As I mentioned, we were right on the strip at a major intersection with some of the most well-known hotels in Vegas on each of the four corners - the MGM Grand (our hotel):

New York New York, and yes, that's a full-on roller coaster behind the statue of liberty:

The Excalibur, which obviously has a medieval theme - apparently they were planning to knock it down sometime in 2006 and rebuild it because it's sinking into the ground. Seriously.

and finally Tropicana - probably the least impressive of the four. This photo was taken down the road a bit - the big green monster in the far background is the MGM Grand, and Tropicana is closer on the right. Running overhead in this shot is one of the monorails that provide an alternative form of transport to some of the major hotels.

Here's a shot of me with the MGM Grand in the background:

A huge gold lion dominates the corner the MGM Grand stands on..

..and behind the lion are gigantic video screens.

Next to Excalibur is the Luxor, which is the big pyramid that has become an icon of Vegas:

In front of the pyramid is a massive sphinx - this shot is taken from behind it:

..and you can't have a pyramid and a sphinx without having hieroplyphs everywhere too..

Just beyond the Luxor is The Mandalay Bay hotel. The gold windows of the Mandalay are tinted using actual 18-carat gold leaf, I kid you not. Some of the hotels going up in Vegas are hitting the US$2billion price tag - yes, billion. Amazing huh.

Las Vegas is famous for it's flamboyant use of bright flashing neon lighting, digital billboards and general excess which, if the city were a person, would be the equivalent of the worlds most extreme attention whore. Here's one of the signs outside the MGM Grand - not too excessive, but I like how the picture came out.

Ok, that's probably more than enough about the hotels.

There are a heap of different restaurants within the MGM Grand, including establishments by world-renown chefs Wolfgang Puck, not one but two Joël Robuchon restaurants, an Italian trattoria named Fiamma, sushi at Shibuya, Craftsteak, Nobhill, Pearl, Seablue and many more. Our regular ended up being The Grand Buffet - they had a huge selection of foods including things like king crab legs, rack of lamb, juicy steak, lots of vegetables, blueberry blintzes, an extensive salad bar and much much more, plus a wide assortment of mouth-watering desserts. For breakfast (or brunch as it turned out for us most often) they also had pancakes and belgian waffles, canadian bacon, omelets and many other choices. The great thing about it was the variety - we could try all sorts of different things, and the only limit on how much you ate was your own stomach - needless to say we absolutely stuffed ourselves.

..continue reading "the Las Vegas trip 2005" »