It turned out that my friend Ed and his family were in Las Vegas at the same time so we made plans Tuesday night to go to my favorite restaurant in Vegas,
Raku, as it was open late and they were getting out of a
Ka show at 9pm. They picked me up in a
Chrysler 300 rental car - I think of that car as "gangsta" because it looks aggressive. Traffic was pretty bad on Spring Mountain Road; we did a detour and got to see the now-closed Sahara hotel (as of Monday 5pm that week); it was eerie to have that part of the Strip to be in total darkness.
 |
| farewell to the Sahara |
As usual, we end up ordering way too much food but it was still very delicious. I tried a few new things like buttered scallops and eggplant. We didn't get out of there until midnight, yet there were still a lot of patrons in the restaurant.
 |
| mmm, shrimp! |
 |
| my favorite - foie gras |
I had Wednesday to myself, and Babe came in Thursday evening. He was supposed to "work from home" on Friday but he forgot the power supply. I searched on the web and found you could buy a power supply (or pretty much anything computer-related) and have it delivered to your hotel for an additional $10 service charge from
Las Vegas Computer Repair. The company was responsive and came out as promised, unfortunately when they tested the power supply, it didn't work with Babe's HP workstation laptop, so he didn't have to buy it. He was only able to work until noon...oh well, more time to spend with me! :) My friend Ching drove into Las Vegas later that afternoon, and we headed out to Raku and enjoyed another delicious dinner. I think that I got my Raku fix for a while! We returned to the condo and played Kingsburg and Agricola the rest of the night until Ching left to go play craps at the MGM until the wee morning.
On Saturday, Babe and I headed to
Jean-Philippe at the Aria to have our usual dessert crepe with gelato on the side. We ordered a Nutella crepe with whipped cream and berry gelato. Never disappoints! I love watching the whipped cream get pumped out of the machine onto the crepe...I don't know why I'm so fascinated with that. After eating, we played some Deuces Wild video poker and I luckily hit four deuces in the first ten minutes of play. That was a pleasant surprise! We found out later that Ching wasn't as lucky...he played some more today but was still in the hole. :( Babe and I went to the
Miracle Mile Shops but all we ended up buying was a Quiksilver shirt for him.
Dinner was to be at
Lotus of Siam (supposedly the best Thai food in North America). Fortunately Ching could eat Thai hot, so Babe had a companion to enjoy a spicy Thai curry. (I avoided it to not repeat the torture of the last time I was here) We also ordered tom yum soup, drunken noodles with sea bass, garlic shrimp, steamed mussels, plus sticky rice mango for dessert. All were very delicious and highly recommended. I seemed to have forgotten to take pictures. :( (must have been really hungry!) Once dinner was finished, we decided to visit a karaoke bar that was in the same strip mall. That was super fun! We were in our own private room. There were tambourines to play along with the singing. It was good that Ching was with us because Babe and I had no idea how to use the remote to select the songs as the buttons were printed in Korean. We had intended to only be there for an hour, but it stretched to three hours! (time flies when you're having fun) We were surprised when we paid the bill, as the cashier handed us a CD that had the first hour or so of our singing recorded. Now we have evidence of everyone's performance, including Ching's rendition of Aqua's "Barbie Girl". ;)
 |
| just punch the number in and hit the big yellow button |
 |
| the videos usually didn't match the song theme |
 |
| "I'm a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world!" |
We had to check out of the condo on Sunday morning. Ching got a free room at the MGM for the day; we were able to check in early and play Kingsburg until we got hungry for an early supper. We walked to the Cosmopolitan, hoping to get into the
Wicked Spoon buffet, but we got there a few minutes after 3pm, and they were closed until 5pm to change over to dinner! Most other buffets would let people in and change the food over at the same time...I couldn't wait until 5pm as I was starving, so we ended up going to
Holsteins.
 |
| milkshakes are so good, full fat! |
 |
| chicken tenders |
 |
| pork belly, delish! |
 |
| crispy shoestring fries |
 |
| delectable burgers |
We walked back to the MGM and played one more board game before checking out. Ching dropped us off at the airport and headed back to Los Angeles. Babe and I headed to Phoenix...checking into
Marriott's Canyon Villas in Scottsdale. (seems to be a Marriott timeshare theme here...) I got a really cheap deal for a week in a studio here, which included access to the
JW Marriott next door and their pool area including the lazy river
.
We ended up staying here until Wednesday as we had to prepare for our trip to Peru starting Friday. Our friend Frank and his family were able to use the timeshare from Friday on, so it wasn't wasted. I thought I would be spending a lot of time at the pool and shopping at the nearby mall, but mostly ended up relaxing, finishing up the Blending books, and updating my blog.
Babe and I were looking forward to hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu...it was the highlight of my sabbatical. Stay tuned...
No comments:
Post a Comment