I booked tickets to Vegas a couple months ago, simply because tickets were cheap. It’s also right after both Kelvin’s and my birthdays, so I used that as an excuse to go. I barely took any pictures during our trip. Having been to Vegas several times, I’m no longer impressed by the artificiality of the place, so I rarely take pictures of anything. Plus, I can’t take pictures of most of the entertainment there, like gambling areas and shows. As a result, my Vegas pictures this time around mainly consist of food.
Friday
Our flight was delayed half an hour, but we still managed to fly into Vegas before 11PM. Check-in at Treasure Island was a breeze as there was no line. Room was decent, but it was located in the back where you could almost kinda get a peek of the Strip but only mostly see the Treasure Island tower and the roof of the casino. Bed and pillows were super comfy, and the room wasn’t static-y, but that was probably because of the cooler weather.
We dropped our stuff off and ate at our favorite place to eat in Vegas: Noodle Asia.
On the way back, we bought a couple bottles of water at the Walgreens. Back at the hotel room, we showered and went to bed, as the next day was busy…
Saturday
Got up at 8AM, which was REALLY hard. We were meeting up with Anna at Paris to have breakfast at 8:45, and after that, we were going to taping of Let’s Make a Deal. The show likes people to dress up, so the best we could do last minute was have Kelvin wear his dog-eating hat and I would wear a track suit and hold the dog’s leash. I don’t have a track suit, so I wore whatever obnoxiously colored running wear I could find at Target. And all Target had was this ugly-ass pink track set. While I don’t mind wearing offensively colored things (people wear things like this regularly all the time), I took great offense to the pants. CAPRI SWEATPANTS. Disgusting. Who invented these things?! I got it anyway since it was the only jacket/pants set in pink I could find that was my size. This morning, I grumpily put them on. Thankfully, I believe no footage exists where I am seen wearing these damn things.
We took a cab to Paris, where we met up with Anna and had breakfast at La Creperie. Kelvin had some omelette crepe, I had a Nutella crepe, and Anna had some berry crepe. None of us took pictures cuz we were zombies busy drinking coffee. Kelvin ate all of his, but Anna and I only ate 1/3rd of our own crepes. So much sugar… After crepes, we grabbed a cab to the Tropicana, where the Vegas Let’s Make a Deal shows are taped.
The whole Let’s Make a Deal experience is worthy of its own post, so I’ll skip it for now and hopefully eventually put a link… here? Summary: Kelvin and I didn’t get to be contestants, so boo.
I was originally going to put on makeup and do my pigtails neatly (like in front of
a mirror and with a brush), but getting up early made me brain-dead and extra-
lacking in motor skills, so I just ended up looking scary. At least Anna is cute!
After LMAD, we had a late lunch with Anna’s cousin and her boyfriend at Wolfgang Puck Bar & Grill at MGM Grand. They have generous portions, so Kelvin and I split a chicken noodle soup and gnocchi. Tasted decent, though th gnocchi was a bit salty for my tastes.
When we finished lunch, we headed back to our hotel, while Anna went with her cousin to Bellagio for dessert. I wanted to go too, but I was SO TIRED. I could feel myself getting grumpier with each passing second, so I didn’t want to pass my grumpy cloud to company while they’re eating sweets. Back at TI, I napped for a good two hours.
It was dinnertime after nap, and Kelvin was wanting cheap prime rib. Before heading out in search of cheap prime rib, we walked across the street to the Fashion Show (mall) to look for a coat. I had warned Kelvin that Vegas had highs in the 50s, but he still didn’t bring anything warmer than a track jacket. Macy’s had some really great deals of jackets and sweaters; we got an Alfani coat and a Calvin Klein sweater. We were already past the the $100 minimum (pre-discount) to get an additional 25% off, so I got a cute top as well (which ended up being the most expensive item in the bag). Kelvin looks good in his new winter wear, though he’d look even better if his pants were slimmer.
We walked down the east side of the strip, looking for dinner. We made it all the way down to Kelvin’s favorite gambling spot, Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall and Saloon, and they also happened to have many posters advertising $15 prime rib dinner at the Victorian Room. Guess where we ate for dinner? :P I was in the mood for cheap steak, but their steak wasn’t that cheap. During late-night hours, they have a $6 steak and eggs deal, but this was normal regular dinnertime, so I just got their overpriced cheapo steak. Decent meal, considering price and cheesy dining atmosphere (prime rib and Chinese food in the same place!).
Bill’s is one of the few places on the strip that regularly has $5 minimum craps tables. All the tables were full, except for the one next to entrance where the air was freezing. Kelvin likes it here because of the low minimums, nice dealers, and he claims he always wins here. We tolerated the empty spot of the table with the cold breeze, won some monies, and walked back to TI.
We called it an early night. I think there was something in the air, because most of the trip I was tired to some level. Either that or we’re old people. I fell asleep watching movies on TBS. Yep, old people.
Sunday
We still got up pretty late despite going to bed a little earlier. I wanted to see a show, so we went to the box office to get tickets to Mystere. They had a buy-1-get-1 free dealio, so we got center seats for ~$60 a person for the 7PM show. That was better than anything I could find online earlier, both in price and seating, so I was stoked.
