Some pictures taken while I was in Vegas. Pardon the badly taken shots, there was so many people around, couple that with my height (the lack of it rather) plus the limited time we had (most of which was spent rushing from casino to casino), some pictures ended up tilted, others had heads in them, and some had dust balls (couldn't really control that one).
Friday, we set off from UCLA at approximately 1.30pm and went on a 4 hour ride before stopping briefly at Barstow.
We spent 30minutes in Barstow, exploring the really tiny place and bought dinner. For dinner, I had what has to be the equivalent of McDonalds in the American Chinese Food industry, Panda Express.
Panda Express was pretty good, for Chinese food in America so far (I had chow fun, which sounds like fried rice in Mandarin, except it came out to be noodles...). Orange chicken is not that bad, though they really need to improve on their fried noodles and rice at Panda Express.
Anyway, we had dinner on the bus (did I mention that Barstow was blistering hot? And that was a prelude to the Vegas weather), caught a movie or 2 before we FINALLY reached Vegas at 8plus in the evening (I know I say evening when people in Singapore would say night, but the sun hadn't really set by then!).
The first night we had a mini tour of the Strip, saw many nice hotels/casinos but didn't talk any pictures of the more notable ones since we didn't get the chance to get off the bus and the flash would bounce off the screen everytime, resulting in over-exposed pictures. We did catch a free performance at Freemont Street though. Wasn't that fantastic as compared to some of the other stuff we did but it was nice. Liked the atmosphere.
After the tour, we elected to visit the Stratosphere Tower on our own.
That's me close to the top of the tower, you can see the lights of Las Vegas behind me, beautiful, ain't it? By the time we bought the tickets, queued to get up the tower, watched a scuffle between an exhausted travelling companion and some Russians and took a cab back, it was already 2am. We showered and then went to bed, only for me to get up at 6.30am to shower and call my mum (in Singapore).
Originally, we had intended to go to the Grand Canyon in a helicopter and had earlier told the travel agent, that fell through and so we spent day 2 wholely in Vegas. It was fun.
We were dropped off at this shopping mall and walked over in the heat to Treasure Island.
That's Treasure Island.
I'm not going to say as to what we were doing since I don't think I can get this done before dinner (my floor goes for dinner at 6pm) so here are the pictures.
The Venetian plus one of the murals on the ceiling. They have lots of nice murals.
Cesar's Palace. Nice, but still not my favourite.
Paris. Well we were there and took the photo with the showgirls in the day but the hotel looks better at night, hence the night shot. Anyway, after visiting the Paris, we (7 of us) actually hopped into a LIMO and went back to the hotel for $20! Great experience.
Anyhow, nightfall came and we went out again, this time to watch some free shows. For example,
the water show at the Mirage, and
the water show at the Bellagio.
The Bellagio is breathtaking.
Yup, all INSIDE the Bellagio, BUT the Venetian has way more charm, plus it has a romantic feel to it.
Planet Hollywood at night
The Excalibur at night.
Hard Rock Hotel (the hotel I was staying in is directly opposite Hard Rock).
Sadly, we didn't have enough time to explore the whole of the Strip. There were hotels we wanted to go to, like MGM, the Luxor etc that we had no time to explore. But Vegas was beautiful at night, though the heat was a completely different thing. Not to mention, I was extremely charged up and static for the entire duration I was in Vegas. I kept getting electrical "shocks" whenever I touched the doors or brushed against my friends. But it was fun being in Vegas, though if I do go another, I probably should wait till I'm past 21. Lol. It's not as fun being in Vegas when you're 19.
