Monday, August 8, 2011

Leaving Vegas for Disneyland

vegas day 5

I woke up late today because my phone didn't go off. We went to get half price Blue Man Group tickets. We tried to get there early because we thought the line was going to be long and they were going to run out of good seats. When we got there the line wasn't very long at all and we got decent seats.

After we got our tickets we went went to get Duncan Doughnuts and coffee. we made a quick stop at the outlet mall next door and another quick stop at The Pillazo to get my friend something that was unique to Vegas and then we went to the Disney store and Ross.

After shopping we headed to met up with uncle, his co-worker and his wife. While I waited I sat down and played pai-gow. This is where this crazy Vegas journey of mine gets interesting... I was down about $75 and I was about to give up. Then my uncle and his lucky co-worker show up. I didn't have a lot of money left so I decided I was going to play through the rest of my chips. I had enough money for about 2 more hands and I was playing the bonus hand on and off all evening because that's what has been killing me. I asked uncle's co worker if I should play the bonus and he said yes. I played the hand and had a full house which pays 4-1 on the bonus. I played another hand or two and asked him if I should play the bonus again. He said yes so I did. The dealer dealt me a 6 card strait flush which pays 150-1! I won about $750 on a 6 card strait flush! I've never seen anyone get a hand like that let alone me! I was the only one at the table so nobody got paid for the envy bonus. I'm convinced my uncle's co- worker is lucky because I only win when he's around!

After that amazing event we went to Todi's, auntie got a free meal because it was her birthday. It was a Japanese buffet. The food was amazing and it was super fresh. After dinner auntie, uncle's co-worker and his wife went to get frozen custard! They go crazy over that stuff.
While they went out for frozen custard uncle and I went to go see the Blue Man Group. We were there about 45 minutes early so we went to see a band perform in a lounge area at the Pillazo. my uncle bought me a hendricks and tonic. It was super smooth. I liked it! The Blue Man Group was absolutely amazing! They were funny and very musically talented. I'm pretty sure they put a lot of work into their show. It started off pretty slow. They would do a music segment and then a funny skit then eventually it was all music. they do a lot of crowd interaction. A group of people walked in late. They stopped the show, shined a spot light on them, put them on the jumbo-tron and announced to everyone that there were late comers coming in. It must have been super awkward for them. During a skit they took an audience member and placed her in a dinner scene where they had Twinkies for dinner and they based the skit mostly on her reactions. it was hilarious! They also did a segment where they played Fur Elise, Bad Romance by Lady GaGa and I Got a Feeling by The Black Eyed Peas. An audience member yelled "FREEBIRD!" and they played it! That was really cool. There was a really long segment where they each heald up a stack of really big flash cards with a bunch of facts on it. They told you to read one and they only gave you time to read one before they flipped to the next. Behind all of those flash cards were boxes of Captian Crunch. They ate the cereal and turned the "crunches" into a rythem. When they do their comical skits one of them always seems to go overboard or gets carried away and goes a little too far. when They did the dinner scene with the audience member everyone had their own idea of "romantic" lighting. the fist blue man member pulled out a candle and lit it, the third member got a fire extinguished and extinguished the candle so the second one pulled out a battery operated candle stick and the third one pulled out one of those fly lanterns that zaps flys. The audience loved it and so did I!




Sunday, August 7, 2011

vegas day 4

I went shopping off of the strip all day yesterday. the premium factory outlets were amazing! They had a lot of high end stuff there like Burberry, Ferragamo and Dolce. It was an outdoor mall with a cool greenhouse style food court. For lunch I had a really cool hot dog from a hot dog kiosk. I'm not sure if kiosk is the right terminology for it but it was too big to be a stand and to little to be called a cafe. My aunt said there was in Hawaii too. They took a baguette and hollow out the middle put your toppings in and then put the hot dog in it. While I was there I bought 2 shirts from Marck Ecko and a jacket from Calvin Klein. Everyone was having seasonal sales! I wasn't really sold on the jacket until aunty pushed me to get it. When I got to the register it was only $21! It's  a nice jacket for $21 but not so great for $160.

