Las Vegas Day 1

Me in a fantastical area of the Wynn?? Hotel

We decided to go to Las Vegas for my birthday this year. It’s a spectacle, and its amazing that I never went as an adult. I have been feeling the squeeze lately with school starting and work ramping up, and I felt the need to step back a little from my life with a nice little weekend trip for the long Memorial Day holiday. 

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 Its been the first day, and honestly, I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe I am having a fringe experience, but Vegas is not where you go to relax.  Also, this place isn’t exactly photographer friendly. I am finding my DSLR conspicuous, and am having difficulty documenting all my experiences.

We drove to LV starting at 7:30am from San Diego arriving at 1am. My original plan to go to the Hoover Dam on the way in, but we wouldn't have made it until 2 and the last tour is at 3:30. Also, we were hungry for lunch! Instead, we stopped at this tiny little place called Veggie Delight. I am surprised that from all my internet scouring for the best vegetarian place in Vegas, that the best place could get had only 8 seats. Perhaps Vegetarian Culture is far far larger in Sandy Eggo.

 

I was a little bit skittish about trying out this new Veggie Place, so I made a pretty safe noodle dish order. Sometimes, people have different definitions of Vegetarian, you know. While that is perfectly fine, I would be quite saddened to have to send food back because of my pickiness and lack of specification. I didn't need to worry because the food was very good. What I didn't appreciate perhaps was the radical vegans at the adjacent table with nothing else in common apparently. I mean, all of us are at a vegan restaurant, we already agree with you! Vegans in San Diego are much more subtle haha.

Beef and Mushroom Noodle dish - Vegan

Veggie Delight was in this really small corner of what I would like to identify as the Vegas Chinatown. Is that an official dubbing? I'm not sure.

Excellent Vegan Hole-in-the-Wall

 Then we went to Fashion Show Mall. It was massive! All the women there were carrying either Michael Kors or Louis Vuittion Handbags. They were also far more instances of incredibly revealing outfits that both shocked and amazed me. I feel remiss that I left all my slutty clothes at home. I am not being sarcastic.

The mall was massive!

 There was a bridge that connected Fashion Show mall to Wynn Casino. The bridge was full of homeless people and also beautiful beautiful people wearing skimmpy outfits who were peddling for dollars.

Knockout Pan Handlers

 The casino across the way was one of hte most breathtaking spaces I have ever been in. The ceilings were high and whimsical flowers seemed to float in the air. 

Me in front of a whimsical Garden

 There were people getting married there! When I think of vegas nuptials, I don't think of something as elegant as this.

see that white dress in the distance?

 It was about time to check into our hotel at 3:30pm so we went to the Downtown Grand near fremont street. Alex had secured our passes here on priceline very shortly ago, so I was worried about checking into a hotel I knew nothing about. It turned out to be lovely. The room had a calming motif. The only foreboding item we found was a complementary pair of earplugs.

The Next street over was the Fremont Street experience.  Its a street that has an awning that they project video onto. Its really a huge spectacle. There were bands and DJ's playing all night, and me and perhaps 1 million other tourists were jam packed into this area. The awning gave the feeling of eternal day, and I lost track of time very quickly. We didn't go back to the hotel until midnight, and after a long day of driving, that was very exhausting.

The Fremont Street Experience was full of people willing to show a lot of skin and wear silly and clever outfits for money. It was amazing.

The entrance to the Fremont street experience.

Me walking in Fremont East

We dabbled in just a little gambling so far. We put our chips on the pass line at the craps table at the casino in the lobby of our hotel. The hot shooter passed, and we doubled our 5 dollar minimum bet. It was hilarious to me because I spent perhaps 1.5 hours in the car reading all the rules to craps to alex whiel we drove up. All of that accumulated in putting a single chip on pass, and us winning 5 dollars. I was so excited I let out a shrill so loud I embarrassed both us and we left immediately. I almost promptly lost that 5 dollars in a Walking Dead slot machine at the Golden Nugget. That bummed me out. We are still 5 cents ahead though!

We explored the Golden Nugget a little more and found this awesome fish tank 

Fish tank with a slide in it!

 Other things I was unable to photograph was our visit to the Mob Bar where we saw stand up comedy and had two glasses of wine. I had a glass of Bello Grois Pinot Noir Alex got an Anonymous Cab. What is funny is that I think I've actually had exactly that Pinot before during our wine trip up to Sonoma County a few years back. I am finding that if you stick to one variety, you become something like an expert in them, even if you are drinking wine as infrequently as I am. 

My friends were right that I wouldn't be bored in Vegas. I got overwhelmed with the choices I had to make. For instance, we missed the dueling piano show at the Mob Bar in lieu of checking out the Golden Nugget. Something hilarious that we noticed was that we had a lot more fun in Fremont street once we had a drink in us. The party had really heated up by then as well.

Hope I can take some more photos tomorrow! We are only spending two nights in vegas, so I hope we can see what there is to offer.