Posted by On our trip last month, where we hiked parts of Utah and Arizona, we flew to Las Vegas International Airport and then rented a car and drove 4 and a half hours to our “glamping” site in southern Utah (see previous post). That’s how remote the place we stayed in as the nearby major airports were 4 to 6 hour-drive away.
Since we’re going through Las Vegas, we decided to spend one night in “Sin City” before flying back home. However, we did not do any gambling, not even trying the slot machine. I don’t gamble my hard-earned money. The only gambling I did was letting my wife do some window shopping at high-end stores and I was so relieved she did not pick up anything. We did a lot of eating though. Whatever calories we burned in hiking, we gained them back, and more. They have several Filipino restaurants there so we cannot help it.
Compared to our previous visits to Las Vegas, mostly for conference and meeting, it seemed that they “cleaned” up their image a bit. The streets were not littered with calling cards with photos of nude women like before. Even the pictures on the billboards were somewhat decent than what I remember from before. They are trying to make this place a family vacation destination, I suppose.
There was another thing we did on this last visit to Las Vegas – we watched a “dance” show. I was mesmerized and just stared and stared for some time. It was exotic and it was wet.
But before you think we went to some lewd or risqué show, here’s what I mean (short video below).
(*Bellagio’s dancing fountain, video taken with an iPhone; music: Dancing Queen by ABBA)
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Nice to know how Las Vegas is trying to clean up its act. Seems so much more different from when we last visited the city more than 15 years ago, although even at that time it was already trying to present itself as a family destination.
Maybe ‘clean’ is relative. After all they still have the slogan of “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”