Bye Vegas

Today we're going home, just in time for Christmas. One last thing Yasu wanted to do before leaving Sin City was have coffee at Mon Ami Gabi, the sidewalk cafe at the Paris casino. We'd walked past it many times and he was always a little jealous of the patrons, but thought it would be too expensive for us to enjoy it.

But after a facebook recommendation from one of his friends last night, he'd made up his mind, he wanted to try that place anyway! So this morning after checking out at the Imperial, and about an hour before the airport shuttle would pick us up, we hurried down the Strip to the Paris for some brunch at this cafe.

Luckily the wait for the outside patio wasn't too long, and soon we found ourselves with coffee, some delicious and complimentary French bread, and brunch right on the Strip in the warm Vegas sun. It really felt like being back in Europe, which is exactly why it was so attractive to Yasu. It was a great way to end our trip, complete with one last Bellagio Fountains show which we enjoyed from our table.

Now, we're at the Las Vegas airport where they have some pretty neat wall art of famous cities. That's Yasu hopping on a cable car on his way back to San Francisco from Las Vegas.

Our improvised and unplanned trip to Las Vegas was epic. We have lots of memories, a bunch of iPhone pictures (I didn't use my Canon at all), a vicious cold (thanks to our Eiffel Tower Ride), and even a DVD with my Vegas performance to bring back. And even though this was my fifth trip (and Yasu's second), I think we'll be back, it's just too much fun!

Gambling and Cirque du Soleil

It's our last full day in Vegas, so we decided to gamble a bit, you know to make our Vegas experience complete. Honestly we were doing it to kill some time before the Cirque du Soleil show and to get some free drinks, which we heard you get when you're gambling.

We're rather risk averse so we sought out machine that let you gamble one cent at the time and we only used one machine between the two of us. The gambling itself doesn't require any skill, you just push the button over and over, and whether you understand the rules or not, you either win or lose. 

We told ourselves we wouldn't spend more than $5 each on the slots, but we didn't even need that much. The machines kept making us win our points back, and by the end of the night only spent $3.90 on almost 4 hours of gambling.

That was a fun way to kill time and an easy way to get free drinks. You can get whatever you want, and we got a lot, my favorite was probably the Baileys with hot coffee and whipped cream (see picture). I got myself another one just before we left for Cirque du Soleil, saving me a lot of money because their concession stand was pricey!

Zumanity is advertised as "The Sensual Side of Cirque du Soleil", so that was promising. Before the show we entertained ourselves looking through peepholes in the soft walls in the red hallways, and saw some things not meant for young eyes... Let's say Yasu enjoyed himself!

Our seats were in the third row from the stage, which meant we were close enough to be included in the cabaret part of the show. For the second time, I found myself leaving my audience seat and in a Vegas spotlight with all eyes on me. It was another interesting experience and again Yasu found himself being loudly congratulated by the show host for being with me. It's always good to remind him!

Like the poster says the show was sexy, fun, and acrobatic. The acrobatics were breathtaking, the contortionist was unbelievable, the cabaret was really funny and the show was really not suitable for children! This really makes me want to go see more Cirque du Soleil shows! Maybe for our tenth wedding anniversary, like we originally planned?

Downtown Vegas & Hypnosis videos

When tourists talk about Las Vegas they're often referring to the Las Vegas Strip with all its huge themed casinos and hotels. This didn't use to be the center of attention though, the original gambling district was Downtown Las Vegas. I've been here before and I'm not a huge fan, but Yasu has never been here before so we made sure to visit this area today.

It's kind of sad compared to the Strip,  it's obvious the casinos have a hard time attracting tourists and gamblers, and it has a rather dead feel to it. Also the casinos seem more cramped and the much lower ceilings keep all the smoke at face level which made my eyes teary the entire time.

The good thing about downtown Vegas is that everything is cheaper (in an effort to attract people). I remember during my first trip to Vegas in 2004, things were cheap everywhere, even on the Strip, especially food (like awesome buffets for under $10). That has changed in recent years but not downtown, not really.

So even though we didn't enjoy downtown enough to stick around for the Fremont Street Experience(which is nice but not great) in the evening, we did have a great and rather cheap Hawaiian lunch (including crab legs!) at the Plaza Hotel.

After lunch we quickly took a bus back to the Strip, where things are a little more spectacular, which is what you want during a vacation in Las Vegas.

We ended our day with another Hypnosis show! This time I stayed in my seat to enjoy the show as an audience member and it was another ridiculously funny show. Marc Savard had unknowingly hypnotized both a mother and daughter tonight and when the mother tried to flirt with him (because that's what he had hypnotized her to do) the daughter got all upset!

And here's one more clip, this is of the show we went to with the Dutchies in June. Marc Savard had hypnotized the people on stage to believe that someone's belt was a dangerous snake. The result was hysterically funny!