Vegas baby!

Las Vegas. Tacky, noisy, crowded with people bent on losing all their money in casinos. Those are the first things that spring to mind - and guess what? it's all true. But there's a lot more to it than what we were expecting.

We stayed at the newer end of the strip, at the Luxor, the pyramid shaped, Egyptian themed hotel. Since we arrived mid-week it was very quiet, not crowded at all. The casino at that hotel is very small which helped cut down on the crowds. There were a few exhibits going on and they had a deal where you could visit 3 of them for $54 which was very good value when you consider that they're usually $30+ each.

We chose to visit the Bodies exhibit since it was at the Luxor. It was extaordinary. They have developed a method of inejcting specific organs, veins, arteries, tendons, muscles etc with a preserving chemical and then they dissolve the other tissues thus isolating what they want to keep. The result is a little erie at first, realising that the statue in front of you used to be a living breathing human being. Once you get over that, it is an amazing thing to look at. It left us with a profound appreciation for how amazing our bodies are and all the wisdom our creator demonstrated when he made us (Psalm 139:14) I think anyone with any sort of medical background should take the chance to visit one of these exhibits (there is currently one in Atlanta).



We also chose to do an interactive CSI exhibit. They basically show you a "crime scene" and you have to do different forensic tests to solve the crime. It was a great idea and the labs were very interesting but it wasn't that well executed. Oh well!

The third thing we chose to do was ride the rollercoaster at New York New York. I wasn't feeling very well and was a little dizzy to start with so I can't tell you if it was a good rollercoaster or if I was just especially whimpy that day! It was fun though.



The weather took a dive towards freezing while we were there and Tim and I had a funny day walking the strip into gale-force winds that made our eyes water and forced me to buy a hat and gloves. But it is well worth doing, our favorite hotels were of course the Venetian, as well as the Bellagio. Beautiful.








By far the highlights of our trip though, were eating at Shibuya restaurant at the MGM Grand, THE best Japanese food I've ever eaten, and then going to see the Cirque du Soleil show Ka. It was breathtakingly good. I can't begin to describe it so let me just leave a link!

http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/en/shows/ka/default.aspx



So there is so much more to Vegas than casinos and gambling! I'm not sure I would ever take children there (too many scantily clad waitresses and nasty flyers on the streets) but I would go back if there were good shows to watch.