Category: Traveling

So, it’s been ages.. as usual. But this is the last entry!

So Monday morning… we ate breakfast at the buffet which ended up being a BAD IDEA. My advice is if you’re on vacation, and you’re planning on eating at a high end restaurant that evening, eat as little as possible during the day. I got a picture of one of the plates that Jeff loaded up for breakfast; it’s rather funny.

He loaded it up with lunchmeat and cheese. Which are 2 of the main components of his personal food pyramid.

After breakfast we headed out and did some sight seeing.

This was in the Excalibur on the way out onto the strip. We got smart and figured out we could use the walkway between the Luxor and Excalibur and save ourselves from walking in the heat and save time.

We went to MM world and Ross again, where I ended up buying a maxi dress. I was excited about that because the dress wasn’t dragging on the floor like 99% of maxi dresses I’ve come across. I realize it’s probably supposed to be a midi dress for regular statured people but I still love it. Sadly, I didn’t take any pictures in MM world, but I did get a souvenir penny that’s currently kept in my wallet.

On the way back to the hotel, we walked in front of Monte Carlo, which had this pretty awesome black fountain.

And then immediately after on the wall you see in the lower left corner, we came across this hilarious advertisement for beer, and so I had to get my picture taken next to it.

The funny thing is, I never heard of “butterface” until I moved to Utah. As you can see, it describes an attractive female.. but her face. (get it?) Thankfully, this doesn’t describe me. I hope.

So we get back to our hotel room and get ready for our night out. We made reservations at Wolfang Puck’s Postrio, which was located in the heart of The Venetian where the Phantom of the Opera was located. We had considered changing our dinner reservation to Gordon Ramsey Steak which is located at the Paris, but it ended up being perfectly fine.. we ended up being really close on time. Anyway we were located outside of the restaurant.. which was off putting to Jeff at first, but it ultimately ended up being great.. we had a fantastic view during dinner.

When we walked into this part of the Venetian, I literally thought we had gone back outside. It was an open plaza and there were even PIGEONS flying around. Jeff and I were debating on the behavior of the pigeons.. he speculated they probably pooped on people, and I said they were probably trained to poop in certain areas.

And in case you were wondering, we did take obligatory food pictures. Here’s my apetizer:

And here’s Jeff’s:

We ended up getting the same entree, which was a very yummy Salmon dish. I made the mistake of getting a side of cauliflower so I ended up being VERY stuffed afterwards, which made me uncomfortable in my dress.

We made our way over to the part of the hotel where the opera was located. Obviously, no pictures were allowed during the show, but I did take a few pictures while we were waiting for it to start.

The show was AWESOME. Like, WAY BEYOND awesome. In the recent movie that stars Emmy Rossum and Gerard Butler, the prologue was done in black and white. Obviously they can’t make us see that in person, so they had these dark heavy black and grey curtains draped all over the place. When the music started they drew the curtains to reveal beautiful gold and red behind it to make it feel like you’re part of the opera audience within the show -it’s almost like Inception- and then the chandelier did this amazing “dance” where the 4 pieces came back together as one. Even now thinking about it, I’m getting chills! It was just that good. The cast, everything was awesome.. and they did an amazing job working on a stage.. with the movie you’ve got the ability to work with a much larger set, but they still gave a feeling of traveling down to the bowels of the Opera house where the Phantom lived. The show ended its run in the early part of September, so I’m grateful that Jeff and I were able to have an amazing experience of attending the show.

There’s a stunning fountain at the front of the Venetian, and so we managed to snag some passerby to take a picture of us in front of it.

I’m happier than I look, I swear! And then of course, here’s a picture of the fountain without anyone in front of it.

 

We actually considered staying in the Venetian, but I’m glad we stayed in the Luxor. The next morning before we were to head home, we were able to go view The Bodies Exhibit. We missed out on it while it was here in Utah in 2008, so that was awesome to be able to see it. No pictures of that unfortunately, but we were awed at what we saw. The human body is truly amazing, and seeing the exhibit kind of makes you realize what our bodies do every second of our existence. They also had this room dedicated to the fetal stage of our existence.. and that just kind of really opened my eyes. It also made me incredibly sad, because each and every specimen on exhibit was someone’s child (and in one case children since it was a set of conjoined twins) that was loved, lost and mourned. I appreciate the incredible sacrifice of the parents that gave consent for their children to be used to educate and enlighten viewers of the exhibit. The thing that stuck out the most though was a plaque that had a factoid on it.. we only exist as a single cell organism for the first 30 minutes of our existence.

