Las-Vegas

29th May 2010 A morning of packing was followed by an afternoon movie and general hanging around in Starbucks. Although we were able to leave our big bags at the hotel, we still had to carry our hand luggage with us and had decided a few days ago that it would just be best to be in one place for a while. The cinema seemed like a good option :). However, we had underestimated how busy it would be and failed to get tickets for anything besides the Prince of Persia, which was predictable but good. ...

25th May 2010 We woke to a blue sky day today, so decided to return to the Zoological and Botanical Gardens that we had passed through the other day. On the way we walked past one of the ferry terminals on Hong Kong Island, offering a great view across to Kowloon. Arriving at the Zoological and Botanical Gardens we started again in the primates sections which we had passed through quickly before. It really is quite sad seeing these animals in such small cages, especially compared to Singapore Zoo. The chimpanzees in particular just don’t seem to have much space, and there is no natural greenery of any sort in their cage, just some metal framework for them to cling to. We passed by some other smaller primates - again these had no planting of any sort in their cage, and not a great deal of space. The animals just all look so sad. ...

23rd September Early start today - up at 4am - ready to be picked up at 4:50am. We had always planned to visit the Grand Canyon whilst we were in Vegas but due to a lack of research on our part we hadn’t realised just how far it was from Vegas to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon - some 330 miles or about 6 hours drive each way. After a fair bit of umming and ahhing we decided to do a fly and bus tour. ...

24th September 2009 We decided to take it easy today after quite a few hectic days. Also Vegas is so hot during the day it was lovely just to relax by the pool for a few hours. After our relaxing day, we headed into the Strip for an early tea at the Rainforest Cafe. This was a fascinating restaurant designed around a rainforest complete with gorillas, elephants and storms. Our meal was followed by a trip to the purpose built theatre in the MGM Grand to watch a performance of ‘Ka’ by Cirque de Soleil. We have seen a Cirque show before, but nothing compared to this utterly jaw dropping performance. The stage not only moved back and forth and up and down and rotated, but also went completely vertical. This, combined with colourful costumes, circus performances and martial arts made for a completely awesome show with a hugely talented (and brave!) cast. Our only regret was that we’d left it too late in the week to go and see any of the other Cirque shows - they currently have 5 running in Vegas. With Vegas being their base, it’s definately the place to see them as it would be almost impossible to take this show on tour. ...

September 21st We left Barstow and joined the I-15, which takes you straight up to Las Vegas, some 160 miles north. After 60 miles or so, you reach Baker where we left the freeway and took a circular detour into the Mojave National Preserve. This puts you onto dead straight roads which run as far as the eye can see, before disappearing in the heat shimmer. ...

22nd September We headed out to the Hoover Dam today, which is about a half an hour journey out of Vegas when the traffic is clear, which it was for us. We’d read that it could get busy as the day went on, so decided to get out there fairly early. It was easy to get to, and by crossing over to the Arizona side of the dam we were able to get free parking, as opposed to the $7 parking on the Nevada side - bargain! ...