Las Vegas day 2

I decided to venture out onto the sidewalk today. Let me just say, I don't know what to say. So I'll just show you pictures. There is art work around the City Center complex where Aria is located. These are by Tony Cragg.

This is a Chihuly gallery.

This is "Typewriter Eraser, Scale X" by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen

Monte Carlo Hotel is at the other end of the Tram line.

Liberty stands out front the New York New York

Excalibur Hotel

New York New York

Kind of hard to make it out but the Brooklyn Bridge spans the sidewalk over there.

Yay! Four floors of M&M's. I didn't take this picture, I got it off the web - I did take one but I must have deleted it. :-/

A wall of M&M's - yum!

Cool Nascar racer

Part of City Center is a shopping area called "Crystals" (it's where we'd go to catch the tram). It is full of fancy name shops. I hadn't heard of most of them. But of course, I do recognize Gucci.

These are pillars of ice.

The stair fronts are slices of stone and they are lit from behind.

These are tubes of swirling water. I think this picture is funny because it looks like a kid is inside of one of the tubes.

Just a closer look.

This is "Reclining Connected Forms" by Henry Moore. It's a baby in utero.

Greg and I rode the tram over to Bellagio to see the fountain at night. No pictures of the fountain. But this was the view looking across the street to the Paris Hotel

This is Aria's fountain - constantly changing.

Room with a View

Can you guess where we are? Yep. We are in Las Vegas. Greg has a tax conference that started yesterday and goes through tomorrow morning. I tagged along. Here's just about everything I've seen. :-)

Our room is on the 35 floor. The elevator moves so fast, I feel the need for a safety harness - you know like "Tower of Terror"! It kind of makes me dizzy. (the elevator ride not the view)

This is a sculpture made from canoes and row boats - by Nancy Rubins.

Dizzyingly tall buildings.

This is an all chocolate display. The dragon stands as tall as me.

There is a tram there to the middle right. The tram is free and goes between The Monte Carlo, Aria, and Bellagio hotels.

I rode back and forth and spent some time at the Bellagio. It's a hoppin' place - lots of people, crowded even. But fun things to see including this chocolate fountain. The Largest Chocolate Fountain in the world!

Bellagio has a Conservatory and Botanical Gardens. Right now they are celebrating the Chinese New Year.

Pretty mosaic floors.

Good Fortune.

This money tree seems appropriate for Las Vegas but read the sign - not sure it really jives with the Las Vegas vibe.

This ceiling is covered in Chihuly glass work.

Fountains of Bellagio - cue "The Star-Spangled Banner"

People coming and going - it was like a very well orchestrated traffic jam - cars arriving on the right, cars leaving on the left. I've never seen so many taxis and limos in one place.

Some of the limos have artists' names for vanity plates.

The window in our room is dirty but looking at that window washer up there I'm thinking it is OK.

That chair is the shape of a bird - not a great shot but I did sit there for awhile and just watch cars and people pass. The water feature behind is very wide and the water changes flow and runs over a textured surface - the sound reminded me of the tide.

One of Greg's co-workers, Matt, is at the conference as well.

Dinner was at Tetsu teppan grill - dinner was prepared in front of us.

The chef squirted down these lines of some sort of batter (looked like pancake batter to us) to keep the various oils from mixing. When he finished different dishes he'd scrape off the batter.

Thyme and garlic for my rib eye, Garlic and rosemary for Greg's lobster, Matt's baby back ribs.

Kale on the lobster.

The lobster and the ribs were steamed under their own lids.

The finished products were all so beautiful - I don't understand why I didn't pause to take pictures. I guess I was too interested in eating. Almost all gone, I did snap a shot of this purple rice though. Black and white rice soak together in preparation, the dark color turns the white rice purple. It was so delicious!

Fun to have the room with this view.