The 3rd and final leg of the USA trip was a stopover in Las Vegas. We flew from San Francisco to Vegas and landed at 8.30pm at night, I was quite annoyed as I had a window seat on the plane, the setting was perfect for me to get see the bright lights of Vegas as we were landing, but the lady next to me thought it was the perfect time to start talking to me! ahh! And I didn't want to be rude and snobby, so I started talking to her too, and basically only caught glimpses of the Vegas lights!!
We ended up getting onto a shuttle bus, I think it was $20 return, Las Vegas airport is just 10 minutes from the Las Vegas Boulevard (the main strip), how convenient. Oh and the funniest thing - for the way too keen gamblers Vegas airport has pokies machines set up inside...lol.
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| Las Vegas Strip |
We had booked our hotel - The Mirage for US$330 for both of us. This was actually the cheapest of all the hotels on this trip, and it's true Vegas has really good accommodation deals. The Mirage had a really good location, it was basically at the centre of the strip and surrounded by some of the other major hotel chains - like the Venetian and Treasure Island.
What was really unexpected was the change in temperature, I mean LA and San Fran were cold, so I didn't really expect the boiling conditions of Vegas, and man was it hot! So hot that the hotels had misted water spray systems near the entries just to cool people down.
This was the most exciting city of this whole trip to me, first night in Vegas, we walked around, explored the surroundings, mainly Caesars Palace, and the Forum shops...this place is huge!! and so grand! I just loved it. Theres tons of people who work around this area just promoting their different clubs, we were given this deal to buy 2 frozen margaritas for $10, and we thought that was a bargain..so we immediately went into this bar and got our drink on! haha...it was late at this stage and we ended up heading back to the hotel..oh the maccas was right in front of our hotel, and they have $1 McChicken burgers! wooahh never came across a maccas deal that cheap! needless to say we had McChickens for dinner that night (plus about 3 more times in the coming days :P)
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| View from the Mirage's hotel room |
Since I had had the margaritas that first night, I just could not fall asleep, I was chatting away til about 4am the next morning (and probably annoyed the hell out of my friend who I forced to stay awake with me!).
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| Hoover Dam |
The next day, Sunday, we had pre-purchased a tour package for the Grand Canyon which included a helicopter landing at the base, a boat ride along the Colorado River, and the Skywalk with transfers to and from the hotel by coach. It was fairly expensive -$270. But well worth it. I mean you got to visit the Grand Canyon at least once in your life, right! I think we had a 8am pick up from the Mirage, and from here from memory I think we arrived at the Grand Canyon West around 11am.
First up, was the helicopter ride, after weighing us, they grouped us and gave us designated seating on the helicopter, we scored FRONT SEATS!! woo! It was a 6 seater helicopter, so a family of 4 were at the back.
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| Helicopter ride across the Grand Canyon |
Flying through the depths of the Canyon is a feeling of awe - the sheer magnitude of what you're doing and seeing is amazing, I mean it's just breathtaking. After landing, we were ushered onto a small power boat, the captain took us along the Colorado River for some time, it was very peaceful when he cut of the engine.
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| Landing at the base of the Grand Canyon |
The Skywalk was the biggest disappointment, wasted about $36 on this thing! We barely spent 5 minutes on it. Sure the floor is made from some heavy duty glass and if you have a fear of heights or trust i guess you'll have a hard time walking on the glass. But seriously, the whole stetch of the Skywalk was barely 50m, and there's really not much to do up there. We werent even allowed to take our cameras on it so all we could do was appreciate the structural integrity of the Skywalk, and if it's appreciating the Canyon, nothing's gonna compare to the helicopter ride!
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| Grand Canyon West |
The Skywalk was the last stop, before we headed back to the coach that took us back to the hotel, we left the Canyon around 3pm and arrived at the Mirage around 6.30pm. Good trip.
Since it's so dehydrating-ly hot in Vegas, we ended up staying indoors til the sun and heat went away, we decided to go to Madame Tussands (which was just across the street at The Venetian).
I've been to Madame Tussands in Hong Kong before, and have to say the Hong Kong MT has so much more celebrities (even though i didn't know most of them, we still took about 4 hours to get through all of it), but in Vegas we barely spent an hour inside. But the good thing was I knew 95% of the celebrities in it. I was excited to see Britney Spears and JLo, oh but JLo did not look like the JLo i know, i dont know. Plus she looked so-so skinny. I loved Julia Roberts' wax figure. Oh and one of my favs was the Snoop Dogg setting ^_^
The rest of night is all a blur to me, we ended up doing ONE shot of Tequila at Casino Royale, then we walked towards Harrah's, we spotted alot of people walking around with half yards, so we spotted a stand selling them outside a club near Harrah's. There happened to be a street break dancing show just outside so we stayed and watched for about 10 minutes. By this stage I was gone, the shot in combination with the half yard was so strong for me, I could barely walk straight, my friend thought it was best to head back to the hotel at this stage, good thing too as I ended up chucking 3 times in the room!! ewww...