Ever since we got to TI, I have been constantly smelling pho when leaving the hotel room because the cafe next to the elevators on the casino floor sells pho. And is called Pho. So we had pho for lunch. It was good pho, too. I don’t know if it was $14 good, but there was a lot of broth and fixin’s (practically a whole lime per person!) and flavor was comparable to all the good pho I could find at home.
TI had $5 craps going, so Kelvin played a few points. Table wasn’t hot, so overall, we were down when we left. Not much to do, so we walked down the west side of the strip. Unsurprisingly, we found ourselves back at Bill’s. They had some hot shooters, so we were able to kill a bit of time there as well and left up almost a couple hundred. I played some slots, lost monies, and we headed back to TI.
There was still some time before the show, and we spent it at the Pai Gow tables. Someone taught me how to play Pai Gow a long time ago, but I had since forgotten. The game is simple enough, and the odds are close to half, so it’d seem we could play for a while. In the end, we still managed to lose 50 bucks in 20 minutes. It was mostly just us, but a guy came and did all the other things you apparently can do in Pai Gow Poker (buy the dragon hand, play as bank). I didn’t realize there was more to the game than just your hand and the dealer’s hand; I need to read up on this later.
We went to the Mystere theater at 6:30 and waited in our seats until the show started. It was… okay. I didn’t like the theatrics of Ka, but I was a bit underwhelmed with Mystere as well. Clowns and acrobatics were good, but wasn’t impressed with the dancing (which, looking at the Mystere website, replaced a missing “Hand-to-Hand” act) and Taiko drumming (which I see at any Japanese event here). The giant snail thing was kind of freaky, too. The show was still entertaining and worth the money, though.
Kelvin was still craving Asian stuff, and Venetian had more Asian options, so we went back there again. A couple of the places seemed too trendy when Kelvin was wanting simple food, and I didn’t want to eat at Noodle Asia again. Instead, we went to Zine in Palazzo, another Asian noodle place. Nice, modern decor, crappy, overpriced food. Kelvin claimed the Szechuan beef noodles (which was cheaper than Noodle Asia at $12), so I got pho AGAIN. An $18 bowl of pho even! Some BS about filet mignon meat, which was way worse than the cheap stuff they typically use in normal pho places. Kelvin’s beef noodles didn’t seem that great either, making Noodle Asia the clearly superior beef noodle soup option. For pho, go to Pho.
I played a lot of slots after dinner. They’re getting really creative with the slots; they have these “community” slots where 3 or 4 slot machines are hooked up to a central computer. When one person gets a special lighty-uppy bonus event, everyone on that server has to stop playing their game and watch the event. The winnings of the event go to everyone playing on the server, making the slots a lot more social and interactive. I enjoyed playing the slots, bitching and cheering with other people at the same statistically crappy system. Kelvin thinks slots is the dumbest thing, which I understand. What I don’t understand is his incessant bitching of me playing it. I’m not sure why I enjoy the lights and spinnies of slot machines (probably from the same part of my brain that likes reality TV), but can’t a girl throw away her money in peace?
I lost about $20 to this round of penny slots and wasted an hour of time. We went back to our hotel room, but we were still bored and weren’t sleepy for once, so we went back to the casino floor. We attempted Pai Gow Poker again. A couple times, I also bought the dragon hand. With the house getting ridiculous hands like straights and triple pairs, this just means I lost my money twice as fast. Losing my $20 (or was it $40?) at Pai Gow Poker, we were still bored and decided to go for craps. Unfortunately, the tables were up to $10. High for our bankroll, but we played anyway. And consequently lost $400. Sigh.
Tired of losing money and only having enough cash for the cab fare back to the airport anyway, we called it a night.
Monday
Slept in late again, but our check-out time was 1PM, so no issues. We crammed all our possessions in Kelvin’s rolling suitcase and went downstairs to the lobby for check-out. Starting last October, TI implemented a ridiculous $22 daily resort fee. I knew about this already, so I took this into account when booking the room (even though I’m finding this trend of resort fees as obnoxious as anyone else would). Unfortunately, a lot of people didn’t read up on reviews as much as I did. Everyone in front of us in line (about 3 parties) stormed away from the check-out desk, outraged and pissed off because they just found they have to pay an extra $22 a day for benefits they most likely never used. (Benefits don’t even include free water!) I don’t blame them for being angry, but it probably makes me look like a saint to the check-out people. They must hate their jobs.
Not wanting to think about food and spend a lot money, we had lunch at Noodle Asia. After lunch, we took a cab to the airport. The flight back home… TOTALLY SUCKY. SO turbulent towards the end. I knew there was a storm coming into San Jose, but that was much bumpier than I expected. I was scared to death, but of course, all Kelvin the Fearless could think about was:
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They’re taking the hobbits to Isengard!
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Apparently Kelvin can’t talk-bubble links. LAME.
New thing I learned today: The house gets the edge in Pai Gow Poker through two things: 1) They charge a 5% commission on winning (you bet $10, you’d win $9.50 while house gets 50 cents), 2) House wins ties. House edge is about 2.85%. This edge is decreased if you play as bank, an option in Pai Gow Poker. Because of its slow pace,
After reading up more on the game, I’m intrigued. Next time, we’re in gambling land, I think I’m going to play more Pai Gow Poker. I like that it’s slow-paced and social, sounds like a good game for getting free drinks. Too bad TI Pai Gow Poker was rigged and their waitresses are slow and/or non-existent. *grumble grumble*