Our trip was amazing.. and wonderful. It was a much needed vacation to reconnect as a couple and to enjoy ourselves. I’m looking forward to our next vacation, whenever that will be! It was a truly amazing experience.

I do have a confession though; the part of the Bodies Exhibit that showed the muscular system and the skeletal system, I started craving beef jerky. I know, that’s so beyond wrong and gross, but the muscular system really looks like delicious pink beef jerky.

I’m not a cannibal, I promise!

I know it’s been forever since I blogged about our first day in Vegas.. unfortunately I had a technical difficulty and  I’ve now been able to get the chance to finish blogging about the trip.

So we woke up the next morning and went down to eat breakfast at McDonald’s. Let me just say, McDonald’s in Vegas is way more expensive than it is anywhere else, especially when the McDonald’s is in the food court area of a hotel. After breakfast we went exploring a bit and at that point Jeff’s foot was getting to the point of interfering with walking, so we went to Ross and he was able to find a nice pair of Doc Martens and a pack of black socks for a great deal. We managed to score some cheap tickets for two shows on Sunday, so after buying Jeff shoes, we had to rush back to the Excalibur, to claim our tickets for The Tournament of Kings.

AND. IT. WAS. AWESOME.

Essentially it’s a dinner and a show about King Aurthur and the Knights of the Round Table. With Merlin, a court Jester and the Black knight. There’s singing and dancing and jousting involved. The dining area is divided up into countries, since the show heavily involves the audience; the idea is that you cheer on your knight who’s the king of the country you’re sitting in.

So, we got seated in France, which wasn’t all that thrilling for us since, Jeff has a dislike for the French language.

So, the dinner was pretty awesome. It was a 3 course meal, and you don’t get utensils to eat with. So the soup -which was a tomato basil soup- is in a bowl with a handle that you drink out of. The main course was AWESOME. It was a small Gaming Hen with some small baked potatoes and some broccoli. It was a TON of food, I was not able to finish it. Dessert was kind of a letdown afterwards, since it was a limpy apple strudel thing. Overall the meal was great, and the show was AMAZING. We were okay with sitting in France, since he won the tournament! We totally were engaged in the show.. cheering, booing and clapping all at the right places. I also got lucky and was able to get my picture taken with one of the handsome actors that played one of the kings.. I forgot which country.

So, after this, we had to quickly skedaddle back to our hotel, because we got tickets to another show called “Fantasy: The Strip’s Biggest Tease”. It’s a show of more topless dancers, and it also features a really amazing singer named Lorena-she kept her top on- and then an AWESOME comedian named Sean E. Cooper! He was downright hilarious. There was this guy in the front row who got pulled up onto the stage by the singer, and they made him put on this crazy wig, belt, cape and gave him a guitar to do an Elvis impersonation. The funniest thing about it is that his name was Pepe and he was from Sweden.. and he was the focus of Sean’s jokes several times. Yes the comedy was a bit raunchy when there’s topless women involved what else can you do you expect- but it was still within a certain level of tastefulness. I’ve read about another comedian’s show where he just went over the top from being funny to flat out offensive, and Sean never did that; it was great.

I felt so short and stumpy next to the dancers. That and out of shape.

This was actually my first show involving a comedian, so we took pictures with Sean too.

And Jeff with Sean.

And then after the show we called it a night. Mostly due to Jeff’s foot. That pretty much sums up our Sunday in Vegas!

 

I feel like I need to address something really quickly. I know some people may find the fact that we saw two shows in Vegas that involved topless women offensive; however Jeff and I do not share most people’s attitude of nudity. I realize that this may not mesh well, but I can assure you that we have a healthy respect for ourselves and each other, and due to the fact it was a mutual decision to see these shows and we saw them together, there was no ill feelings involved towards each other.

