Vegas Baby!

Hey everyone,
In my last post I mentioned Las Vegas without actually expanding on it so I think I had better "expand" - last week we spent 4 nights in Vegas - man a truly unique place! After our epic mountain biking days in Fruita, Moab and Zion, it was a bit of a culture shock going from amazing natural scenary to bright neon lights and the razzle dazzle of "The Strip". Breathing in that fresh mountain air was alot different to chocking on the second hand cigarette smoke - it seemed 90% of people were fagging way in Vegas! We wandered through most of the big hotel casinos - Circus Circus, Bellagio, Luxor, MGM, New York New York, Excalibur, Venetian, etc. Gotta

I was so shocked to see so many people gambling regardless of the time of day! We stayed in a dodgy hotel casino just off the strip and we would walk down at 7:30am and people would still be on the slot machines or playing blackjack....man do people sleep in this town?! The days were mostly spent wandering the strip and stores (the M&M store was rather cool!) and by night we took in a few shows. The Venetian had "Phantom of the Opera" and I can say it was truly fabulous. I last saw it in 1995 and watching it again bought all the great memories back - the music of Phantom is unbeatable! I could happily watch the show again and again.

Vegas also has 5 productions from Cirque De Soleil going and we ended up seeing "O" at the Bellagio - "O" has a water theme to it and given that the stage area had to be purpose built (the pool alon apparently cost $60 million!), thus couldn't be shown anywhere else, we had to see it. Like all Cirque De Soleil productions, it was amazing. The pool/stage had the ability to alter the depth of water level. Thus, sometimes the pool floor rode to floor level with no water showing, and other times the pool floor would be 10 metres deep (for the high diving stunts). It was pretty breathtaking (as was the ticket price, which cost more then our entire Vegas accomodation!)

I don't think I'll go back to Vegas in a hurry - given I am not much of a gambler it doesn't hold much appeal, however I would definately go back to see more of the Cirque De Soleil shows!
We did put $2 into a slot machine and when we "cashed out", the machine printed out a ticket which we could take to the cashier to get our winnings.....hmm given our winnings were exactly 1 cent we didn't bother - but here's proof of us winning 1 cent!



Out of the hotels, we liked New York New York the best - the skyline looks awesome, the roller coaster ride scared the hell out of Josie (I loved it!) and the interior was totally "New York. Check it out....


On a negative note I couldn't believe the number of absolute dero's and bums who roamed the streets and casinos - is there an easier way to lose money?! I guess the Asian gambling streak is not in me!

Hope everyone is well!
CLS & JS