Bloated and drunk on an expensive bottle of wine hastily guzzled down, we ran to see "O", the flagship Cirque du Soleil show. It's an almost plotless, meandering show set to Enya-like nonsense music, but it's a visual tour de force with amazing choreography. Throw in some scary acrobatics, and you've got a mega-hit on your hands. Very strange and unique, and compelling entertainment. Unfortunately, we both struggled to stay awake after that poorly chosen meal, to the point where I was physically holding my eyes open.

We had an early pre-show dinner at 808 at Caesar's Palace. It's a Hawaiian fusion restaurant, apparently famous in Honolulu but not so much on the mainland. 808 is Honolulu's area code, which I think is a pretty terrible name for a famous restaurant, like I can't think of anything interesting about my restaurant except it's area code. The decor was boring and low ceilinged, and as far as I remember bore little resemblance to this photo. So they may have redecorated. Service was nice, but weirdly, everyone that worked there looked like circus freaks, to be politically incorrect. I don't think this was intentional, but each and every server had a very prominent (insert politically correct word for defect here, because it's escaping me at the moment). Weirdly, we had just finished a long lunch a few hours ago, and we were in a rush to see a show, so, we decided on a multicourse tasting menu, an exceedingly bad idea. Since we had little time, the obliging staff sped through the menu, piling dish after dish of food, for which we had absolutely no appetite. Their signature deconstructed Ahi roll is excellent, their big mass of lukewarm raw tuna, not so much. (Food-15, Decor-9, Service-12).

After lunch we went next door to the Alladin hotel, which chose a perhaps unfortunate Arab theme for its hotel. The casino is one of the nicer looking ones in town, and the attached mall, Desert Passages, is a huge recreation of a Middle Eastern souk. Like most places in Las Vegas, they also have a trick ceiling, and this one has thunderstorms. I kept reading that it actually rains on people, which I thought was a good idea to get people out of the hallways and into the shops. But I only heard thunder and saw the fake storm clouds, so I'm not sure if it's true.

We celebrated with a very expensive bottle of champagne at the hotel's Mon Ami Gabi restaurant. It's a perfect recreation of a Paris bistro, with an added bonus of sidewalk dining, a rarity in Las Vegas. Of course you're overlooking a busy highway instead of the Champs Elysees, but other than that the illusion is perfect. Our waitress was the oldest person in Las Vegas, and a very colorful character. Food was traditional bistro fare, steak frites, oysters etc. Definitely recommended. (Food-15, Decor-17, Service-15),

Thursday Somchai broke the bank at the Paris hotel, so I wouldn't be surprised if the hotel closed after our visit (actually I would since Stoli had already commented that he recently stayed there). He won about $4,000 in Wheel of Fortune jackpots in less than an hour. The hotel itself is very nice as well, along the lines of New York New York and Venetian. All the usual Parisian landmarks are there, and they've got guys who ride around on bikes wearing berets and carrying baguettes just to add to the faux ambiance.

We gambled a bit more at the Venetian, with Somchai winning another $1,000, this time at the Monte Carlo slot machine, but I lost enough to balance things out. We also had a very good dinner at Mesa Grill, Bobby Flay's new (at the time) Las Vegas outpost. I had been to his New York restaurant and liked it but wasn't wowed, and this place had just opened yesterday, so it could easily have been a disaster, but it was actually one of our best Las Vegas meals. Service was a strong point here, and the restaurant itself was very nicely designed, cleverly divided to mask the fact that it's a pretty cavernous place, and with plenty of interesting design touches to keep everyone entertained. Food was typical Bobby Flay, a nouvelle Tex-Mex. (Food-16, Decor-18, Service-18).

We stopped for a quick lunch at Tsunami Grill along the canal. Nothing much to write here, just a cheapish sushi and noodle joint. (Food-12, Decor-10, Service-7). The name reminds me of a Japanese restaurant in Bangkok, Tsunami, that opened up about a week before the real tsunami devastated southern Thailand (among other places.) Since they had invested so much in publicity, signage etc they were reluctant to change the name, but it would be in pretty poor taste to keep the name. So the restaurant split in two, with Tsu being a sushi bar, and Nami being like a Benihana kind of place.

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We walked around the Grand Canal shopping center for a while, and weren't the least bit tempted to stand in line for a ride on a gondola through the mall, waving at all the shopper/eaters. Overcome by the beauty of it all, though, Somchai couldn't resist asking a newlywed couple if he could take their photo. Not sure if there expression shows they're creeped out by the request, or just tired of taking pictures, but it made Somchai happy. As for my photo, not sure what I'm doing, either posing artistically, which is very unlike me, or distracted.

One huge drawback in Las Vegas is the lack of taxis. There are plenty of them, I guess, but so many gamblers and conventioneers to cater to that the line for taxis is invariably long. So we usually walked from place to place, which in the case of our walk from Luxor to the Venetian meant a very long walk. The Venetian seems to be the most over the top hotel. They did an outstanding job of recreating the Piazza San Marco and the Grand Canal (except of course they put the Canal indoors and lined it with shops).

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Luxor is a pretty cool casino. A sleek black pyramid with a Sphinx in front, and a well-detailed faux Egyptian soaring atrium inside. The best thing about the hotel is that it basically gives away money. Somchai won the $1,000 jackpot here on the Wheel of Fortune game, then won it again ten minutes later. He wanted to keep going but we were gettting bored with winning all the time, so he gave his slot machine/ATM to somebody else.

