tattoo #3

from several days ago. starting to scab up so the color looks kinda dull. the two major scabs on the cherries fell off yesterday (which was really gross but also kinda cool) so the cherries look better but the stems are still scabbing like crazy. i've got more pics up on facebook. only put a few up there though. mike will put all of the vegas pics up on his webshots. you can see the theater for le reve, the view from the stratosphere, five million pussycat dolls pictures, shark reef pics, and more!

peas on earth!

bipolar

bought this from the david & goliath store at the venetian.

Maks and me!!

Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, 8/29/07.

Maksim Chmerkovskiy from Dancing With the Stars! And me!!

I met Maksim Chmerkovskiy in Vegas!!

Just got back from Vegas late last night. I would say it was probably the best vacation I've ever had. I know we go to Vegas all the time so nothing's ever really "new" but what it made so enjoyable was that I had a lot of fun and it was just me and Mike so it was very relaxing. (Psst...this post is going to be crazy long. So if you don't want to read the whole thing, just read Wednesday which is probably the most interesting day.)

Highlights:

- Le Reve
- Postrio
- tattoo #3
- Stratosphere rides
- MAKSIM CHMERKOVSKIY
- Pussycat Dolls Lounge
- Mandalay Bay Shark Reef

Monday, August 27

When we got to Vegas around 10 am, it was pouring rain outside. Mike saw some lightning. Later, we found out there had been lots of flash flooding in the area. We had to wait about ten minutes to get to the gate. Once we got all our stuff and left the airport though, all the rain had stopped and it wound up being pretty sunny for the rest of our time there.

We got to Sahara around 1130 and, thankfully, they allowed us to check in early - way before the 3 pm check-in time. So we chilled in the room for a bit then headed to Paris buffet for lunch. The lunch itself was alright. But the dessert (which is basically what I went there for) was YUM. Jo, Deb - you know that chocolate cake we had last time that was absolutely orgasmic? I found it again. And I ate two slices of it. And I didn't even feel bad about it at all. After that, we just walked around Bellagio and Caesars doing some shopping. Didn't get anything even though I was eyeing these Hermes bracelets ($400-$500) and Mike looked really good in a pair of Fendi aviators ($385).

Afterwards, we took the monorail back to Sahara to rest for a bit. We took the monorail quite a bit during the week which was pretty convenient because the last stop (or first stop, whichever way you wanna look at it) was right at our hotel. Only took the taxi a few times. Anyway, we went to see Le Reve at the Wynn. It's a lot like O (Cirque Du Soleil) - lots of stunning acrobatics in and above a big pool of water. What was nice about Le Reve was that the theater was round (with the stage being in the center and the seats surrounding it) and a bit small. So it felt a bit more intimate and it seemed like every seat in the house had a great view. We were sitting in the fourth row from the stage so we were pretty close (even got splashed on a few times). I would say O was an overall better show but Le Reve was a really great show itself.


Tuesday, August 28

Ate lunch at Planet Hollywood in Caesars because I had a $40 gift certificate. Ehh...the food sucked. Don't ever eat there. I can see why the place went bankrupt a while back. But hey, it turned out to be an almost free lunch. So whatever. Did some gambling at Casino Royale since I also had a 100 (dollar? credit?) promotional play certificate. Lost it all. Thankfully, not my money. Wandered around some more. I...don't really know what happened with this day.

I do know that Mike and I got pretty drunk at the Venetian. We decided to eat at Wolfgang Puck's Postrio and got some drinks at the bar while waiting to get seated. I had a vodka tonic which, combined with the lack of food in my belly, got me pretty wasted before the bread and water even arrived at the table. Once I finished that, I ordered a flirtini which was pretty strong. I don't know if being drunk had anything to do with this but Mike and I agreed that the food we ate at Postrio was just the best ever. I ordered the organic salmon and he ordered the pancetta wrapped meatloaf and it was just so so yummy. My mouth is watering just thinking about it now. The salmon was probably the best salmon I've ever had. It was so fresh and tasty. And the meatloaf had a sweet, light taste. Not too heavy. And the garlic mashed potatoes that it came with was really good. I could eat a whole plate of that by itself. Anyway, Postrio gets a big thumbs up from me and Mike. After dinner, we had gelato at Cocolini which is the gelato stand just outside the restaurant. Very yum. Walked around some more, sobered up.

While wandering around the Venetian, we stumbled into the Peter Lik Gallery. I had never heard of him but he does really amazing landscape photographs. Even just looking at the pictures in a book or a website doesn't do him any justice. You have to see his work in person, framed and enlarged, to really appreciate it. Mike and I have decided that once we get our own apartment or house, we're buying one of his pieces.


Wednesday, August 29

After eating lunch, we walked to Tattoo Heaven which was right in between Sahara and Stratosphere. I had read some pretty good online reviews for that place so decided to go there. There were like three guys "working" there (two of them were really just sitting on the couch watching tv) and no one else in the shop. I talked to one of the guys about how I wanted cherries on the inside of my right wrist. He pointed at a pair of cherries on the wall which were pretty cartoonish. And shaped like hearts. So I said "Um...yeah, something like that. But more delicate." And he was like "okay" and in a few minutes was able to sketch a different pair of cherries that looked pretty cute.