So, Monday was mine and Jeff’s seven year wedding anniversary. Yay us! Earlier this year we decided to go to Las Vegas to celebrate.. well I decided and Jeff went along so I’d stop asking him. We left Saturday, and got home last night.. and let me tell you that is NOT ENOUGH TIME. It didn’t help that Jeff hurt his foot and was limping around the whole time we were there either. But I think we still managed to have a good time. Here’s some pictures (duh)

What’s amazing is that the airport is within view of the strip and vice versa! We were still on the plane when Jeff took this picture. If you look at the grey and black tower, to the lower right of it, you can see the top of a pyramid. That’s the Luxor, where we decided to stay at. It’s pretty exciting knowing I could see our hotel from the airplane and that our trip was ACTUALLY HAPPENING. Since apparently, it didn’t sink in when I was in the plane going to Las Vegas…

So this was one of the first things we saw when we landed at the Las Vegas airport. Of course, I had to take a picture! After riding on the longest escalator we’ve ever ridden on, and getting our luggage, we were able to catch a shuttle to the hotel. There’s this company that offers round trip deals, so of course we did that; since you save money by doing so.. and trust me saving money in Las Vegas isn’t easy. Do it however you can!

While in the shuttle on the way to the hotel, I was snapping pictures; this was one of them.  I was wondering why there was a giant crane on the strip, but we later found out that there’s going to be a giant Ferris Wheel that’s essentially going to be bigger than The Eye in London.. it’s going to be restaurants or something.. not entirely sure. (I found an article here about it.) I guess according to the article they are building two.. this is the second one that’s in the article. It’s really nifty, and I can’t wait to go back to Vegas to see it completed.

So anyway we get to our hotel, and once we got into the main lobby, you can really tell that you’re inside of a pyramid shaped building:

Each floor gets smaller and smaller as they go up, and the balconies aren’t over each other. It’s insane.

We requested a high room, and let’s just say… we kept daring each other to stare over the balcony. The Luxor has 30 floors, and we were on the 26th floor. Every time you looked over the balcony, your stomach would literally drop, and if you looked over while moving..  you’re risking losing your lunch. Even then, the view was pretty amazing.

We didn’t think to take pictures of our room -woops- but it was amazing. and HUGE. But here’s a picture of the view from the sitting area window.

Again you can see the Sphinx and Obelisk that are in front of the Luxor, and then you can see the airport. Jeff took this picture, mainly to get the view of the airport from our room. He really liked seeing the planes take off and land. And then on the right side are the large supports for the giant Ferris Wheel.

After getting settled into our room, we decided we were hungry so we went and noshed at the buffet. Which was all sorts of delicious. Jeff discovered right before we left that he really likes clams, so between us we ate probably 5 dozen. We ate other stuff.. crab legs, and I had tamales and several different types of salads, and fruits. After dinner we decided to walk the food off by going on the strip, and to walk to this kiosk that provides half priced tickets for various shows the night you buy them.

This is the front of the Sphinx that’s in the previous picture; there’s a walk through coming from between its paws, or front legs.. or arms. Whatever. You can see in the lower part of the previous picture there’s some type of track; that’s a track that goes between Mandalay Bay, then the Luxor, and then Excalibur -in a south to north direction. We only rode it once, and that was to the Excalibur, so we could start walking on the strip. We eventually found the kiosk, and  purchased tickets for a show, and then continued up the strip to figure out where to catch a taxi. We eventually were able to pick up a taxi in front of Paris Hotel and Casino.. which was about a mile of walking. Jeff doing this in cheap, brand new flip flops ended up screwing his left foot up for the rest of the trip.

We get to the Stratosphere, which is where the show was. We enjoyed icecream cones before the show, which were yummy. The show we caught is called “Bite” which is essentially Vampire Rock Opera. That involved topless dancers. We managed to even score front row seats.. here’s how front row we were:

That’s the candle on our table, and you can see the stage right behind it. Considering that there was topless women, it was good entertainment. It’s not really something you’d go see for the storyline, but there was a singer that was pretty good, and there was some amazing choreography, which included one of the girls doing some amazing ribbon dancing. We’ve seen it before on TV and our reactions were always “meh.” but to see it in person.. it does not compare.

After the show, the audience had a chance to do a photo-op with the cast. So of course we did that.

Unfortunately, my picture came out horrifically blurry, which was due to the fact that we didn’t think to take our actual camera, and Jeff took the picture; he’s not all that great at taking pictures. Oh well, live and learn I suppose. We actually made this mistake pretty much the whole trip until Monday night.

After the show, we took a taxi back to our hotel and relaxed in the jetted tub that was in our room. I’ll just leave it as that. *wink*

More to follow later!