Spring Break 2008...part 3 (Grand Canyon, AZ -> Las Vegas, NV : 02/27/2008 - 02/29/2008)

Part 3:

Day 6(02/27/2008):

So, the day started early, really early, because we needed to reach the airport at 9ish for Keng Yang's flight at 11.30am flight. Not too bad that the flight's at 11.30am. But too bad that we were 200+ miles away from Las Vegas McCarran International Airport. So, to be safe, very safe, we decided to take off from Grand Canyon, AZ at 4am. YES, 4 AM (Mountain timezone). So, we have more than 6 hours to make sure we make it to the airport with plenty of time to spare.


Also, it was a really cold morning. Checkout the snowflakes on my windshield.

Somehow, we managed to make it in slightly less than 5 hours because we didn't have to stop for anything, other than a little bit of gas. Because of driving, I missed the star-filled skies! As it was there wasn't much light pollution driving from Grand Canyon, AZ to Las Vegas, NV, star gazing must be great, and the sky was clear too. KENG YANG, I blamed you for this. And all this while, you were sleeping at the back. ;-) Just kidding.

So, we made it to the airport at 7.45am. So, it will be too long a wait for our friend, and we were pretty hungry, so we decided to go for breakfast and come back later. At first, we were thinking about some breakfast buffet, then, I remembered most of us have never been to IHOP, so, I decided to go to IHOP instead. And, after some turning around, we found one right next to the hotel we will be staying at for the next 2 nights, Stratosphere. So, after 4/5 cups of coffee, a huge omelet and a stack of pancakes, I'm all recharged. And others too had their stack of pancakes and whatnot, at about 9.30am, we went back to the airport to drop our 'burden' down. Did I mention where he is going? Oh, for a job interview. All the best!
Stratosphere tower.

Driving down Las Vegas Boulevard. MGM Grand.
New York, New York.
Bellagio, with the infamous fountain.

So, after that, we went back to our hotel and try our luck on getting an early check-in. After standing in-line for awhile, (I tried to self-check-in kiosk, but it didn't give me the non-smoking room option); hence, the waiting in-line. So, we got our room at about 11am.
Me, waiting in line.

SWEET! After some rest, we went to check out the casino. It was alright, but I don't like the 2nd-hand smoke. My throat was irritated. The reason we chose this hotel, north of the Las Vegas boulevard, was because of the great price for the promotion I found. Not only it was free 2nd night, there were 2 free show tickets and a bunch of coupons in the package. So, we got tickets for the show at night, and then, a couple of us started playing slots. At first, it was just some random slots that I played, then, I discovered the video poker and that was it, before we knew it, we spent like 3 hours playing it in a trance.

Then, it was about time for us to go to the show. It was American Superstars. A show tributes to some of America's best stars: Elvis Presley(wasn't there for our show), Michael Jackson, Tim McGraw, Rod Steward, Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears, impersonated by some rather talented people. Especially, the Michael Jackson, the moves of the impersonator was amazing. The singing of Christina Aguilera and Tim McGraw impersonators were great too. The Britney Spears' wasn't bad at all. Rod Stewart too was alright.

After that, we decided to walk to Sahara to try out their buffet there because I saw it on an advertisement in the in-flight magazine and it was cheap or something. So, we went. It was like dorm food. (SO, never trust in-flight magazines.)! :P

Then, we went back to our hotel to call it a night. I guessed most of us were so tired that we fell asleep without taking shower. I managed to be the first one among us to fall asleep, quite an achievement for me since I had been having trouble to sleep early and sleep much.


Day 7(02/28/2008):

But, I woke up at 6am, after a shower, I went to play some slots again so that I can accumulate enough points to get a t-shirt. :-P I mean, it's a free t-shirt, and I was only like 10-15 points from getting it. So, $10 later and an hour later, I got the t-shirt. After that, I went to the gym to run off the carbs I'd been piling on from the buffets. And, we were planning to go to a few more buffets before the end of the trip. So, 3 miles later, I went back to our room and others were up and about. We went to the Stratosphere tower as planned. (We got free tickets as hotel guests get to access the tower between 10am - 2pm for free).
Some crazy rides on top of the tower.
View from the top of the tower.