It's now Wednesday, and Somchai's gambling fortunes started to turn in a big way. We visited the very tacky Excalibur first. It's a huge mock castle that makes no attempt to look authentic, or even attractive, and the interior is very "ye olde". It seems to be very geared to kids, so we didn't stick around long. I did, however, have my first Krispy Kreme donut. There's a neverending stream of publicity about these donuts, even overseas where they're not available, and I had to try donuts for which people were willing to stand in line for hours. So I was pretty disappointed to see the boring varieties on offer, and the taste? Like a donut. Overrated.

We had a late night dinner at Mandalay Bay's China Grill, the Las Vegas outpost of a New York restaurant I never really got excited about. This version is all dark lighting and sexy vibe, and attracts a pretty cool crowd. But it inexplicably serves massive portions, which makes it seem like the Good and Plenty restaurant in Pennsylvania Dutch country. The food is actually pretty good, with an ambitious fusion menu, but the revoltingly large servings are really hard to take. Whatever you do, don't order the Shanghai lobster, which comes on a foot long tray and piled over a foot high with food. (Unless of course you want to eat a cubic foot of food). Food-13, Decor-16, Service-15)

We (and our quarters) then went to see Zumanity, the softporn version of Cirque du Soleil. It was mildly entertaining, with the drag queen MC being the biggest hit, and some of the acts were impressive, but it's pretty far from the mainstream Cirque du Soleil, much more of a burlesque act which didn't use the acrobatic skills for which Cirque is famous. Our seats were cool, though, bright red ovestuffed couches down at the front. Somchai took that weirdly angled photo from our seats below the stage, and then one of the staff yelled at him and told him no photos were allowed.

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After lunch we went to New York, New York, which is our first genuinely themed hotel. It's on the small side, which isn't a bad thing, but very fun. The exterior, as almost everyone knows, is an amalgamation of New York landmarks in random order, with an equally random roller coaster careening through the whole thing. Inside, the eating and shopping areas are done up as New York neighborhoods, and the casino area does a fun interpretation of Central Park. We had a couple hours to kill here while we waited for our show to start, so we gambled a lot. I became a star attraction at one point when I won about $300, all in quarters pouring out of the machine.

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We had lunch a Olive's, yet another restaurant at the Bellagio. I know this is a famous chain run by Todd English, but he and his restaurants seem to have become famous while I was overseas because I had never heard of him/them. And I don't see how it could be famous, as it's an extremely casual affair, focused on sandwiches and pizzas. It's a nice room, with harried service, which is understandable because it's perpetually jam packed. (Food-13, Decor-17, Service-13).

Across the street is an even bigger hulk of cement, the Mirage. It's got a bit of a tropical theme, but it's understated to the point of dull. It's only claim to fame is the volcano erupts in front of the hotel on a regular basis. It was apparently the first special effect attraction on the strip when it was built, but now it's pretty unimpressive. The hotel itself was supposedly the first "luxury" hotel in Las Vegas, a huge step up from the scummy Circus Circus and the like. I can believe that, but now it's been passed by all the newer hotels, so there doesn't seem to be a point to it anymore.

Tuesday morning started at the cheerfully tacky garden of the Flamingo Hotel. Apparently this hotel is steeped in Las Vegas history and full of gangster stories, but it's hard to take all that seriously when you're surrounded by pink flamingo statues. The garden is the only fun part of this hotel, though, as the building itself is just a big cement hulk.

On the way back we stopped at Treasure Island, a Caribbean island themed hotel, which puts on a famous pirate show during the evening. The "plot" consists of two boats shooting at each other while bikini-clad girls run around, then one boat sinks. There are lots of explosions, so again not a bad way to waste fifteen minutes, but it attracts roughly 2 billion people, so it takes an additional 2 hours for the crowd to clear after the show. After struggling like a salmon swimming upstream, we surrendered and allowed the crowd to carry us into the casino, which was an expensive mistake. Somchai decided we needed to recoup our losses by revisiting the scene of our morning success, Caesars Palace, but we just kept losing. Threw a bit more money away while walking through the Bellagio casino en route to the elevator, and at this point we weren't even stopping to see the result.

After dinner we walked down to the other side of the strip. There's quite a dropoff in glitz once you walk past the Venetian, which surprised me. There are still lots of casinos, but they're very tatty, and interspersed with empty lots, gas stations etc. It was even more depressing than the glitzier half of the strip. You will be shocked to hear that Circus Circus casino has a circus theme. It's the biggest hotel in this part of the strip, and actually one of the biggest hotels in the world. As an added bonus, it also has a huge RV lot for those gamblers who prefer to stay in their vehicles rather than splurge for a hotel. The casino is incredibly dirty, very low ceilinged, and covered in a carpet that hasn't been cleaned since the casino opened. There are some circus acts performing around the place, but the whole thing was very claustrophobic, and very crowded. There's a huge amusement park in the back that may have been interesting, but it closes in the evening to ensure that nobody is distracted from the gambling.

All you can eat buffets are a staple of any Las Vegas trip. Even though I despise them, I figured we had to do it once as part of the "Vegas, Baby" experience. So we picked the Bellagio, which got rave reviews for being a super-luxe version of a typical buffet. I don't know how it got that reputation, as it's a very typical spread, lots and lots of choices all served lukewarm in an offputting cafeteria setting. And you have to stand in line for an hour for the privelege. (Food-7, Decor-5, Service-14). The service rating is a bit weird, but there are people who come around and clean up, serve drinks etc and they had a remarkably good attitude considering the constant crush of hungry people and squalor of the surroundings.

Had lunch at Chinois, a highly rated Asian fusion restaurant at the Forum, run by the wildly successful Wolfgang Puck. It was pretty terrible. Service was goofy and really slow, and the food was gross. It's supposed to be fusion, but it was just superheavy Chinese food covered in gagging thick sauce. (Food-4, Decor-12, Service-7).