Project 366 / 332 - Viva Las Vegas

I've been to Las Vegas just once before back in something like 1997 but what I remember and what is presented before me are two different things. Near on 20 years is a long time in Vegas time; buildings are torn down and new ones built in a blink of an eye so trying to re-navigate from memory is a complete waste of time.

We arrived last night after nearly 22 hours of travelling so decided, rightly and with hindsight quite thankfully, to forgo our first night out in favour of sleep. It was a wise decision - Las Vegas is not the most forgiving of places and will chew you up and spit you out if you're not fit and ready to take it on.

So this morning we were up and out early, so early in fact that the majority of Las Vegas was still sleeping off their Saturday night. The casinos were very quiet and the sidewalks empty. It was a good time to get our bearings.

The danger with any city break is not having a plan, of aimlessly wandering around and wasting the little time that you have there. So we sat down at breakfast and decided what we wanted to do, see and achieve in the limited time we had. We then booked tickets to tonights show (Michael Jackson "One" at Mandalay Bay by the Cirque Du Soleil team) and then headed to the MGM before catching the excellent monorail to the stunning Venetian and then taxi to one of the major out of town shopping outlets.

The outlets are meant to be discounted. Well they are discounted but because the majority is designer a t-shirt now costs $90 rather than $140. Still, we hunted out a few bargains, grabbed a sandwich and Starbucks before returning on the monorail to the New York New York hotel for a ride on their rooftop rollercoaster.

The old Las Vegas was one of effort, where people dressed up and went out to be seen. Sadly nowadays the vast majority disregard this and opt for flip flops, shorts and t-shirts. Still, Gem and I are going old school, she's dressed to kill and I'm doing my very best to keep up. And tomorrow we're topping the lot when we renew our wedding vows for our 10th wedding anniversary.

But until then we're looking forward to our first night out in sin city.