My first Christmas holiday with Lynn in Las Vegas

12- 22-2007
This is my first Christmas weekend spent at Las Vegas. In fact, this is a first among many things: first time going to Vegas after married; first time going to Vegas with Lynn; first time that I drove close to 7 hours in stationary traffic on Saturday afternoon to get to Vegas, first time that I actually got the stuff animals from completing tasks, and first time I actually gambled... well, Lynn played Roulette for the first time... and we won $59. Oh ya, first time, and probably the last, to stay at Excalibur (gonna be Rio from now on). I didn't really expect much from the Vegas trip. But it did matter that the cute and adorable Lynn was with me the whole time. And it made a warm and unforgettable memory of Vegas which is very different than what I had in mind for my past lifetime. I've been to Vegas too many times to count, mostly for business reasons. I got in and got out as quickly as I could in the past. And for this trip, I even wanted to stay longer as I felt that the "fun" just gotten started when we left on Christmas Eve. So to make a long story short, the photos do "kind of" tell a story as these are only the photos from my camera. Many more photos were taken with Lynn's camera as well as Eric's camera. That's right, E2 were there as well as Jeffrey, Stacy, Michelle, and Victor. We met up afterwards as they arrive late on Sunday night.So, we finally got to Excalibur....


And had the "Round table Buffet" there. The food was actually not bad for $18 a person. Complete with a prime rib carving station. The entire setting clicks on to my imagination to think that I was eating with Kings and Knights. This made the food much more enjoyable (plus, we were very very hungry). Sometimes it's not the finesse of the food that cause me to remember it. While was I was eating here, I was reminded of actually my childhood years in Taipei when my parents prepared the food and cleaned the house for Chinese New Years (too much detail to tell you how I link this buffet to Chinese food). It wasn't the best food I had. But it was memorable enough that I remember and hunger for similar ways of cooking close to 30 years afterwards. I really enjoyed it with Lynn. Despite being dreadfully tired after a 7 hour drive. Lynn and I went to play for stuffed animals, won some, and had some drinks (Long Island and AMF). Tonight was a good night and a good start of our first Christmas together.

12-23-2007
The second day was even better:

We started out trying to get to the Buffet at Paris... but the line was ridiculously long. I didn't feel like wasting half a day just to stay in line to eat something for $28. So Lynn and I went to this Chinese buffet that I saw on the strip as I was driving toward Paris. It was $12.99 but nothing to take photos about. One of the things about that buffet... the creamed baked mussels... which Lynn liked. So we saved time, money, and got something that we liked. Not so shabby, eh?

There were a lot of little shops there. There was a car rental place that rents Ferrari's and Lamborghini. We walked around a bit and went to see this new Casino: Planet Hollywood.
This is called the "Halo." from a very far distance. It looks like the crystal formed ball was hanging on nothing. Reminds me of how God hangs the world upon nothing... If I thought this was impressive, I can't wait to see how God makes things work when that day comes, hehe.
This is not a great shot of the shops there. But this is the only one I have on my camera. The shops in PH was actually very nicely done and grand.

Lovely Lynn.
And this ball of crystals changes color.
After Planet Hollywood, we walked across the street to Bellagio. Photos were mostly taken with Lynn's camera. So the only two photos I have are here. Bellagio spared no expense to make the entire lobby, gardens, and shops to reflect the feeling of Christmas. Maybe I'll get to upload these photos later and you'll know what I mean.

And there was a water dance specifically in the Christmas theme.
We walked for a few hours and felt that our feet were tired. So we retired to the hotel, waiting for Jeffrey and Eric to call us to meet up for dinner. Possibly a more elegant buffet.

As it turns out. The drive to Vegas today was just as congested as yesterday's. Eric and Jeffrey both didn't arrive early enough to stay in line for any buffet. So we went to eat upscale Chinese food with Eric's family, Michelle, and Victor. After dinner, we retired to Eric's father (Ben)'s suite in Rio. Michelle hosted a little fun game for us as we chat and drank some beer. When it was time for them to hit the Casino's, Lynn and I went back to Excalibur to call it a night. Tonight was a good, clean fun night.

Can anything top this?
Well, on the third day, it did.

12-24-2007
Exhausted from last night's many activities, we had to scramble to get up, clean up, and make sure that checks out the hotel by 11am. Lynn and I then made way to Paris to give it a last shot for the French style buffet. When we got there at 11:30 and looking at the available parking spaces, we were encouraged to believe that there weren't as many people as the day before.

Yeah, while that was true. The line to the buffet was just nearly as long... with a much reduced price tag: $17.99 per person. After some discussion, the E2 family and Michelle decided to join us.

So... after about an hour and a half we got to the Le Village Buffet sign. We didn't get in until almost 2pm. And things turned out to our benefits and to the restaurant's detriments...

We found out that even though the line outside is incredibly long, there were actually a lot of empty tables near us. It seems that they are controlling on the number of people that can get in for lunch so that they can stiff you with a dinner package by the time you get admitted. Well, it seems that we got in at just the right time! It was toward the end of the lunch period and before too long, dinner menu were out in the stations.

So we ended up having a combination of lunch and dinner for the price of... lunch.

Now...

This was a great day!
And on top of it. Lynn and I went to Rio hearing all the successful stories over lunch for a bit of luck. And Lynn won $59 on her first try at Roulette, this was enough to cover the expenses for today. So...

This was a great day!

Stay tuned. I'll be posting more often on this blog.