Beer Pong and Cherry Blossoms

Yes, it's a strange title - but then, Las Vegas was a strange place. I had never been there before except to change planes in the middle of the night, so I didn't really know what to expect. This post is going to come across as very jumbled - but that was much what my time in Las Vegas was like. Oh - and in my last post? That was my view from the 32nd floor of the Wynn Las Vegas. The big building to the left is the Palazzo, and the smaller one to the right is Treasure Island.

I checked into my hotel Tuesday afternoon, made a beeline for my bathroom and stopped. Simply stopped. There was the biggest bath tub I had ever seen in my life. I tend to be more of a shower girl at home - partly for expediency's sake and partly because we have a standard (i.e., small) bathtub. And after you have been spoiled by Japanese bath tubs for a few years, standard North American ones are not really worth the effort. I made it my mission to rustle up some bubble bath. I tried taking a non-prurient picture of me in the bath and after some comical results (which I will *not* post), I came up with this one:



Oh my, I could literally float and swim in this bath tub. I had more baths in the last four days than I think I have in the last two years. I desperately wanted to bring that bath tub home with me!

I was at a conference while in Vegas and didn't have much time to explore, but I started keeping notes of the things I wanted to blog about, so here goes:

- Swirling flowered carpets - a bit mermerizing. Could make the drunks a little dizzy







- Walking down to the conference room at 7:10am. Still people playing Blackjack and slots. Wondered if they had been there all night.

- Left my blinds open last night. View from the hotel room shows the Strip and the mountains beyond. Reminded me a bit of Boulder. Didn't contend with the Treasure Island Casino shooting off fireworks in front of my window three or four times that night. Or the party a few doors down singing karaoke until the wee hours of the morning.

- Ate dinner on Tuesday at Red 8. Asian Fusion. Had dim sum - steamed pork buns. Hadn't had these since I lived in Japan. So yummy. Also had chicken chow mein, Thai tea, and Vietnamese coffee. Nice and hyped up to try slot machines. Lost $10 before I figured out what I was doing wrong. Slot machines don't have instructions. Very suspicious.

- Wednesday. Eating too much. Biscuits with andouille sausage. Watermelon. Sweetest pineapple ever. Korean bulgogi wrapped in lettuce leaves. Some of it must be good for me. It is a 10 minute walk between my hotel room and conference room, but I feel stuffed.

- Man is wearing sunglasses on the back of his head. Why?

- Cocktail waitresses wearing what looks like napkins made of mini-chain mail. Want to get a picture taken with one of them and tell Raul she is my new friend.

- I'm amazed at the colour in this place. It made me want to start dyeing yarn right there and then. Maybe have some skeins inspired by everything around me here.







- Coming back from meetings in the afternoon and seeing motorized wheelchair/scooters lined up against the wall. Apparently they are not allowed in the slots area.

- Don't like the smell of cigarette cmoke. No way to avoid it - you have to walk through the casino wherever you go. I brought twice the amount of clothes so I could change frequently. Hate the smell of smoke in my clothes. Weird to see it everywhere - it's not like this in Delaware.

- Saw more fake bosoms here than I ever have seen before!

- Got lost walking around the pool. One pool leads into another and then into another. The only exit I found was an emergency exit and so I was turned around again. Ended up having to cut through another industry conference to get back to mine.







I really regret not having swam in these pools. I thought it would be a little on the cool side because it was in the high 60s/low 70s while I was there, but one of my fellow conference attendees told me the pools were heated and the water was about 80'F. I just about gnashed my teeth at that!

These next pics are especially for my friend, Tara. She loves quilting and I found some amazing quilts on the walls in the Wynn:





Here's a close up of the embriodery detail on that quilt:



One of the coolest places in the Wynn was the Up Parasol Down Parasol stairwell - another wonderful use of colour in the hotel:







Don't they make you want to play with colour?!?!

In the end, I can honestly say that Las Vegas is not a place that I am aching to go back to immediately. I have friends who make a couple of trips there every year and love it - but it is all a bit surreal for me. The title of this post is an example of this - on my shuttle back to the airport I saw a sign at one of the off-Strip casinos advertising 'New Beer Pong Tables!' (what the hell is beer pong?) and then two seconds later I saw cherry trees in bloom outside a Japanese restaurant.

******************************************

Come back later this afternoon - I received a cool package from my SP when I was away and it deserves it own post.