The entire process took about 20 minutes but it was really painful. I do not remember either of my back tattoos being this painful. I mean, yeah, it hurt and there were a couple moments for both where it was excrutiating but for the most part, the pain was bearable for both. The top one, especially, was not that painful. But THIS one....ohmygod. This one hurt like a son of a bitch. I wanted him to stop right when he started. Obviously, I didn't say that and I didn't like, scream or anything, but my entire body was extremely tense and I held my breath every time he started. My left hand was red from squeezing it into a fist and I had to close my eyes a lot to focus on staying calm and quiet. You can see this all in the little video that Mike recorded. When the guy asked me how I was doing, I said, "Um...it hurts a lot" and he said, "Yeah, it's more sensitive because the skin is a lot thinner on the wrist" which... why did that never occur to me? Anyway, it hurt a lot. And when he started coloring, I wanted to cry. (I didn't, of course.) There were only a few times towards the end when I got used to it and felt okay and not in too much pain (as opposed to my upper back tattoo where it was the other way around - mostly okay and only a few moments where it really hurt). I didn't even watch him doing it for most of it. I watched him at the very beginning and then couldn't take it and had to look away. I only looked back when he took little breaks to see where he was at.

Anyway, the end product looks quite nice. I really like it. I even got a couple positive comments on it from strangers the next day. Actually, the next day when I was in the bathroom at the Mandalay Bay Shark Reef, I was putting on some ointment when a girl asked me if it was a new tat. I said yes and she said "Me too!!" and showed me the phoenix on her upper thigh. She said hers was scabbing up and so is mine now so it looks a bit gross (totally normal though). And it still feels a tiny bit sore every now and then.

So after this, we walked to Stratosphere where I convinced Mike to go with me on all three rides at the top. It'll be too hard to describe each ride. I'll try but you should watch the youtube videos to get a good idea of what we went on. We went on Insanity first. It's basically a large crane with five legs (two seats to each leg) like a big claw that brings you over the edge of the Stratosphere and then spins faster and faster as the claw opens up. And as you're spinning, the chairs tilt forward 70 degrees. It was awesome! I think I enjoyed that one the most out of all three rides. I wasn't scared at all, I just thought it was pretty fun. I looked down the entire time and it was pretty insane. I mean, you're basically spinning around over the edge of a 900+ ft. tall tower.

Next up was X-Scream. It was a short roller coaster ride that shoots you over the edge of the Stratosphere, pulls you back, then shoots you back over and then drops you a bit. And I was sitting in the front! Next to a crazy Brazilian girl that put her hands up. Crazy girl!! Now this one, I got pretty scared because it jolted you forward and made you feel like you were gonna fall off the tower. With Insanity, even though I was pretty much looking down the entire time, the spinning kinda made me feel relaxed.

And last was Big Shot. Which is basically like Drop Zone in reverse. Instead of dropping you, it shoots you up, then drops you. Kinda self-explanatory I guess. This one is at the very top of the Stratosphere so now you're going up over 1,000 ft. The funny thing with this one is that, in the picture that the ride takes of you (they take a picture of you on every ride), I'm screaming and my mouth is open so wide, you can see my uvula. Anyway, all three rides were pretty enjoyable and I would highly recommend it to everyone. Even scaredy-cats like Mike. :) Just kidding. See, now that he's done these three rides, he can do anything! Because these were pretty crazy.

So after all that, we did some gambling then headed back to our hotel to rest a bit. Then we were out again to Caesars to watch the Pussycat Dolls. Here's where the coolest part of the trip was. Mike and I were sitting in the race & sports book area just outside Pure/Pussycat Dolls Lounge just chilling and digesting our dinner before going into the PCD Lounge. We sat there for maybe 20 minutes. Right when we got up, a man walked over and sat down in our seats. Mike did a double take and said, "Hey, that's Maks!" and I was like "Maks who?" "You know, Maks from Dancing with the Stars." "WHAT?!?/1!!!/???!!" It was MAKSIM CHMERKOVSKIY from Dancing With the Stars!!!! Ahhhhhhh!!!

I have a feeling that most of the people reading this blog won't know who he is but I've watched every single season of DWtS and have voted in each and every one of them. I've even voted for Maks a few times. He came on the show in the 2nd season and danced with Tia Carrere. Third season was with Willa Ford and last season was with Laila Ali. I voted for him when he danced with Tia and Laila. But not when he was with Willa because she was kinda stupid. (But not a bad dancer). On the show, Maks is a bit cocky and arrogant but he has the goods to back it up so it's mostly just amusing instead of annoying (at least to me it is). Plus, last season, Laila really knocked him down a peg or two which was totally fun to watch.

