Day 7,8,9 Las Vegas, NV

The Vegas tagline is "whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" well, I just couldnt do that :) Day 7,8,9 of our trip we spent in Vegas, we saw and experienced so many things that I just have to tell it to everyone. Everything about Vegas was just amazing.. from the view and hotels on the strip, each hotel lobbies are unique and has a theme of its own, to the craziness and sinfulness of lifestyle there its a must visit place in your "bucket list" (hint: the movie bucket list)
So the main road of Vegas or Las Vegas blvd. or they call it "the strip" is alive 24/7.. whatever time you come out, it's always bright as day and the sound and sight of the strip just unlike anything we've ever seen before. truly an amazing experience...

There's this hotel called New York New York (ring any bell?) which takes on the theme of.. you know where.. with replicas of the statue of liberty, Brooklyn bridge, empire state bld., chrysler blg and almost any landmark and distinctiveness of the great city of North America and the world.











































Across from it is a hotel and casino... well every hotel in the strip has a casino in it :) ... called MGM grand.. with a huge lion stucture after the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie studio company (remember the lion that pops out before every tom n jerry cartoon? and roars? hehe) and there's even a pair of real lion inside the hotel for display.. awesome! mugi n vic went to the David Copperfield Grand Illusion - according to them it was pretty mind-blowing :)

Then there's this hotel called Paris... complete with miniature version of Eiffel Tower and Arc de triomphe :)














The hotel beside ours is called MandalayBay... with a tropical (south east asian) theme - there's even a 12000 gal of saltwater tropical fish tank in the hotel.















Then there's Bellagio... with the impressive fountain display... check out the video- it was amazingg!

















The Monte Carlo, with the largest casino on the Strip...



















And Caesar's Palace...















Of course,the main reason why people go to Vegas is $$$... me n mugi (vik n jessey still underage) decided to play a little slot machine and blackjack machines... You're not gonna believe what I did... at one point, I was smokin hot on the blackjack machine and this is how much I got after I investe $20...














See, before you say anything, this machine only bets $1, $2 and $5... so haha earning $60 was pretty crazy!
Until... my greediness destroyed me!! I wanted to play more and I ended up losing all $80!! how pathetic :<

In the morning we went to the Stratosphere, the tallest observatory tower in the US. What's so special about this tower are the 3 thrill rides on top of this tower... yes 100o feet above the ground! Its scary enough to be on thrill rides on the ground imagine 1000ft above ground! Mugi n Jessey went on the Big Shot, the highest thrill ride in the world!

































Yess, I admit that I was dead scared to ride the rides... but i took a video instead of the XScream at 866 feet... which dangles the passengers on the cliff... see it for yourself :)



Finally, the place we stayed for 1 night in Vegas... its called Luxor and its theme was the pyramid of Giza














Our room for the night...















The view from our hotel patio... amazing... all the small squares opposite me are the rooms... in pyramid shape.. the small pyramid thingy down there was the Imax virtual reality theater
















View outside of our room - Excalibut Hotel, medieval theme...














That night, we got our appetite satisfied with the Pharoah's Pheast buffet at the hotel...













































So in my case, whatever happened in Vegas didnt stay in Vegas...but you wouldnt know :)

Day 5 and 6 - Phoenix, AZ and Grand Canyon

Day 5 - We left El Paso after a night there to continue our journey to Phoenix, Arizona. FYI, during the wild west era, El Paso attracted gamblers, gunfighters, thieves, cattle and horse rustlers, murderers, priests, Chinese railroad laborers, prostitutes, and entrepreneurs for its perfect climate and green valley. El Paso was dubbed as the "Six Shooter Capital" due to its great remoteness and lawlessness. El Paso hired a town marshal with rough reputation, Dallas Stoudemire, who was known to shoot first and ask questions later. (thanks wiki!) . This is a picture of current day El Paso - flat land and a pretty big town, i wouldnt mind living there except its in the middle of the desert.

left El Paso to Phoenix, Arizona. It was certainly a once in a lifetime experience to be driving in the desert with nothing around and the next nearest exit is like 20 miles or more ahead, speed limit of 80 mph and awesome backdrop...

we crossed new mexico and this is one of the stop/souvenir shop...















In our stay overnight in Phoenix, well actually our lodging was in Mesa, Az we saw the movie Hitman. It was alright, decent action scenes but lacking in plot development and story.
Day 6 - 4 hr 30 mins drive to South Rim of Grand Canyon. Again, we encountered some pretty awesome scenery like this snow-capped mountain...