After that, when it was time for lunch, we went out to the central of Las Vegas boulevard, with all the cool hotels and stuff to do all the touristy stuff. From my friends' recommendation, we went to this Japanese Restaurant, Todai for what we considered to be the best buffet of our trip. We enjoyed the sushi and stuff a lot.

The weather was great. Mid 70s in the afternoon.

We concluded that people here loves to read, as most of these magazines racks were empty.

Paris!More of Paris!
And Paris at Night. Viewing from Bellagio.

Then, we walked more. Because of the amount of food we store in our stomach, we were worn off easily. We went back to our hotel for a siesta. Then, Siew Gee and I decided to explore some stuff around Stratosphere. First, because we walked past these aqua-massage machines many times and were tempted by it. So, we finally gave it a try (we had those coupons too). In my opinion, it was not shabby, but, somehow, too noisy for my liking, one suggestion, prolly providing us a pair of headphones with some sort of relaxing music will be great. Then, on the way back, we passed by this oxygen bar, and out of curiosity, and didn't want to go back to our room and rot yet, we decided to give a try as well. The package was a neck and head massage and 30 minutes of inhaling pure oxygen. It was rather corny, having to inhale it through some special tubes, and stuff. Not sure whether it's a psychological effect or physical effect, but I did feel fresher after the session, not to mention $20 poorer, and also, sore from the massage.
From Bellagio, looking to the North of Las Vegas Boulevard.

Poooooofffffffff... The climax of the fountain show. (I had the entire video, but it's 300+ mb, can't seem to get anywhere to host it for me, and I'm too lazy to resize a video.... it takes forever.)
Siew Gee missed her show at Cirque Du Soleil...

Ahhhhhhh!!! The city of Lights...

But, it was rather fun. At night, we went to Bellagio, damn, the hotel was magnificent. We went there for the water fountain show. Then, for some reasons, we decided to walk from there to Excalibur, a good 20-minute walk, with a bunch of Latinos(nothing racist here, but that's who they are...) handing out call-girl cards and promise us a girl in 20 minutes. DAMN, that's even faster than Domino's delivering a pizza. Come on, Domino's, pick up your game.

Luxor... Love the architecture.
So, from Excalibur, we took a tram to Luxor, where we walked around a bit. As we couldn't stomach another buffet (pun intended). We decided to call it a night.

Day 8(02/29/2008):

Last day at Las Vegas, NV. Woke up at 7ish, and went running and soaked up some sun. Well, the weather was great, in the 60-70s. Then, we checked out at about 10.45am from our room, and then, went for the lunch buffet. It was rather good. Ranked 2nd among all the buffets we had on the trip.
Soaking up some sun. That was me.

So, we left for the airport at about 1pm. Because of some rather heavy traffic (Nascar weekend at Vegas I supposed), we arrived at the airport at about 1.30pm. So, for the entire trip, we(I) drove more than 1500 miles. Yup fifteen hundred plus miles.

We were kinda rushed but made it through the security and all for our 3pm flight with 15 minutes to spare. So, I managed to buy a shot glass and a deck of cards as souvenirs. I thing amazes me of this Las Vegas airport is there are slot machines right beside the boarding gates.
Amazing, isn't it?

The flight wasn't bad at all, even though I sat between a huge guy and a big guy. One's a student from U of Michigan - Dearborn, while the other is a Marine on leave, and will be a free man in a month. We had quite a lot to talk about, and it was eye opening to talk to a Marine. Hats off to you, man. He was only a few months older than I am, but, he already served 4 years in the Marines Corp. To make such a huge decision fresh out of high school, and to undergo all the trainings and all. Good man. We talked about a lot of stuff, joked a lot too. And finally, bid each other best of luck once we reach St. Louis, MO. We had a connecting at St. Louis, MO, just a 45 minutes layover.