We ended up spending a lot of time there. We were supposed to go to the Disney Character Warehouse but didn't have time. On our way back I made reservations for Mon Ami Gabi, a french steak house. we got reservations for 8

We ordered too much food from Mon Ami Gabi. I got french onion soup, a fillet mingon with bordelaise sauce, garlic mashed potatoes and a side of mac and cheese. I could barely get through a quarter of my steak and I barely touched the mac and cheese. The food was amazing!

After dinner auntie and I went out that night to explore Vegas. We went from our hotel to The Venetian and The Pillazo. There's some pretty interesting people out there on Saturday night. We walked around The Venetian and The Pillazo, I got a card and my aunt played slots. We walked around the tables but they were too expensive for my blood. We walked back and stopped at Harris on the way back. I lost about $75 there. The cocktail waitress' took forever to come around so we went back to the hotel and slept.

Saturday, August 6, 2011

vegas day 3

Since my aunt took me to high end shops earlier, she wanted to take me to some middle end shops. So our mission this morning was to get to Planet Hollywood. On our way there I tried to call to get reservations at Firefly for dinner but couldn't get through. We went through Bally's and Paris to Planet Hollywood.

We ate lunch at an awesome sandwich shop in Planet Hollywood's mall and continued shopping through the rest of the mall. A lot of shops were like the shops at our malls.

Paris was awesome! They had little boutiques and shops around the casino. They made the casino floor look like it was in the middle of Paris which was amazing and the perfect marketing ploy which caught me. I played a little bit at Paris and managed to stay a float. I didn't lose to much there.
the shops at Planet Hollywood weren't that extravagant but the atmosphere was really cool. it was definitely mall aimed at the middle class crowd like us. On our way back I stopped at the tables in Planet Hollywood's Pleasure Pit. The cards were really cool! The logo they used on the back was a fancy heart with the words "Pleasure Pit" in the middle. The dealers were hot that day! It wasn't the attractive hot either, they took everyone's money! I was able to last through 2-3 groups of people but I ended up loosing $100.

Later that evening we met up with uncle and his co-worker again but this time for tapas at firefly. On our way back to the room to get ready for dinner we stopped by a restroom. My auntie found a wedding ring in one of the women's bathroom stalls! She didn't take it because she believed karma was going to get her if she did. I finally got through to the restaurant on the way back. Apparently they don't do reservations. It was first come first serve. They were normally filled up for the rest of the night at the time I called but luckily they had open seats. When we got there we were seated right away. I was told tapas translates to "little plates" which is exactly what we ordered. We had a whole pitcher of red sangria, stuffed peppers, lamb, calamari, pepper tuna, tuna tar tar, fish sticks and paella. We went back to the hotel and uncle and I went back to the casino floor. I played pai-gow for a while and couldn't win anything. I gave up, went to the black jack tables and ended up loosing the rest. I lost $240 that night. So far I'm not doing too hot in Vegas.

Friday, August 5, 2011

vegas day 2

Yesterday was a pretty eventful day. Since my uncle had his convention to go to my aunt and I hung for the afternoon.

My aunt and I woke up pretty late. We headed to Serendipity's at Caesars Palace the first chance we got. When we got there we were told there was a 30- 45 min. wait but we were seated in 15 mins. Uncle and another one of his co-workers joined us. They split a huge steak sandwich! It had 2 steaks, bacon and eggs on it! The sandwich was about a foot and a half long! My aunt and I had a frozen hot chocolate, asian chicken salad, and nachos. The atmosphere at Serendipity's was incredible. It kinda reminded me of something Willy Wonka and Dr. Seuss would put together but not as extreme. The chandeliers definitely had a Dr. Seuss influence. The frozen hot chocolate tasted like blended chocolate pudding! Yum!

