North America Trip Parts 10, 11 & 12: It's Got So Many People But It's Got No Soul

I awoke on Friday morning trying to piece my previous day together. It had been an interesting day and evening to say the least, I still had two more nights of Vegas craziness to look forward to. Em and I traded stories of our previous night, she had been to see a ventriloquist comedian, I got propositioned by a drug peddling hooker, so we had both had very Vegas experiences. Tonight was going to be the night I tried out my mediocre Texas Hold Em skills on the tables, Em was going to watch a girl who used to sleep with leathery old Hugh Heffner strip in a show called 'Holly Madison's Peepshow.' once again, we were both planning very different yet very quintessential Vegas experiences. One persons night turned out they way the had planned, the others didn't so much...
We started the day later than usual and headed to Madame Tussuads at The Venetion Hotel & Casino. It's fair to say that Madame Tussuads was my favourite Las Vegas experience, first of all it was not very busy, so we had plenty of time to wander the exhibits. The wax figures are almost creepy in their life likeness, all made to scale of the actual people they were portraying (some of the sculptures were so lifelike that a person who saw the picture of myself and Sarah Michelle Gellar asked who the pretty blond girl was and if she was my girlfriend. She was quite embarrassed when I explained that it was a wax model of Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Madame Tussuads is Designed for people to have fun, with plenty of interactive displays (such as shooting hoops with Shaquille O'neal, sinking a putt with Tiger Woods, hitting the dance floor with Beyoncé, joint the Rat Pack on stage and many more) and loads of room to allow people to take photos. My favourite sculptures? Sitting at the presidents desk in the Oval Office with President Obama was quite cool, Halle Berry, Daniel Craig and Criss Angel had very lifelike sculptures and the Spiderman one was quite cool as well. I completely geeked out for the Scarecrow from Batman Begins however.
From The Venetian we headed down to Stratusphere at the top of the north end of the strip. The north end is much older and less glamorous than the south end of the strip. In fact from Circus Circus down to Stratusphere is kind of ghetto. Upon my return back to Australia people who had been to Vegas were shocked that we walked up and down that particular part of the strip. But walk we did, stopping in souvenir shops playing Mexican hip hop with security guards sitting up on high chairs like a tennis umpire, keeping a very close eye on anyone who wandered into the shop. We made into Stratusphere unscathed and headed to the viewing area on the 108th floor. The vista view of the Las Vegas area was spectacular, showing just what a desolate, yet beautiful area the Mojave desert is, it looked like a roadrunner cartoon come to life and the contrast between the glitzy man made showiness of Las Vegas and the rugged untouched nature of the desert was striking. If I'm in Nevada again, I'm heading out of the city and exploring the countryside. For people who are more of a thrill seeker than I, you can bungee off the top of Stratusphere in addition to a couple of rides called Big Shot, X Treme and Insanity.
Friday night and while Em headed off to watch Holly Madison, I went to the MGM to watch the Minnesota Timberwolves visit LA to take on the Clippers on one of the movie sized screens that were in the sports area of the casino. Of course, as I wrote earlier, my original plan was to play a few hands of Hold Em at the Flamingo, but that was thwarted when they refused to accept my Australian drivers license as a valid form of ID and insisted that it was my passport or nothing. Was I disappointed that I didn't get to play? Sure, but I was more flattered that they asked me for ID as I've been well over the legal gambling age of 21 for years. That certainly boosted my self esteem a bit!
I wandered around the strip some more after the game, chatting to one of the rappers who was up for a chat every time his new Australian friend went past. And on this night, I went two for two in being offered cocaine again. I'm anti drug, but I will say this about the pushers, they asked and if you said no thank you, they politely said no problem and looked for their next mark, no hassling you to buy and if they heard you were straight edge they were actually pretty respectful about the whole thing. After that however, I decided I'd call it a night, my feet were killing me after all the walking around the strip and I was about Vegas'd out for the day. I headed to bed that night wondering what Saturday on the strip would be like.
Saturday in Vegas was unlike anything I'd seen the previous two nights, it was like the population doubled overnight. It was wall to wall bucks parties, hens nights, birthdays, you name it. I was once again a real novelty to the groups on the hens nights, I had a few approach me as part of their bucket list of items and it usually ended with me answer multiple questions about Australia and hearing about my cute accent. I ended up in a few photos and even had one bride to be sign her name on the heart that is tattooed on my right arm (And Staci, if you read this, I hope you had a great wedding day). I also chatted to a girl from Belgium who was holidaying in Las Vegas with her Dad, who was probably the only 25 year old there with one of her parents. The Australian accent is a magnet to Americans who hear it and aren't from parts of America that Australians often visit. Between my accent and tattoo's I had plenty of people want to chat with me. Oh and what's a night in Vegas without being offered cocaine? Yep, three nights, three offers. That's Las Vegas.
We were leaving Vegas the next morning, on our way to Los Angeles and I was thinking about my impression of the city. I had been really keen to experience Las Vegas, but after a day or two, I wanted to leave and head back to Cleveland or New York. Las Vegas is a place that is mostly show and little substance. It's like seeing a girl at three in the morning at a club, all made up, then waking up in the morning and seeing what they really look like. It's a pretty charmless, sleazy city, but a place you still have to see to believe.

