Back to Las Vegas, 2014 Edition

I really don’t need to be going back to Las Vegas. Twice is enough. Yet, something tells me I have not seen the last of Vegas. My visit this year was prompted by a friend, a former colleague, who had been dead-set on celebrating her fortieth birthday in Las Vegas. She had been harping on this for at least 3 years…and that’s only as long as I have known her. For all I know, it’s been her plan since childhood.

Liberace’s rhinestone encrusted car on display near the Chandelier Bar in The Cosmopolitan

Despite this, I was late to RSVP. I have a very undesirable work environment where you have to send reminders upon memos to Human Resources (aka The Boss) for any and everything. All communication in that direction sinks into a deep and dark abyss to be ignored unless you persist and persist. Sometimes, one is even reduced to begging. For my trip to Brazil for the World Cup, I had to call his bluff. It is never fun. So as it is, I didn’t make arrangements for the trip until 3 weeks prior after offering to work the Thanksgiving holiday as an exchange for the weekend before off. It truly is ridiculous. Enough of that though.

So there we were. A bunch of rich doctors…for all doctors are rich, right, sharing a suite at The Cosmopolitan, sleeping three to a bed. I only knew two other people there, but it was fun to catch up with them. On my part, nothing was planned. I was there to go along with the flow. Not at all like me.

We wandered about quite a bit. We got same day tickets to The Beatles: Love, a Cirque du Soleil production at the Mirage. It was awesome. Of course, being a Beatles fan made it that much so, but unlike Mystère, this was very interactive. I sang along to almost every song. But don’t ask me what the story-line was.

Given that the vast majority of the party was of Filipino descent, we lunched off-strip at Max’s Restaurant. We were a large party but still managed to order too much food. Too much. We had bags and bags of leftovers in our suite. Luckily, fried chicken tastes good when cold at two in the morning when you have danced all night.

Dinner at Nobu featuring the $228 worth of Kobe beef at top left, minus the flambé

The grand dinner was at Nobu in Caesars Palace. Let’s just say it was an experience. I mean the food was good. Having never had Kobe beef before I indulged. Was it tender and delightful? Yes! Would I do it again at a cost of $38 per ounce? Per ounce? Not if I’m paying my own way. Goodness!

You don’t want to see the total bill.

The party was at the Marquee Nightclub in the Cosmopolitan. VIP table & bottle service was outrageous as I had come to expect at well over a thousand dollars which included one bottle of tequila and one bottle of vodka with the ice and juices, waitress, and bouncer. I wasn’t in a drinking nor clubbing mood and besides, the tiny dance floor was jam-packed. I sat there, watching and thinking, oh, what fun it is to be young.

A couple of us had not come prepared for clubbing so we went shopping while we were off the strip…at Ross for Less, T.J. Maxx, and Target! Yah, we came to Vegas for good shopping. We did at some point manage to browse through the high end luxury boutiques on the strip itself where high heeled Jimmy Choo boots are just as painful on the feet as the far cheaper knock-offs and I was left to wonder what kind of concussion I would have to suffer to one day drop close to a thousand dollars on footwear. Then I reminded myself about the Kobe beef at Nobu. I guess pigs do fly.

Autumn Harvest Exhibit at the Bellagio Conservatory.