Fremont St, Downtown Vegas

Fremont street is the famous Vegas of old. Its an odd thing to visit Downtown Vegas today, its like an old, run down, forgotten theme park. Its not the safest place at night either, so once you’ve seen the lights head back into town! But it does have an old charm, and the promise of “loose slots” haha.

We went during the day and Graham gave me & Pete some tips on Blackjack. I did better at this than anything else! We saw the largest gold nugget on public display in The Golden Nugget Casino, and in Binion’s we got to hold $1,000,000 in cash

On the way back we stopped at the Stratosphere Hotel, which has an observation deck and some crazy rides (one of which involves jumping off the side of the building!).

Siobhan decided she wanted to go on one of the rides… and that I should join her…. Our only option, other than jumping off the side building, was the “insanity” ride. It has about 12 seats on a big arm that spins you around, over the edge of the building! So you are looking down directly 140 floors to hard concrete!! I was shitting myself waiting at the top. My legs were shaking. I dont DO open air heights. But once we got going it was actually kinda fun! Then when it finished, they closed the ride due to high winds!

The Grand Canyon

Just a few hours from Vegas is the one and only Grand Canyon. And well, it’s pretty freaking huge.

After a few hours sleep we jumped on the bus and headed out, briefly stopping at Hoover Dam along the way. Unfortunately we didn’t get to go on the dam(n) tour! (FYI this is essential viewing). They are currently building a bypass bridge and soon no public vehicles will actually be allowed to drive over the dam, so we were lucky!

We got a little screwed on our ticket and it didn’t actually include a pass to the new glass walkway that goes over the edge, but you can’t take your camera out there anyways. We still took a buttload of photos here, including this crazy massive panorama that P2 and I shot on the top from the look out point with 360 degree views. The original file is 22K wide – making about 12 times the resolution of a normal digital photo!

P1 & P2 go to Vegas

I’ve always wanted to go to Vegas. I’m not a huge gambler, but I don’t mind a tap on the ol’ pokies (poker machines) either. Wonder I get that from? *cough* mum and & dad *cough*

My little sister (OK older than me, but still little) was heading to Vegas for the 3rd time with her husband, and I was planning my way from Toronto to London via Japan, so it was the perfect chance to catch up after 3.5 years!..and maybe throw on a dime or two.

I recruited Aussie Pete 2 from the hostel (me being the original Aussie Pete 1) and we set off for 4 days of fun, booze, gambling, no sleep, and of course to meet my sister!

After a night at the airport and no sleep we arrived in Las Vegas airport, where there are pokies before you even go through immigration! We stayed at Planet Hollywood in the “Fugitive” room, smack bang in the center of the strip, and left the hotel a bit after mid day. About 15min later we had our first drink on the streets of Vegas!

We went to meet Pete 2’s parents who were also in town, grabbed a cocktail jug from Rhumbar, and ran around like kids in a playground.

Vegas really is like adult Disneyland. Its a theme park where you must be at least 21 to go on the rides. The whole town is based around having fun, and even if you don’t like booze or gambling its still a big attraction. All the casinos want your gambling dollars, so they entice you with Broadway style shows, themes, rides, statues, dancers etc; The Grand Canyon is a few hours away; The weather is great most of the year; And everyone is just there to party!

We had an awesome time just getting up to shenanigans. Between the two of us we took over 2,000 photos and its too hard to write everything we got up to so just check out the photos and read the descriptions! More posts to come!
FYI, 4 days really isn’t enough for Vegas. Especially if it’s your first visit!

 

St Patrick’s Day 2010, Toronto

With the number of Irish surrounding me every day and most of my mates here being Irish, St Patrick’s Day was always going to be big, apart from the fact that it’s a Wednesday and I have a job…. At least I did…

Two days ago C.O.R.E. (who I work for) announced bankruptcy (no I had nothing to do with it). This leaves with A: The day off; and B: an extra reason to have a drink!

The weather was beautiful, so we sat on the roof in the sun all afternoon, drinking. There was of course a band of Aussies too. Check out our Vegemite grins! Then someone decided we should climb the adjacent building, and in the general drunken state everyone agreed it was a good idea. So up the fire escape we went and had a good view over Toronto in our local area! We all survived. No injuries surprisingly.
We carried on into the night and it was a pretty good, and crazy, day!

These photos are not only from my camera, so don’t blame me for some of these haha

Toronto Paddy Parade, 2010

The St Patricks Day Parade in Toronto! It was actually on Sunday before because they can’t close down the city on a week day! But wasn’t a bad turn out. Some funny get ups including people dressed as french footballers with giant hands! The best was this big guy’s dance moves.

Oh, and did you know that the might DELOREAN was built in Belfast?!!

Canada wins Gold

So Canada has just beaten out the USA to win Olympic Gold in the Men’s (ice) Hockey! That, and recently winning the Women’s Gold, and being in Vancouver, is basically like topping the entire Winter Olympics for Canada.

So straight after the match everyone headed out to the streets to party. Even the emergency services were getting into it, with Fire trucks fllying flags and running sirens to celebrate!

Niagara Falls

No, not what you keep getting emails about, Niagara Falls! I took a trip with Jess and Mark to check out the falls in mid Winter! Continue Reading…

Ice Fest

Jeanne and I went to check out some Ice sculptures!