<![CDATA[Las Vegas simply has too much stuff to really cover it all in a few days. It would likely take a month in the city to really experience everything... maybe more. We did see nice things though, and so I thought I'd lay out a few cool things right here while I have a couple minutes to do so:
Architecture and Art
There are lots of places in Vegas that have been created with history in mind, and although they aren’t old at all, they’ve done a decent job at faking it for the most part. Some places I refer to is Caesars Palace, which is one of the largest hotels in Las Vegas. It is this monster of a complex, and there is some rather neat visuals around the building. Take this photo here for example:You can get a rough idea of what I’m talking about here. Every building you see behind Hang and her mother is part of Caesars Palace. It’s crazy how much space this hotel and casino take up. In the front of the building is a long pond and rows of trees that stretch all the way out to the strip. in several sections within the middle of this long courtyard, there are statues and fountains in the middle of the pond area, as you can see behind them (looked a little like a headless woman trying to bowl). At night, everything is brilliantly lighted as well. – you can get a slightly better look from THIS PHOTO as well.
There were other forms of “fake” old architecture around as well, as this photo below demonstrates:
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There were plenty of other places as well, such as Fremont street, which was themed nicely to match an older, more “classic” Vegas feel. Here is where we found the street performers. I was happy to finally see Elvis impersonators as well, since we’d gone three days without seeing a single one. I was sorta feeling left out. Fremont street also includes a huge video screen that runs along the length of the place, and a zip-line that people can pay to ride on. The zip-line takes the rider over other people walking on the street, and carries them over 300 feet (you basically ride a zip-line the length of a football field).
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The V Theatre
We also went to a couple shows in Vegas. One was “Santa’s Magical Circus”, a small performance with a theme of simple magic tricks, puppeteering, and two of “Santa’s helpers” in very short skirts and heels (personally… that was the best part of the show).
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The V Theatre is located inside the Miracle Mile Shops inside Planet Hollywood, which also features awesome artwork within itself. The entire ceiling, for example, is painted to look like a sky with clouds. It is intended to give you an old folklore-style town feel, without the worry of it being too dark or raining. They put a lot of detail into the place, and I appreciated that.
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Of course, it’s only the old town in design. It still features your typical lighted fountains and stripper poles… I mean, it’s still Vegas and all.
Artwork around Vegas.
It was near Christmas time, as you know, that we traveled to Vegas. Hotels and other venues around the city were all getting into the Christmas theme, and building exhibits and designating entire sections to the holiday spirit.
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One such hotel was the famous Bellagio, which hosts a large fountain show every hour during the evening until midnight. The hotel was decorated with trees, penguins near igloos, and giant bears made entirely of flowers. In the center of their festive room were fountains shooting streams of water over a large colorful bridge. People were walking all around getting pictures with the greens and reds everywhere.
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