{"id":6506,"date":"2016-07-18T00:36:01","date_gmt":"2016-07-18T07:36:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/?p=6506"},"modified":"2016-11-17T17:06:15","modified_gmt":"2016-11-18T01:06:15","slug":"10-days-in-vegas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/2016\/07\/10-days-in-vegas\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Days in Vegas"},"content":{"rendered":"

I returned this Friday from spending 10 days in Las Vegas. You read that right. 10 days<\/strong><\/em>. I was primarily there for work so my daytimes were typically tied up, but I made sure to take advantage of any free occasion I had. I was able to cram in a fair amount of exploring and activities and filled the times in between with food. At home, I have a nearly monk-like discipline when it comes to my diet, but that definitely went out the window during my stay in Vegas. I ate a lot, and I ate like a king. <\/p>\n

It has been quite a while since I last travelled anywhere further than California, so this was a lengthy but appreciated escape. Like the days when I used to travel for an old internship job more frequently, I am making this post in a photo blog style. For nostalgia, check out my old posts from when I went to Cordoba, Argentina<\/a>. I also kept up with the photoblog first through the Corner Balanced forum<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Arriving at the airport. <\/p>\n

\"lasvegasairport\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I stayed at the Delano for this trip and its suite rooms are almost as big as my actual condo in San Jose… <\/p>\n

\"delanosuite\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"delanobedroom\"<\/a><\/p>\n

View from the window. <\/p>\n

\"luxor\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My buddy James and his girlfriend Jennifer were also in town so I met up with them on the first night. We kicked things off right with a cigar. I’m not a smoker by any means, but figured why not. I puffed on this for a couple minutes before giving up. <\/p>\n

\"cigar\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Dinner at Mon Ami Gabi in the Paris. I ordered the Escargot just to finally try it and I thought it was whatever. Oddly enough, the snails tasted as I expected them to. They have the texture of clams, but firmer. <\/p>\n

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\"monamigabi\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Walking around the Cosmopolitan and the city center area. <\/p>\n

\"cosmopolitan\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"eggslut\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I also hit up my buddy Jon who I knew moved to Las Vegas about a year ago and was able to coerce him into loaning me a set of wheels… Thanks for the Golf! Even though this thing had a severe idling problem when hot started, it was worthwhile to have a car to get around in. <\/p>\n

\"golfinterior\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"mk3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Drove out to Hoover Dam and checked that off the bucket list. <\/p>\n

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\"hooverdam\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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I soon grew tired of the food around the hotel, so I did my best to load up on Sushi whenever I could. <\/p>\n

\"sushihiro\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Checked out Old Las Vegas and Fremont Street. Tried to do the zip line that runs across there but it was all booked. <\/p>\n

\"oldlasvegas\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"fremontstreet\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Ate at Bouchon in the Venetian. This was probably my favorite meal of the trip. The plate below is a seared Sea Bream (similar to sea bass). <\/p>\n

\"seabream\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Cr\u00e8me Br\u00fbl\u00e9e for dessert. <\/p>\n

\"cremebrulee\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Went to the driving range at Top Golf near MGM Grand. <\/p>\n

\"topgolf\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I heard the Ramen in Las Vegas was supposedly great, so I tried Monta Ramen in the Chinatown area, which surprisingly contained continuous, sprawling Asian plazas. We don’t even have plazas that vast in the Bay Area – BUT, we are spoiled with numerous choices for excellent Ramen. The Tonkatsu I had at Monta was decent: the broth was on the creamier side, I’m not really a fan of thin noodles, and the soft-boiled egg was cold and overcooked. When it comes to Ramen, I still prefer the offerings we have here in the Bay. <\/p>\n

\"montaramen\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Ate Mediterranean food and went to a Hookah bar late one night. I was mainly accompanying a coworker who was a major Hookah aficionado. Like the cigar, I gave it a couple puffs before getting bored. I’ll stick to my completely sober lifestyle. <\/p>\n

\"hookah\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Actually doing some work. My job was to attend a convention and staff a Demo booth during the event. I was also involved with the Network operations and setup for the event. <\/p>\n

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Went to a Maroon 5 concert and pushed my way up to the front on the ground floor. Pissed off quite a few people but it was worth it. <\/p>\n

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Went to a shooting range and shot a fully automatic Uzi, MP5, M4, and AK-47. Check out my Instagram<\/a> for a video of the AK-47. <\/p>\n

Got a ride in a Military Humvee through town. My RX-7 may be on the loud and stiff side, but it’s a Cadillac in comparison to this thing. The tunnel right next to my legs quickly turned into an oven from the engine. <\/p>\n

\"humvee\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Last dinner of the trip was at Bacchanal Buffet in Caesar’s Palace. <\/p>\n

\"bacchanal\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Vegas, you were fun, and I want to visit again, but it’s good to be home. The first thing I did when I got back to my condo was take a shower, because I sorely missed its ample water flow and pressure! Ah, the simple luxuries in life. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I returned this Friday from spending 10 days in Las Vegas. You read that right. 10 days. I was primarily there for work so my daytimes were typically tied up, but I made sure to take advantage of any free occasion I had. I was able to cram in a fair amount of exploring and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6506"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6506"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7078,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6506\/revisions\/7078"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grandmighty.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}