Day 3- Grand Canyon

This is a long day as the journey to Grand Canyon will be around a 4 -5 hour drive. We would only reach the hotel at 11.30pm or 12am. The guide drove us to get our Mac breakfast. We could order whatever we want, but we only have limited space in our stomach. The menu looks slightly different from the Singapore menu. There's this Ultimate meal where everything is in - the hotcakes, the meat, the egg, the hash brown. All 3 of us chose this set meal while others picked other set meals.

(The ultimate set meal that cost the same as the big breakfast.)

After the breakfast, we headed for Hoover Dam which was built during the Great Depression period.

(Hoover dam)

(Bridge under construction in the Hoover dam area)

(Nice clouds taken from the car)

I could feel the heat of a desert area at this area. I am really scared of heat. When everyone else didn't complain about the heat  in the car, I was telling the driver to make it cooler as I really found it too stuffy. It's a long ride to the national park and coupled with the fact that we only arrived the day before, I was dozing off during the entire journey. I seriously suspected that I was suffering from jet lag. I usually don't fall asleep for the entire bus journey, but I still caught glimpses of the Route 66. Route 66 serve some historical values for the Americans but since I am not one, I failed to appreciate the true significance of this route. I was wide awake when we finally reached the national park. Surprisingly, the air is cool. I would have thought that it is as hot as Las Vegas. The Canyon is just like a painting to me. It's real big as well. After walking a short distance along the South Rim, we paused for our lunch picnic. We were given sandwiches, cheese and crackers. I like the Sandwich but it's too huge for me. After lunch, we continued with another 2.5 hours walk along the Rim. The guide was friendly and funny. He was helping us and other tour mates take pictures. It's a casual walk. There's nothing strenous. At times, we would walk towards the edge to admire the beauty of the Canyon. Our final stop is a spot near the Visitor and educational center as we awaited for the sun to set. I was a bit disappointed as the sunset didn't look as nice as I what I expect.

(The majestic Grand Canyon)

(Playing with the exposure after the guide explained to us that it might be better to set a lower than 0 exposure for the canyonlands)

(The Grand Canyon in the evening)

(The sunset)

Day 4- Las Vegas

Day 4 is shopping day! We set off later than usual since we slept pretty late the day before with the 15 hours Grand Canyon day tour. Once I stepped out of the hotel, I felt the immense heat again. It must had been around 36/37 or even higher. We took the deuce to Sahara hotel so that we could take another bus to the Premium outlet of Las Vegas. Deuce travelled along the strip while the other bus travelled on another stretch of roads off the strip. There wasn't a proper bus stop for the other bus and hence, we couldn't find the bus stop. My nose started to bleed while we were walking to look for the bus stop. I didn't know whether it is due to the heatiness within my inner body or it was due to the outside heat. This nose bleed was quite serious as it only stopped after a prolonged period and the cycle started again when I was in the outlet mall. My nose bleed prompted us to stop by Sahara for lunch.

We had lunch at the Nascar cafe. It's pure American food with burger and fries. The curly fries is nice! But we couldn't finish as the portion was huge.

(Passing by Paris Las Vegas as we consulted the Concierge. It's  beautiful!)

(Our lunch at Nascar Cafe. Even the salad is huge! And the meal wasn't too expensive. It was around US$30 in total)

After further consultation and some navigation around, we finally found the "bus stop" which was just indicated by a stand. It's not a very long journey to the outlet itself. It took around 10 mins to reach from the Sahara stop. This outlet mall was more crowded than the one we went on Day 2. It also has more shops. All of us had fun shopping in this outlet mall and we even had to sacrifice visiting fremont street in the end. I was so thrilled to find a tube dress (for function type) at US$21. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the price, so it was a must buy. All of us also went crazy at Naturaliser as the discounts for shoes was crazy. On top of a 60%-70% discount, we had another 50% off the 2nd pair of shoes. At the end of the day, I was carrying many many paper bags. The bus journey back to the hotel was torturous. The outlet wasn't very far from our hotel, but the traffic along the strip was really horrendous. It took us around 1 hr plus to reach our hotel. In addition to the horrendous traffic, the bus was really packed. We had to stand throughout the bus journey. The bus driver would ask people to move in as much as they could at each stop.

Day 5- Las Vegas

We went for our ATV ride today. I actually prefer this to the ride I had in Korea as there's less people and we had more room and freedom while we drove. There were in total 5 of us. Lunch was simple with some baked beans and meat with bbq sauce. After we rode back to the starting point, we were droved to an old mine. There's nothing fantastic about the old mine though.

(ATV ride)

After the ATV ride, we went back to hotel to wash up before we had Ben n Jerry for dessert. It's one for one with the discount coupons!

We then walked to Venetian with the intention of taking the gondola ride, but we gave up that idea eventually as it was too expensive. It cost over USD 16 (SGD 20 ++). So after taking a few pictures at the beautiful Venetian decorations, we took the monorail to the South Strip. The monorail is more expensive than the Deuce but it's so much faster!

(Interior of Venetian)

(Exterior of Venetian)

(A view of the strip from the bridge connecting New York New York and MGM Grand)