Finally, my dream came true...always wanted to see and experience myself one of thr natural wonders of the world... 227 miles long and 10 miles wide (on average)!
We parked our car and stepped outside making our way to the observatory deck....

























































The view was breath taking! It was so unreal and even you can see the photos of us looked like someone 'photoshoped' the background :) But seeing is believing eh? Our initial plan was to have a picnic on one of the site and having dinner looking down the canyon... but we didnt take into account that the weather would be freezing!! at one point we were dead serious about having a grill outside but i think we would've had hypothermia... my nose is still running as i'm typing this... anyways, what we ended up doing.....















yea... we actually grill our food in the bathroom of our motel room... number 1- the weather was too cold thus we didnt wanna fo it outside... and number 2 - coz we wanted to do it haha...
see ya grand canyon.. Las Vegas here we comee!!

Day 4 - Fort Worth TX, drive to El Paso

We drove to Fort Worth stock yards which was like an old-west cowboy town with souvenir shops, dining, historic monuments and 'cowboys' and alike. This place is named as a national historic district for it being a place for livestock exchange during the cowboy era. Now its pretty much a tourist attraction...

We got opportunity to meet up with some real cowboys and livestocks. This guy down here is Charles with his horse "Texas Ranger"..

This texas longhorn is called "Big Jake"

Apart from being a historic district, Ft Worth Stock Yards is also famous for its cattle drive daily where cowboys take their herds on a walk around the district...

Finally it was time to say goodbye to our trip to Dallas/Ft Worth. Our drive to El Paso was 9 hours long covering around 600 miles. The first 300 miles was trees and crops while the last 300 miles was desert with plains. We got to El Paso around 11 pm at night. To our surprise, El Paso wasn't like what we had in mind at all; we thought that this town would be a mexican town with nothing but we were greeted by thousands of light bulbs shining visible from 100 miles away (on the freeway). Our journey to the west coast will resume after a night of rest here. Tomorrow, drive to Phoenix, Az before our highlight trip to the Grand Canyon... until then...

Day 3: Dallas, TX

Our second day in Dallas, we went to the Arboretum (botanic garden). The catch phrase for this place is "let nature nurture you" and I don't know bout nurtured but it was a pretty fun place to spend your time with your family when you have kids; though we had some fun ourselves :)This huge botanic garden has several unique sections: the first one was a section called Texas Town - with miniature old west-styled buildings:

and we got to play in the houses:
















The Arboretum also has some pretty nice sculptures and landscapes with different theme for each one. We got this picture in a garden called "A woman's garden".

















This boyband looking picture of us climbing a tree...

And Jessey kissing her frog prince...

They also had this exhibit called "The amazing chocolate tree" which gave visitor a guided tour on how chocolates are made - from its cocoa tree to the candy that we eat.

At night, we got the chance to visit the American Airlines center, home of the Dallas Mavericks. They had a game with Phoenix Suns the time we were there.

This plaza was amazing, with like 10 huge LCD screens.

The ones on the walls like these could move laterally and show combined and separately.

The plan for tomorrow is to leave for Fort Worth for some old west cowboy town experience and head for El Paso, TX.

Day 2: Dallas, TX

Early start to the day. The place that stayed in offered complimentary breakfast to brightened our day.. sweeet


















Our first destination was the Dallas World Aquarium. It's located in the middle of the city: kinda looks out of place...

anyways, we were greeted by the sight of our small friend:tiny penguin

the aquarium has a tropical rainforest theme to it. it's brilliantly engineered - pretty much a green house with a rainforest underneath it. Divided into 5 storeys of exhibits with some pretty exotic species of animals and plants:

well, its not like this is the main attraction of Dallas, but even though Atlanta now boasts the largest aquarium, we haven't been there yet and this is kinda like an appetizer.

After the aquarium, we walked a little around downtown Dallas. Nothing much interesting except that i can say its a business city with very strong fashion consciousness around. We thought that this pyramid looking thingy (called renaissance tower) was interesting....



....and i wasn't paying attention....

We left to a mall called Galeria of Dallas which is 1.4 million sq. ft with an ice skating ring. This is a picture of vik in action before....

i would like to post some more photos but the wi-fi in our room is the limiting factor.. well you get the picture and so that was a pretty fun first day and we'll be hanging out in the botanical garden tomorrow and off to forth worth for some wild west adventure yeehaaa~~