The next day, waking up in Vegas was NOT fun, besides being severely embarrassed and not really knowing what exactly happened and having to be filled in by my friend. I promised myself that I would never drink excessively ever again! We stayed in on that Monday, basically cos we were both still recovering from the previous night, and cos it was way too hot to go out. However that night we tried to catch all the free shows at the hotels, our hotel (the Mirage) had the volcano show. You can feel the heat emitting from the exploding volcano, it was pretty intense. Then we walked to the Bellagio to catch the last show for the Fountains of Bellagio. OMG, was this worth it! This was my favourite show, it's so cool. Plus the Bellagio is a really classy hotel, I loved the interior of it. They had this really cool garden in it.
And that was how we spent our last night in Vegas, my friend was feeling abit exhausted so we had to call it an early night. On the last day, I went out and finally really gambled (as in at a roulettes table, not pokies), I didn't win! But oh well, i didn't care, I really needed to get some Mirage chips cos my sister had asked me to bring her back some. Lol. I miss Vegas, I had so much fun here.
Tips for travellers
1. Don't drink excessively, unless there's some one there to look after you
2. Don't drink tap water
3. Don't be tempted to gamble beyond your limit
4. Don't be fooled by the maps, we made that mistake where you think everything's close to each other, but in reality, these buildings are so humungous that you're actually walking for kms before you reach your destination. See we could see the Bellagio from our hotel and we started walking there, but in reality it was probably more than a km away. And in the heat of Vegas, it's very easy to get exhausted.
5. Bottom line, have fun!!
We left Vegas around midday on Tuesday, and landed at LAX around 5pm. We had decided to change our plans and head back to Melbourne on the same day, as our original plan of leaving LA on Wednesday had fallen through as the flight appeared to be over booked. So we were put on stand by for the Tuesday 11pm flight. What a wait! We had 5 hours at Tom Bradley Terminal at LAX (this is way better than the LAX main terminals i found). After about 5 hours of waiting, the Qantas crew called our names, we ended up getting business class tickets back to Melbourne. I ended up seating on the upper deck of the A380!! What an experience. Thanks to my friend for hooking me up!
I caused quite a stir at home, as I hadn't told my parents about my change of plans and I had gone missing during my 16 hour flight. Feel so bad about that! But they were happy to have me back. I think. Well I had some explaining to do, but after that they were happy to know everything was alright. :) Best-trip-ever!!
Since it's so dehydrating-ly hot in Vegas, we ended up staying indoors til the sun and heat went away, we decided to go to Madame Tussands (which was just across the street at The Venetian).
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| Madame Tussands, Venetian |
The rest of night is all a blur to me, we ended up doing ONE shot of Tequila at Casino Royale, then we walked towards Harrah's, we spotted alot of people walking around with half yards, so we spotted a stand selling them outside a club near Harrah's. There happened to be a street break dancing show just outside so we stayed and watched for about 10 minutes. By this stage I was gone, the shot in combination with the half yard was so strong for me, I could barely walk straight, my friend thought it was best to head back to the hotel at this stage, good thing too as I ended up chucking 3 times in the room!! ewww...
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| Volcano at The Mirage |
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| Fountains of Bellagio |
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| Bellagio Foyer |
Tips for travellers
1. Don't drink excessively, unless there's some one there to look after you
2. Don't drink tap water
3. Don't be tempted to gamble beyond your limit
4. Don't be fooled by the maps, we made that mistake where you think everything's close to each other, but in reality, these buildings are so humungous that you're actually walking for kms before you reach your destination. See we could see the Bellagio from our hotel and we started walking there, but in reality it was probably more than a km away. And in the heat of Vegas, it's very easy to get exhausted.
5. Bottom line, have fun!!
We left Vegas around midday on Tuesday, and landed at LAX around 5pm. We had decided to change our plans and head back to Melbourne on the same day, as our original plan of leaving LA on Wednesday had fallen through as the flight appeared to be over booked. So we were put on stand by for the Tuesday 11pm flight. What a wait! We had 5 hours at Tom Bradley Terminal at LAX (this is way better than the LAX main terminals i found). After about 5 hours of waiting, the Qantas crew called our names, we ended up getting business class tickets back to Melbourne. I ended up seating on the upper deck of the A380!! What an experience. Thanks to my friend for hooking me up!
I caused quite a stir at home, as I hadn't told my parents about my change of plans and I had gone missing during my 16 hour flight. Feel so bad about that! But they were happy to have me back. I think. Well I had some explaining to do, but after that they were happy to know everything was alright. :) Best-trip-ever!!
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