On Day 5 we’re still in Las Vegas. After the late Cirque du Soleil show the night before, we slept in and wasted away the morning swallowed up in our duvet and pillows (I love cold crisp hotel bed sheets). By the time we got up showered and change, it was about midday, lunch beckons.

Las Vegas was always famous for its cheap buffets, but nowadays, those cheap buffets no longer exist. Based on the Frommers guide book I had, The Wynn took top spot for buffets, so we made our way down the strip for some lunch grub.

The Wynn is a $2.7 billion luxury resort named after its creator, casino magnate Steve Wynn. I think the most eye catching thing about the hotel is the beautiful and colourful floral mosaic tiles near the entrance of the hotel. And did you know that The Wynn does not have any floors that start with the number 4, since it is an unlucky number in Chinese culture.

When we got there, the queue had already started to build up. I reckon we were there for a good hour in line before we got a seat. Verdict? Overrated. I reckon our Singapore buffets are still better in terms of variety, presentation and taste.

After stuffing our faces, we had to walk it off. So we rolled ourselves to a couple of casino/hotels nearby. The Venetian was a bit of a disappointment. First of all, it’s so expensive to sit on a Gondola which only goes down a very small stretch of canal. Gondoliers were singing and interacting with customers, which I heard the real Gondoliers don’t do. The architectural reproduction of the sky was alright I guess.

So what was the highlight for me in Las Vegas? As sad as it sounds, I bought tickets to watch the American Idols Live in concert. Uh huh! Now stop giggling, I’m serious. I was pretty hooked this season thanks to my ICON colleagues Gwen and Sarada, who used to exchange notes on performances from the night before. This season, I had two favourites: Jason Castro and Michael Johns. Both with very different voices and style, and both charming in their own way.

Wayne likes Carly Smithson. There I’ve said it. HAHAhaha..

More walking after the show before we retired for the day.

VIVA LAS VEGAS!

The highlight of this trip for Wayne was our stay at Las Vegas!

From San Francisco, we took a one hour flight on United Airlines to Las Vegas. From the air, I snapped some fantastic shots of the Grand Canyon, and did you know some parts of the Grand Canyon is covered in snow?

Once we arrived in Las Vegas, we had to collect our rental car from Hertz, which we had pre-booked online before we arrived. Now, let me warn all you travelers, the quote that they give you online is an estimation, so be prepared to fork out a lot more when you get there. Because, things like insurance and tax isn’t included, so we got quite a shock when we saw the final figures. Plus, we ordered a Mazda 6, but they ran out of Mazda 6s, instead, we got some big ass Buick.

I didn’t like the car. It was too big, and steering seemed a bit off. But Wayne was too lazy to drive back to Hertz to change it.

Another thing Wayne had to get used to was driving on the right side of the road. There were two near misses which I won’t repeat here for his ego’s sake.

Still on rental cars, I must say, the system in place at the airport is fantastic! Because of the massive number of people renting cars, they actually have a dedicated terminal for all the rental car agencies. So it was quick, easy and systematic. Chop chop, sign, key, ignition, drive.

It was a short drive to our hotel on the strip, and thankfully, because Wayne was getting a bit nervous driving on the wrong/right side of the road. We stayed at the New York New York Casino and Hotel, which is situated at the beginning of the strip. After settling in, we had the whole afternoon to explore a few casinos.

Mandalay Bay, Luxor, Excalibur, Tropicana, MGM Grand.
I may have captioned this photo wrong. I can’t remember if we saw the lions at MGM or Mirage. I’ll change it once i’ve confirmed it with Wayne

After all the walking, we bought ourselves a souvenir size strawberry margarita from Cayote Ugly.

After a short nap, we had to get ready for our first Cirque Du Soleil. We bought tickets to watch “Love” by The Beatles.

It was FANTASTIC! We both loved and grew up with The Beatles music, so we were singing along to the songs and tried to take in all the sights and sounds. It was a beautiful production. I loved the music so much I bought the CD for Wayne’s dad, coz he loves The Beatles too.

The songs are remastered, and some were rearranged and edited to sound more current and upbeat for the show. It wasn’t a huge deviation from the original, so don’t worry you Beatles fans out there. I’ll put up a few tracks on my blog radio tomorrow.

Here’s a trailer of the show