After brunch at Serendipity's my aunt and I went to Caesars Palace, where i signed up for a players card. I got $5 in free slot play, a coupon book and a pager for signing up. If the pager beeped with in an hour I won something, if it didn't I got to keep the pager as a souvenir. I played the $5 slot voucher and lost it all. Good thing it wasn't my money. I think I'm going to give up on slots because I never win anything. Auntie and I went shopping at all the high end stores at Caesars Palace. I definitely didn't feel dressed up enough for that. Auntie tried to sell me a $1000 watch and a $2000 blazer... No thank you!

On the way back I redeemed one of the coupons for a free medallion. So now I have a Caesars Palace medallion!

Later that evening we met up with uncle and the fist co-worker to go to the Blue Martini again. He saw the pictures and he just had to go. He got me a shot glass from the Black Hat convention he went to for my birthday! That was really cool of him! They were filming a reality TV show when we got there. We opted out of being in the show. I got another picture with the cocktail waitress! this one was much prettier than the last. I ordered a cherry cosmo and a perfect pear. We also got seared tuna, and hummus for food.

After the Blue Martini we went to Ellis Island for ribs. While we were waiting for a table I tried craps and roulette for the first time. I also played black jack. Everyone lost a lot of money. Apparently nobody wins at that casino but nobody told me that until after I played! What's up with that? The ribs were absolutely amazing! The best I have ever had!!!

After almost finishing a full rack of ribs we went to the frozen custard shop. It's just like frozen yogurt but better. I was way to full from the ribs to finish the whole thing. I got mine with strawberry and raspberry toppings.

Uncle went to bed so auntie and I went back to the casino floor and gambled. We met some pretty interesting people from Texas. One of them had a personal photographer follow her around. She referred to him as her Asian. How bizarre! We ended up playing until 3:30 in the morning. We were up soo late that not a lot of tables were open. I ended up loosing more money. Yikes! I lost about $150 that night.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

vegas day 1

I got into Vegas last evening and so far Vegas is amazing! We checked into the Flamingo, relaxed for a little bit then went with my uncle to check into his convention. I lost about $10 in slots while I was waiting for him. It turns out that check in was 8 the next morning.

We went to the Blue Martini that night. I had a mango martini and an appletini. We also ordered seared tuna, cheese platter, portabella beef, and lobster spread. I got a picture with a cocktail waitress! After the Blue Martini we went to a candy shop and sunglass hut in the shopping complex. We got my sister some gummy pandas from the candy shop. There was also a Guitar Center there but we didn't have time to go there. I was ok with that because there's Guitar Center's everywhere. My uncle and aunt took me to Krispy Kreme! I haven't had Krispy Kreme in ages! They got a dozen and I got one fresh from the line! Let me tell you, it was amazing! We went to Wal-Mart then we went back to the hotel. There was nothing special about that Wal-Mart.

When we got back to the hotel auntie was too tired to go anywhere so she went to bed and uncle took me out to the casino floor. We met up with one of his co-workers. The Pai-gow tables at the Flamingo  were full so we went to the casino next door. I didn't do too well over there so we left to go back to the Flamingo. There still wasn't any open Pai-gow tables so we went to play 3 card poker. The dealer was nice enough to teach us how to play since none of us knew how to play. I won a little bit of my money back. I had a hard time with that game because it's hard to figure out the odds of that game. You only get 3 cards and there's only so many poker hands you can make with that. After a while we headed to the front of the casino where they put all the hot girls. Uncle played roulette and I played black jack. I managed to stay afloat up there. We took a seat at the Pai-gow tables when they opened up. I drank a little, lost some money then went to the cheaper tables and drank a little more. I staid afloat for a while at the cheaper tables then all of a sudden I lost most of it! I went back to the more expensive Pai-gow table where my uncle and his co-worker were sitting and played for a bit. After drinking all of that I had to use the restroom so I had my uncle's co-worker, who has never played before, play a couple of hands for me and i started winning again! I think he's lucky! I got a couple more drinks and won it all back +$65

Internet at our hotel was $15 a day which I think is rediculous!