Departures: Las Vegas

A summary of our recent trip to Sin City: it was great! Except if you judge it from the perspective of a young person - then you could pretty much sum it up with one word: FAIL. We didn't gamble, get drunk and disorderly, or hit up any burlesque cabarets. Very unexciting. We make 90 year old nuns look like bird flipping rockstars.

For those of you that haven't shunned us for our patheticness and decided to keep on reading, here's some of the highlights of what we did do: spent a couple days just walking up and down the strip, weaving in and out of the masses while checking out all the hotels and their crazy insane attractions (dancing fountains, rollercoasters that swing around the exterior of multistory hotels, fake Venetian canals complete with serenading gondoleers, go go dancers on casino tables - seriously, how do the gamblers concentrate when this is going on?). Then of course, we did a ton of shopping (I scored some photo goodies for cheap cheap cheap!). And what trip to a foreign city is complete without the obligatory pilgrimage to Chinatown and the local Pho house? Then we rented a car and drove out to the Hoover Dam, up through Lake Mead National Rec area, and into the Valley of Fire State Park (this day was probably the highlight for me). It was a chance to escape the overinduldgent excess of hotels both glamourous and dive-ish, endless buffets, greasy fast food joints, multimillion dollar shrines to retail materialism, and oversaturation of sexuality - a chance to spend some quiet time in the natural (and undescribably beautiful) landscape of the dessert. For our last two days, we hit up some more touristy stuff: Fremont street, casinos, premium outlet shopping, the Arts District in junky old town Vegas, and then my personal favourite - spending a few bucks giving kids the beatdown at those carnie midway games in Circus Circus. Yeah, I'm the man. I was better at that 'roll the ball into the coloured holes to move your camel towards the finish line' game than all of them kids... except for the dude that won. Damn him and his uncanny ball rolling ability. He had to be at least 12. Badass.

Anyways, the point is that although our trip certainly wasn't 'The Hangover', I still enjoyed Vegas in my own slightly pathetic way.

But of course, now we're back home and I encounter this dilemma after every trip - where in the vast pile of photos do I even begin to sort, edit, and post? So rather than trying to piece together a bunch of shots in chronological order (which I never manage to finish), I'm gonna try posting by theme. Today, I want to give you a look at some abstract sights of Vegas - images that perhaps the average person window shopping, gawking at half-nekkid waitresses, or tunnel visioning towards the next slot machine might miss. Enjoy!



I really like how busy and confusing this shot is. It's the side of a building, with a skywalk in front, and reflections of the construction across the street. The colour construction reflections really make this shot for me.


A closer view of the above reflections.


Self shadow portrait in a covered walkway going under some construction scaffolding.




Yet another all glass exterior building, with some interesting reflections.


The fountains/ pool at the Bellagio.


The Eiffel Tower at Paris, Las Vegas, as reflected in the fountains of the Bellagio.


Interesting architecture at the new City Centre complex of buildings.


Swatches of Coloured glass in the MGM Grand.


More coloured glass in the MGM Grand.


Wads of gum stuck to a concrete barrier, just west of the Hoover Dam.


Hanging lamps in one of the many lobbies of the Wynn Hotel.