Vegas to SG, inclusive of 22hrs of total flight time.
Here's the last set of pics...
MGM Grand, heard inside got lions on display, not sure how true is that....
Bellagio... 2 things worth your time here... the buffet and the fountain show at nite.
The bright lights of Vegas as seen from the top of the Stratosphere
Lobby of Luxor Hotel....
My favourite shot of the Grand Canyon.
Hummer
Hoover's Dam at dusk....
Our loot from the war...
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