Viva Las Vegas!

It took us about 8 hours to drive to there from LA. It normally doesn’t take that long but we hit a few outlet malls along the way and there was an accident on the Freeway so we got delayed.

This was my first trip to Vegas as an adult. I think I was there when I was a kid once. It was not at all what I was expecting. To be honest I was expecting it to be tacky beyond redemption but it wasn’t at all. In fact, some of the casinos were lovely. The Paris casino, which obviously sported a “French” theme is a great example of how Vegas has changed over the years. The town is fun to just walk around in while you visit site after site and happy people everywhere smiling at you.

The first night we arrived Zuimei wanted to gamble and I wasn’t really interested. I am not a good loser when it comes to money. So instead I went to an IFO event. The IFO is sort of like the farm team for the UFC. These guys are still in great shape, and stuff but the money isn’t as big.

The cheap seats were all gone and since I would have blown the money in about 15 minutes at the roulette wheel I paid $100 for the good seat. When you are this close you can hear the heavy breathing as these guys struggle against one another. There were two KO’s, one in which the guy was out before he even touched the mat. WOW!

The next night we went to the MGM casino for dinner and the show. These lions are one of the show pieces at the casino. Thankfully they have a habitat away from the tourists, I would go insane if I had to listen to the C-D-G of the slots all evening. The buffet was very good. Expensive, but worth it. The Alaskan king crab legs were especially delightful.

For Christmas I had bought Zuimei and I two tickets to go see “Ka”, by the Cirque de Soleil. I had booked the tickets a month in advance and paid a lot of money so we had awesome, 4th row center seats! They don’t allow photographs in the theatre, so unfortunately I don’t have any of my own photos of the event. You can get your picture taken there, but they charge another $17 for a print! It is however the show featured in one of the CSI Las Vegas episodes (which is one of the reasons I chose it; it is Zuimei’s favorite show.)

The really impressive thing about this show is the set. The acrobatics are good, but no better than the Beijing Opera. The set however makes this extrodinary! The stage is 25x 25 and weighs 100,000 pounds, it twists from horizontal to vertical, has sprouting poles for performers to climb, and was, during part of the show, covered with sand (which is actually cork chips) Performers come from all sides, in the audience itself, and repell from the ceiling!

It was one of the highlights of the trip.

More later….