North America Trip Days 1&2: Empire State Of Mind

32 hours. Four timezones. Four cities. Three continents. One day. That has been the beginning of this odyssey to the good old US of A (and Canada of course). It all started of course back in Australia, leaving Melbourne and flying for 9 or so hours to the southern Chinese city of Gaungzhou for a stop over before continuing another 14 hours to Los Angeles from which we waited for our connecting flight to the big apple itself New York City.
We arrived at New York's John F Kennedy airport at around 8 am local time, current temperature, 1° Celsius! Welcome to the northern winter! We were both incredibly tired but this is New York City, the city that never sleeps, and our time here is only short so we decided that after checking into our hotel on the upper east side of Manhattan and taking the opportunity to freshen up, we'd put feet to pavement and explore the city with our final destination being Times Square.
I'd wager that on foot it's nearly impossible to get lost in New York, the streets are numbered so it's very easy to navigate. We started off by strolling the upper east side, wandering Lexington Avenue, Madison Avenue and 5th Avenue, home of companies such as Tiffany & Co. It is also where the famous toy store F.A.O. Swartz can be found. What makes it so well known? It's where the floor piano from the movie Big with Tom Hanks can be found. If you were wondering yes we did have a go on it and yes it was as much fun as it looks! It's the kind of store where if you had the means you could easily drop a couple of k there and still want to go back and buy more. From there it was on to my versions of crazy toy stores, the NBA & NHL stores. If you have little kids and are into basketball then the NBA uniform onesy's are very cool, ditto the mini hockey jerseys. We got chatting to one of the staff at the NHL store, a guy named Otto who had been to Australia and spent time in Sydney and Melbourne. One of the things that has really struck me about NYC is how friendly and helpful the people are. Yes there's the hustle and bustle of a city this size, but the average New Yorker takes great pride in their city and is more than happy to offer some good tips and advice to a couple of Aussie tourists of cool little spots that maybe off the tourist map.
Times Square really has to be seen in person to be believed. It's a symphony of lights and sound, constant colorful video images assaulting your eyes and colorful characters around the heart of the square. Our first stop was of course the Hersheys store and the M&M's store. As soon as you open the door the delightful aroma of chocolate hits you and is intoxicating. The range of products at the m&m's store in particular was immense. Pretty much anything you want can be found there branded with the logo or characters of the company. If you're a people watcher, Times Square would be your nirvana. The constant swell of people throws up some of the most bizarre people you'll see. We saw people dressed as spiderman & Mario, taking photos with tourists for tips. Elmo wasn't there this day.
Tipping is something quite bizarre and foreign to us as Australians, as is the sales tax situation here. If an item's shelf price is $24.00, you should expect to actually pay around the $27 mark. As for tipping, fair to say that that confused the hell out of us! Thank god we don't do it back home!
We finished our day with a stroll past well known landmarks as the Rockefeller Centre, Radio City Music Hall and the NBC Rainbow Room as we headed back to our hotel. It had been a long and crazy day, but so enjoyable. Let's see what you have to give us tomorrow New York.