We reached Ann Arbor at about midnight. Due to the heavy snow storm just before that, the drive back was INSANE. Everybody was going really slow because the condition was extremely bad. I was talking about 25-30 miles/hr slow. And even at that speed, I was having quite some hard time controlling the car. It took us about an hour and a half to drive from the airport to Ann Arbor. Along the way, we saw more than 5 cars skidded off the road, making some 180/270/360 degrees spins. I was so afraid driving, not that I was afraid that I will crash into another car (I was keeping a really safe distance from the car ahead of me), but more so that other cars will rear-end or side-swipe me.

Fortunately, we got back to Ann Arbor without any incident. Got back to my apartment at about 2am. Called home, and called it a night at 3ish. After transferring more than 3Gbs of photos and videos onto my computer.

Overall, it was a great trip! Within my budget, great memories, great companies, and great experience.

What's next? Skiing, skydiving and many more.

A very long post

Warning: This will be a very long post once it's done.

So, it had been more than 10 days since my last post. So, this post will be a really long one, once it's done. Currently, I'm getting ready to head out for the very first Michigan home game of the 2007 season.

So, football comes before blogging. Sorry :)

Got back from the season-ending opener football game. Why? We lost to a Division I-AA team. For the very first time in history, a top 5 - ranked team lost to a Division I-AA team. And, I was lucky enough to witness it. The game was a really close one, and we lost it because, we were sorta outplayed, and we definitely made too many mistakes - 2 blocked field goals and 2 failed 2-point conversions. Kudos to Mike Hart for carrying so much weight on his shoulders, but, football is a team-sport. Coach Lloyd Carr, I would like to challenge you to at least win the conference title! This lost is not only humiliating, humbling and embarrassing, it's also knocking some sense and being real back to us. Don't over-estimate ourself and under-estimate our opponent.

Watching the game, and feeling all the ups and downs was really 'maturing'. Also, it helps me to understand the American culture better. A lot of the time, you learn more from losing than winning. And, how to handle a lost is also very important.

OK. Enough of this tragic event. Something positive: Man U won their match against Sunderland. So, now, they have 8 points from 5 matches. Also, another most positive event to even the score, I passed my driving road test yesterday. :P

Alright, now, the yin-yang is balanced, I will resume my regular 'weekly' update style of blogging.
Last Tuesday, I went to the Coordinator training. It was OK, then, in the evening and at night, I started cleaning up my room and all.

On Wednesday, IAPA training started, and then, in the evening, Jason and I went to IKEA and spent $300 buying kitchen utensils and a lounging chair, a coffee table, a rug and a tv stand for my living room. At night, I was able to assemble my coffee table and chair before. And that's after washing all the dishes and china I bought.

On Thursday, after coming back from the IAPA training, Jason and I went to CircuitCity to buy my LCD TV (32 inches). :) And after that, we went for a Chinese buffet, which was ok. Before heading out to CircuitCity, I assembled the tv stand. The picture of the TV was stunning, and I love it. Also, whenever you want to buy anything from CircuitCity, do remember to check the price online, because it's different from the price at the store (it's always cheaper online).

On Friday, after the morning session of IAPA thingy, I forgot what I did.

On Saturday, I drove Jason to several car dealers as he was searching for a car. And at night, I just watched sports and movies on tv. Same for Sunday as well.

On Monday, for IAPA work, it was only morning, where we introduced ourselves to all freshmen, and gave out their appointment slips. The real job, helping them backpacking for classes ran from Tuesday til Thursday.

On Tuesday morning, bright and early, woke up at 4.30am, and started driving to the airport at 4.45am, to meet up with a graduate student, to pick him up at the airport, I went to both terminals, and waited til 6.45am, yet, failed to meet up with him, before heading back to Ann Arbor to work. Parking in Ann Arbor is really a pain in the S, I turned round and round searching for a free road side parking but failed to do so, and ended up parking at a metered-spot, at $1/hour for 4 hours. For my lunch hour, I rushed back to my apartment to meet up with Wei Ping, then, went back down to central campus for my second session of work.

Wednesday whole day and Thursday morning, pretty much the same work.

Friday, started working at the dining hall instead.

Saturday, that's today...