Las Vegas 12/26/06
The day after Christmas we were ready for a vacation. The plan was to catch a 9:30 AM flight to Las Vegas. We were definately questioning our luck for the trip when we missed our flight due to huge crowds at the airport and a mix-up at the sky-cap luggage area in front of the airport. Northwest rescheduled us as "stand-by" for a 2:30 PM flight. Of course, stand-by means no guarantee. They couldn't even guarantee we'd get on a 5:30 PM flight. Sigh. 5 or more hours of our vacation was about to be spent at the Minneapolis airport. I'm still not sure why, but no one at Northwest mentioned that there was another flight at 11:30 AM. With nothing to do, we decided to try and get on that flight. As luck would have it, some flight somewhere was delayed, resulting in two open seats on that flight. I guess our luck wouldn't be so bad after all. On arrival at the Las Vegas airport one is immediately immersed in the sounds and sights that will surround you for the rest of the trip. The signs shown below are advertisements for attractions at casinos near "the strip".
Upon checking in we were offered a room with a mountain view. Never get your hopes up when offered a view from your hotel. The mountain must be that bump in the distance.
We then went to check out life on the Vegas strip. This at the toy store FAO Schwartz in Ceasar's Palace.
Hiroe found her favorite game. Actually, it was only her favorite game until she found an even cooler car racing game.
Las Vegas sights...
We then watched the pirate show in front of Treasure Island. The set includes two ships; one stationary and one that can enter the scene from around a corner. The moving ship can also be sunk. Given those props, the hotel changes the story and characters every once a while to keep it somewhat new. The show we saw was a fairly silly one involving bikini clad women on the stationary ship and mean pirates on the sinkable ship. The photo below shows an explosion on the pirate ship that the the women were able create from the safety of their ship by singing a song and dancing. The power of a thong bikini.
The pirate ship sinking. Hard to see, I know. Our viewpoint wasn't that great.
We then headed over to the Venecian. They have a gondola ride inside that we didn't get to ride as we were short on time.
The view from the Venecian.
On the way back to our hotel we saw this street artist creating clay heads for his customers. Fairly realistic. Not sure what else he could do with that talent.
Later that night we went to see the Cirque du Soliel production of "KA" at the MGM Grand Hotel.
The characters getting the crowd ready for the show were sort of a combination of Star Trek meets the Renaissance Festival. Very fun.
It was a simply amazing show with at least 60 people performing on stage at one time or another. Most of the performers had olympic level athletic skills. At one point a guy is on the outside of a cage on a ferris wheel type mechanism jumping rope. It's hard to describe, but he was airborn much of the time due to the speed of rotation of the thing. The stage itself was amazing too... it was about 15 x 30 meters in size and could be horizontal, vertical, or anywhere in between. It could also rotate. As an engineer, I was extremely jealous of the people who got to design that thing.
After the show we went to Studio 54, one of the many night clubs in Vegas. There the performances continued...
Upon checking in we were offered a room with a mountain view. Never get your hopes up when offered a view from your hotel. The mountain must be that bump in the distance.
We then went to check out life on the Vegas strip. This at the toy store FAO Schwartz in Ceasar's Palace.
Hiroe found her favorite game. Actually, it was only her favorite game until she found an even cooler car racing game.
Las Vegas sights...
We then watched the pirate show in front of Treasure Island. The set includes two ships; one stationary and one that can enter the scene from around a corner. The moving ship can also be sunk. Given those props, the hotel changes the story and characters every once a while to keep it somewhat new. The show we saw was a fairly silly one involving bikini clad women on the stationary ship and mean pirates on the sinkable ship. The photo below shows an explosion on the pirate ship that the the women were able create from the safety of their ship by singing a song and dancing. The power of a thong bikini.
The pirate ship sinking. Hard to see, I know. Our viewpoint wasn't that great.
We then headed over to the Venecian. They have a gondola ride inside that we didn't get to ride as we were short on time.
The view from the Venecian.
On the way back to our hotel we saw this street artist creating clay heads for his customers. Fairly realistic. Not sure what else he could do with that talent.
Later that night we went to see the Cirque du Soliel production of "KA" at the MGM Grand Hotel.
The characters getting the crowd ready for the show were sort of a combination of Star Trek meets the Renaissance Festival. Very fun.
It was a simply amazing show with at least 60 people performing on stage at one time or another. Most of the performers had olympic level athletic skills. At one point a guy is on the outside of a cage on a ferris wheel type mechanism jumping rope. It's hard to describe, but he was airborn much of the time due to the speed of rotation of the thing. The stage itself was amazing too... it was about 15 x 30 meters in size and could be horizontal, vertical, or anywhere in between. It could also rotate. As an engineer, I was extremely jealous of the people who got to design that thing.
After the show we went to Studio 54, one of the many night clubs in Vegas. There the performances continued...
posted by john and hiroe at 4:21 PM
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