After a long and arduous trip over the dessert from LA, we finally arrived at Las Vegas sometime around 4pm. We first stop by at Caesar’s Palace to cool our heels before we proceed to the Flamingo where we will be spending the night. Caesar’s Palace is famous for one thing and that is their shopping promenade. What struck me the most is the ceiling inside the Palace, which is painted to look like the daylight sky. This kind of reminded me of the ceiling of Grand Hall of Hog wart’s school in the Harry Potter movies. Coupled with the row of Roman themed architectural “apartments”, which are actually storefronts, the entire promenade is actually magically transformed into an ancient Roman town. Not only the “apartments” reminded you of the “Romaness” of the designs, various sculptures actually reinforced the perceptions. You have the statues of Atlases “standing” on the column and “lifting” the ceiling. You can also see the sculpture of Roman gods such as Venus, Athena, Apollo, Jupiter, Neptune, and Dionysius. There is also a Trojan horse obviously referring to the famous wooden horse used by the Greeks in their conquest of Troy. However, the central attraction of the promenade is the fountain/aquarium where the statues of Neptune and his children stands and on the surrounding dome like ceiling are painted the story of Atlantis, i.e., the sinking of Atlantis. On the appointed time (like every half hour), the statues are lowered and are replaced by mechanical mannequins that “acted” out the story of Atlantis complete with fire and thunderous roars. There was not much “acting” involved with the mannequins except for the constant flailing of the arms and the side way movements of the entire mannequins. However, coupled with the alluring story of the fall of Atlantis, it does make one nice mechanical puppet show. After an hour of window – shopping (by my aunt and sister) and picture taking, we left Caesar’s Palace for good and headed for the Flamingo. I had one thing to say about the Flamingo, although it was the nicest hotel we stayed in our entire trip, I nevertheless had the worst hotel experience in my life. It’s not that the amenities are bad rather my room and every other rooms the group stayed in there is reek with a strong lingering cigar smell. In fact, the entire room smelled like one giant puffing cigar! So bad was the smell that I felt like being suffocated and barely had any sleep that night. Anyway, after dinner at the hotel, my sister and I went straight to see the Star Trek show at the Hilton and didn’t join the “un – programmed” tour of Las Vegas organized by Eric. After watching Star Trek and getting disappointed with the failure to get a photo shoot of me in the bridge of the Enterprise, we walked out of the Hilton and began our own tour of Las Vegas with just me and my sister. We took the Mono Rail (like the MRT in the Philippines) just outside the Hilton. One – way ticket regardless of the drop off point costs 5 bucks (P250) per person. Quite expensive if I may say and the route of the elevated train passes by the back – sides of most of the hotels running in parallel to the busy and popular Sunset Boulevard. The end stop of the train took us to MGM Grand Hotel where we went to see the famous “Lions of MGM”. The Lions are actually more like or pre- adolescent cubs and they are purportedly the descendants of the famous MGM lion that one sees during the opening of any MGM movies (complete with that roar). At first, we were rather disappointed with the lions because they are actually “lazying” around sleeping (complete with drooling). We waited like for an hour or so (along with the rest of the fast burgeoning crowd of lion watchers) before the lions decided to “get up” and “strut” around, play a little, and posed for pictures like some spoiled supermodel and then conveniently went back to their business of sleeping after like 15 minutes. Talk about some superstar flair and “antics”. I guess that is their way of saying “you got what you came to see, now scram and let me get some beauty sleep”. At any rate, my sister and I got what we came for and we therefore hiked off. We left MGM and crossed the street over to New York, New York, a theme casino hotel. The main attraction of the casino hotel is the giant roller coaster ride passing through the different landmarks of New York, which are actually replicas of the real thing like the Statue of Liberty. Curiously though, the casino hotel didn’t include the WTC twin towers when it was built, which according to a superstitious few is an ominous sign of it’s fate. Of course, I didn’t believe such a crap. Next, we walked up the famous Sunset Boulevard towards Paris, another casino hotel. But before that, we first went to see the Bellagio, which is just opposite of Paris to see the famous water fountain show. The Bellagio’s fountain show was actually featured in the movie, Ocean’s Eleven, near the end. The fountain show was quite spectacular and one has just got to see it for themselves. It was just like a fireworks show complete with blinding lights, booming, crackling sounds, and deafening bangs, with eye pleasing choreography except that it is just above the waters and no fireworks are involved but just water. It was like a group dance number with a few dozen ladies dressed in golden peacock dresses and arms locked and dancing to the tune of Elvis’ song, Viva Las Vegas (the song was actually played during the fountain show, blaring from the speakers mounted on the posts) similar to the actual shows inside the casinos. It was spectacular sight indeed but best has yet to come. Across the Bellagio stood the impressive half size replica of the famous Eiffel Tower. We paid $9 per person and queued up for about more than half an hour just to get up there to the top of the tower. While riding on the glass elevator upwards, I felt an unfamiliar knot in my stomach, which I never experienced before. It turns out that I was “traumatized” by the “elevator fall” at the Terror Tower for I can’t help myself from thinking that “the elevator might fall, the elevator might fall………” At any rate, I did “survived” and reached the top. However, there was nothing really to see at the top of this “mini” Eiffel Tower for the Las Vegas nighttime skyline wasn’t that impressive. But just then, something happened. Across the street, the Bellagio fountain started dancing again. Our timing couldn’t be much more impeccable for my sister and I were able to see the Bellagio fountain show from a different angle. The entire fountain show was just beneath our eyes. This is a far cry from the view beside the fountain. If the view from the sides of the fountain were spectacular, the view from the top was simply incredible. So much so that side of the observation deck was jam-packed with people to the extent that I think the tower would collapse on our side because of the weight concentration of the spectators (again, my trauma was acting up). It was a refreshing view of the fountain show on which account I personally think that the Bellagio Fountain Show should be considered as one of the Wonders of the World that one shouldn’t miss. After 15 minutes of that spectacular show, we came from our lofty perch and proceeded to our next attraction. I forgot the name of the hotel we went but it was just the opposite of the Venetian. There we waited for a good hour just to see the Volcano show. I had to say that I’m amazed at the ingenuity of the designer of the Volcano for I can never imagine that Man could actually mimic Nature to it’s finest detail. From it’s “quiet” picturesque state to it’s raging fury, I am pleasantly surprised about the vivid depiction. The technological entertainment packs the fury of an erupting volcano complete with pyrotechnics and rumbling sounds but yet it doesn’t looked “dangerous” at all. In fact, it was quite an entertainment though it dwarfs by comparison to the Bellagio Fountain Show. Somehow, I regretted to have seen the Bellagio Fountain Show first for I could enjoyed the Volcano even more if I saw it before the Bellagio. We planned to visit the Venetian next and probably see the Pirate Show afterwards and the Circus show even later but as we looked up at the time after the Volcano show, it was already 11pm. We had no choice but to went straight back to our hotel room since we had to be up early the next morning for our trip to the Grand Canyon. I wish I could just stay for another night at Vegas for there is a lot more to Vegas than just simply gambling (and I don’t gamble). Next time perhaps?
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