The Las Vegas North Permium Outlet mall opens at 7 am on Boxing Day. Tessa and Meilssa were keen to get going, so they were awake and ready for a 7 am drive to the mall. The ladies while very keen, were not as committed, preferring to sleep in. We got there at 7.30 am. There was already a couple walking past us with some big bags of shopping to their car. 7.30 am and they were done and dusted.
The girls OMG'ed all morning because of the name brand stores, the variety of choices and prices. Being a long term VIP member of this mall, I went to information to pick up a discount booklet which offers further discounts for a minimum spend at each store.
At 9 am or so, I got a text from Wang Theng indicating that they were ready to go shopping too. So I left the girls and drove back to the hotel with the first batch of shopping to deposit in our room, and picked up Catherine and Wang Theng.
You can only ignore the need for breakfast for so long, and by 10 am we were eating some of the worst food on offer in Vegas. My burger was rather good because it came from a diner truck not associated with the mall.
I had to leave at 12 noon to return the rental MPV at the airport depot. It has served us well over the last 6 days. Tessa and Melissa by this time had been shopping a solid 4.5 hours, so they wanted to return to the hotel. I dropped them off at the hotel with shopping batch #2. Wang Theng was in two minds about returning with us or, to continue shopping and put in the effort to find her own way back. She appeared to have a case of severe cognitive dissonance over this because she changed her mind 3 times over the two options. In the end shopping prevailed, and damn the transportation logistics.
I had to fill up the gas before returning the MPV or else a refill fee would be incurred. The gas stations here are slightly different, the green hose is for diesel and the black one for petrol. Furthermore, there are 3 varieties of petrol: low octane, high octane and bio. All 3 comes out of the black hose depending on which button you push. Also pumps don't work unless you use a credit card. Wanting to pay cash, I had to go inside and leave a deposit of over $100 to get them to activate the pump.
Returning the Alamo rental MPV was a simple affair. They scanned to car bar code, entered mileage and checked the fuel gauge. I was issued a receipt for the money they'd extracted from my credit card and we were done.
The airport was a 45 mins walk to the hotel, passing through Town Square shops. So I decided to walk home. I did stop at Fry's to see if they had any new electronic toys (none). Dropped into Miller's Las Vegas Ale House to ensure that I was properly hydrated for this 45 mins walk in the desert. You have to treat the desert with a lot of respect. On the way, passed the welcome to Vegas sign, and people queueing to take photos.
When I got back to the hotel, Tessa and Melissa had gone exploring the Strip on their own. Having some quiet time to myself, I grabbed the iPad and keyboard, went downstairs to Pete and Shorty's bar to do some blogging for the 24th and 25th Dec. You can probably tell Batch 19 IPA had significant influence on the writing style for those two days.
By 6 pm Tessa and Melissa were back and hungry. I don't recall if I'd mentioned this. We are staying in the Hooters Casino Hotel. So we went to Hooters Restaurant and ordered our dinner. Wang Theng and Catherine were on the bus home, but we ate first anyway, and they can order some more when they get here.
Hooter's has very interesting philosophies when it comes to food and employment. The food appears to cater to people who are vegan, nutrient and fibre intolerant. A stark contrast to the "green" food culture which we observed in LA.
They also appear to have a very progressive employment policy, picking youth, gender and sex appeal over everything else. Not many employers would offer these youthful but well trained employees these opportunities. Their employment website has criteria such as "socially acceptable female sex appeal" to ensure a high standard of performance. Very impressive.
Tessa and Melissa at a Hooters job interview.
27th Dec 2013 Friday
It is showntime day today. I went to Tix4 tonight to queue for our discounted tickets. It is a bit of a pot luck what gets offered. For today, I got Mystere Cirque du Soliel for $80 each. I also purchased a discounted meal for us at Treasure Island (TI) buffet, where the show was.
The show was not on till 9.30 pm. So to pass the time, the default activity was....... shopping! I led the girls to Marshall's which is like a shop that stocks branded stuff which is heavily discounted due to being last seasons, an unpopular style, or size.
Again, many hours were spent in Marshall's fine-combing through every item. I am begining to think with the quantities purchased, that these places, to save time, shoud just weigh the purchases instead of scanning them.
5 people is an inconvenient travelling number. 1 too many for a taxi. So I caught the bus to Treasure Island while the girls zipped there in a taxi. They got there first and demanded to know where I was and why I was taking so long.
I walked past the Treasure Island buffet, and saw the queue was about 90 mins long. So I went straight to Pho, the Vietnamese restaurant in TI. We had dinner there and were done by 8 pm.
With a little time to kill, we walked over to Wynn's to look at the pretty gardens they'd built indoors and then a quick look around the Fashion Show mall.
Mystere, like all Cirque de Soleil shows, is a combination of music, acrobatics, humour and dance. The performance was good and we all enjoyed the show.
We had a quick look into Gilleys, a cowboy bar in TI which features line-dancing and a mechanical bull. We watched the bull operator have a bit of fun with a couple of patrons, tossing then off after a 30 second ride.
Then it was a 2 hour walk back to the hotel,though with a lengthy stop at Ceaser's Forum shops and a look into Bellagio's Conservatory.
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