Anyway, we were standing about 15 ft away from him just staring at him for a while. I kept saying "No, that's not him. OHMYGOD THAT'S HIM. No...maybe....HOLY SHIT IT'S MAKS FROM DANCING WITH THE STARS." Finally, I figured that I would totally regret it if we didn't at least ask for a picture so...I made Mike do it. Heh. Because I was too chicken to do it myself. So we walked over and Mike asked him. Maks was very polite and gracious even after turning around and seeing that I was staring at him with an enormous dorky grin on my face. He took a picture with me! I touched him! He touched me! I smelled him!! He smelled really really good. So after we took the picture, I said to him "I really like you on the show!" And immediately after those words came out of my mouth, I felt like a total idiot. Just...could not look or sound any dorkier. Mike asked him what he was doing there and he replied that he was with friends (thank goodness he was alone, otherwise I don't think we would've approached him if he was with friends), they had just finished watching the Celine Dion show and he was waiting for them. I don't know how we got to the subject of the new season but he said that they had just started work on the new season. And right after he said that, I said "Oh, you're on this season?" Like, duh, of course he is if he just said they started working on it. My God. What was wrong with me? Mike asked who his partner would be and he said, "Uh...the Spice Girl chick" by which, of course, he meant Mel B (Scary Spice). It sounded so cute when he said it too because of his Russian accent. We thought it was pretty funny that he referred to her as "the Spice Girl chick." I don't know if he really couldn't remember her name or if he said that for our benefit (thinking that maybe we didn't know who she was). Then after that, some random middle-aged white guy came up to him and shook his hand and said "I love you on Dancing with the Stars!" and then I felt bad for drawing attention to him. But it was just that guy and no one else recognized him so it was okay. Thank God I had forced Mike to watch DWtS otherwise he wouldn't have recognized Maks and I wouldn't have noticed him because I'm pretty dense. So for the rest of the night, I would randomly squeal and shake Mike and cry "I took a picture with MAKS FROM DANCING WITH THE STARS! AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!"

Sigh. God, he smelled good.

Anyway, after that we got into the PCD Lounge with a free pass some girls were handing out outside the club. Good thing we got that cuz I had called earlier and they had told me that the cover was $10 for girls, $20 for men. Once inside, I had two more vodka tonics and got pretty drunk again. Plus, I was still on my high from meeting Maks. So...you know. I was pretty damn happy. The performance was pretty good. I think I like them better than the singing group. I want to be a Pussycat Doll now. Not the Nicole Scherzinger kind but the real Vegas kind. We also met a girl at the bar who was in town for some fashion convention (Magic convention? I totally thought that was like, the nerdy card playing game Magic) and was by herself. So we talked to her for a while. Unfortunately, I was pretty wasted at this point so I was struggling to appear lucid and not totally out of it. She was a really nice girl and we had a nice conversation, from what I can remember. Once she left, Mike caught up to me in drinks and we left the lounge to go wander the strip, tipsy and happy.

Man...a lot happened on Wednesday, huh?


Thursday, August 30

Aww. Last day. So sad. I hate the last day of vacation. I never want to leave. We started off with lunch at Mandalay Bay buffet. So good. Better quality and variety of food than Paris buffet, in my opinion. Not as great desserts though. I always forget how good Mandalay Bay buffet is. Now I know why we always eat there. After we stuffed ourselves, we walked over to the Shark Reef exhibit. Pretty interesting. They have a good variety of interesting and exotic fish as well as sharks and other...sea life. They have this one part where you look like you're in a sunken ship surrounded by water and fish and sharks.

After all that, we went back to MGM Grand and saw the lions. These two lions looked a bit young. They hadn't grown out their full manes and they were both pretty playful. They had just been fed two big bones and one of them was playing with it like a cat. Yes, I know, they're cats but it was just funny to watch them do all this because they were so huge. One of them was especially playful and was running around the exhibit and batting at his bone with his paws. He hit it too much and it fell into the river and he had to fish it out. He was also jumping up and down the rocks. Definitely the most active lions I've ever seen in real life.

Once we were done with that, we wandered back down the strip some more. Hung out at Bellagio for a bit until it was time to go back to the Sahara, get our bags, and get to the airport.

Wow, this post is super long. It basically took me all day to write. In portions of course. I feel like you should get some sort of reward for reading through this whole thing. But...I have nothing to offer you. Congratulations?

So, anyway. In conclusion, it was a really wonderful trip and I was really sad to leave. I had so much fun and was pretty happy and content for the entire trip. I don't remember feeling stressed out or upset at any point which, I have to admit, I've felt at least once on probably every vacation I've gone on. The best part of the entire trip, of course, was being with Mike and just really enjoying his company. When we were at the San Jose airport on Monday waiting to leave, he told me "Let's make the most of our trip." Which, I know, is kind of cheesy but, you know, we really did make the most of it. I don't regret anything and I don't feel like we missed anything. If I could do it all over again, I would. I definitely enjoyed all the stuff like the food and the rides and Maks and the tattoo and the shopping and Maks but what I'll remember the most about this trip is the overall sense of happiness I had of being with someone I love.

Ahhhh, so corny. Mushy mushy bleh bleh. I'm embarrassed for myself. Oh well.

Vegas again in less than a month!! Woohoo!