Las Vegas, Nevada, USA (February 2017)

While on my trip to L.A., my wife and I decided to head to Las Vegas for two nights before heading to the Grand Canyon. We tried to get in as much as we could before going back to California for my brother's wedding. I decided to "wing it" by not booking a hotel until we got into Las Vegas. I knew we were going to arrive on Monday and stay a couple of nights, so I took a risk. The reason is that I wanted to keep track of how much I was spending without throwing everything on a credit card, so I just brought cash with me. If I put everything on a credit card AND used cash, there's no telling how much we would spend without knowing it. Anyway, I pulled into The Linq Hotel and Flamingo Hotel parking lot and just parked our rental van.  We had a pretty cool view of the The Linq ferris wheel known as The High Roller. We were considering to go on it, but we just didn't get the chance to go on it. The cost to go on was $45 and here's how big it is:

Next, we walked into The Flamingo Hotel to see if we could get a reservation. I was getting a bit worried because there were about 10 people in line that were either checking in or possibly checking out. But once we got to the front, we met one of the men at the front desk. Ironically enough, he was from England because it showed his name and showed the country he was from at the bottom. Las Vegas even draws people internationally to work there. The British guy told us that there were indeed reservations and for $50 more, we could get a nicer view of The Strip (Las Vegas Blvd.) We decided to take it. For two nights, the cost came out to $172, which was pretty amazing for a hotel right in the heart of Vegas and right dab of the middle of The Strip. My wife and I jumped at the opportunity. Then we went on our tour of Las Vegas!

We did a lot of sightseeing, some shopping, and took MANY pictures of the interior and exterior of most of the hotels on The Strip. Here are some of my favorite shots of the hotel exteriors and other places at night:

Caesar's Palace Hotel

A view of "The Strip"

New York New York Hotel

Excalibur Hotel

Luxor Hotel

One thing you should be warned of before you go is that if you see showgirls or people dressed up as superheroes and you want to take pictures with them, you WILL be asked to tip them. As long as you know that beforehand, you can tip as much as you please. We had to take a picture on two occasions. The first one was when my wife took a picture with Marvel characters. This has to be the cutest picture of her I've ever seen:

My wife Eunhee is Marvelicious

Another time is when we saw a very attractive showgirl standing in front of The Bellagio. We both posed with her:

If you're going to eat at one of the hotel buffets, you MUST eat at Caesar's Palace. It was absolutely fantastic. They had everything you could think of: Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Indian, seafood, steak, Middle Eastern, amazing desserts, etc. We were quite impressed and pretty much everything was excellent even the desserts. The service was great and very professional as well. We paid about $50 per person which is very reasonable for a five-star buffet which we had.

If you want to eat an amazing dessert, check out one of the French cafes in The Paris Hotel. I ordered the chocolate mousse with raspberry sauce. It was beyond amazing. The very friendly waiter recommended it to me and he was 100% correct:

Chocolate Mousse with raspberry sauce and raspberry filling

My wife and I at a French cafe inside the Paris Hotel

I recommend seeing the fountains in front of The Bellagio. They only have the fountain shows at 7:00pm and 9:00pm, so keep those times in the back of your mind. Here are a couple shots of it:

Bellagio fountains

One of my favorite places for photos was at The Venetian. The interior design was very beautifully detailed as you can see in this picture:

I also got a pretty shot of the gondola inside the hotel on the second floor. The gondola outside closes at 10:00pm but the one inside closed at 11:00pm if I remember correctly. But I do know exactly how much it cost. For one person, it's $29 and for two people it's $56. My wife and I thought the picture was actually better than the experience. It wasn't as impressive as we had expected, but it was still cool to look at. You can be the judge when you get there.

On the second of our two nights, we went to see David Copperfield, the very famous illusionist. His show was at The MGM Grand. Here's an important tip for you. DO NOT pay for tickets ahead of time. If you want to see a show, just go to The Strip and you will get many people approaching you to ask if you want to see a show. This is the perfect example. An online ticket to see David Copperfield is $119. Yes, you might get seats up in the front, but you can get decent seats on The Strip for half that price. We paid around $60 for two pretty good seats and saw a great show. Unfortunately, we couldn't take pictures inside due to copyright infringement laws, so we took pictures outside the theater:

There was only one thing that turned me off about Las Vegas. At night, you will have men with a stack of cards in their hands. They're trying to lure men into heading to the strip clubs. And lots of times, the men might receive the cards, realize what it is, and then throw them on the ground. 

Another thing related to that is that you'll see trucks advertising strip clubs and even advertise that they can bring women to your hotel: "Girls Direct To You". You just need to call the number and then they will make their visit to your room. I had to explain to my wife what that expression meant but I think she already figured it out before asking me. Sin City reared some of its ugly head at night. Other than that, we had a very fun time. I'm not sure if if we will go again, but my wife and enjoyed everything that we could do there. Thank you Las Vegas for keeping me and my wife thoroughly entertained for two nights!

Scott Worden (The L.A./Seoul Guy)
Instagram: l.a.seoulguy