Stag Celebration in Vegas: Johnny V's Life Long Quest to Become a Playboy Bunny

Justin and I were up early and off to Lenotre. Sadly, while good, it wasn't as good as anything you would get in Paris. We wandered around a bit before meeting up with the rest of the boys. Heading back through Caesar's Palace, we came across a good-looking food court. It'd be worth coming back here later to sample the place selling American BBQ.

Everybody checked out of the hotel, and we were off to lunch - there was some talk of going to Todai, another buffet, but a few of us were sick of the gorgefests. So instead, we went to a Vietnamese restaurant located in Chinatown (if you could even call it that, it was just a handful of Asian stores and restaurants in a strip mall).

The menu listed a cherimoya shake - excitedly, I ordered it, since I had not had it since this past Christmas' trip to South America (http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/pwong/7/1230691320/tpod.html#pbrowser/pwong/7/1230691320/filename=img_3443.jpg) But sadly, they didn't have any

Off to the airport - having a few coins in my pocket, I was going to blow them in the slot machines located in the terminal. But none of them took coins, only credit cards and bills, so the coins went unspent.

The flight was oversold, and an offer of a round-trip ticket to anywhere in North America was made to anyone who would give up their seat. If only I didn't have things to do in the office tomorrow ... it's not that I wanted to stay longer in Vegas, it's just that I wanted that free flight!

All in all, Vegas has been a bit disappointing, but that's probably my fault for having too many expectations. Overly-hyped and overly-Disneyfied, a return visit isn't warranted any time soon, unless there's another stag to attend. Other than cheap hotels and even-cheaper buffets, it's not a great value. But Las Vegas would be a great place to go if you wanted to stay in a nice hotel, check out a few shows, go to the spa, do some shopping, and eat at some great restaurants. Though a little pricey, it looks like they've got an amazing array of high-end dining options once you step outside of the buffet trap that everybody seemingly falls into.

I'm still a little dumbfounded by how developers have managed to create a little piece of everywhere else in the world, right here, in the middle of the dessert - I don't see much appeal in that. But of course, if they happened to build a hotel called "Spain", and completely staffed it with female employees imported from the land of the beautiful little brunettes, I would never find a reason to leave North America ever again!

I usually love writing blogs, but have found these Vegas ones to be a bit of a chore - other than embarrassing incidents, nothing terribly interesting happened on this trip. Granted, there were still a ton of tourist sites we never went to, because we weren't terribly motivated to go. Guess those things can be done the next time in Vegas, but I really can't say when that will be!

But really, none of this is important. The key point is that all of John's friends helped him finally realize his life-long dream of becoming a cover girl, and appearing on the cover of Playboy magazine.

All this leads us to the song for the trip - which song could possibly capture the essence of this trip? Why, none other than "Cover Girl", by New Kids on the Block!

Cover Girl I get up in the morning and I see your face, girl You’re looking so good, everything’s in place Don’t you know I could never leave your side girl Won’t you stay here with me and be my bride? Don’t you know you’re my kind, you’re just what I like Girl you’re everything, don’t you know you’re alright The only girl I’ve always needed for so long

Chorus:

Oh, oh-oh, she’s my cover girl Oh, oh-oh, oh, oh-oh Oh, oh-oh, she’s my cover girl Oh, oh-oh, oh, oh-oh

When I look through the pages of a magazine Still, your pretty face is the prettiest I’ve seen Don’t you know I only want to be with you No other girl could make me feel the way you do You’re my everything

Chorus twice

It’s alright Oh, yeah, it’s out of sight Let me say it’s alright Ah, yeah!

Don’t you know I only want to be with you No other girl could make me feel the way you do You’re my everything

Chorus and fade

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Up early after yet another crappy sleep ... thinking everyone was still comatose from last night, I wandered over to the Venetian for breakfast. Why the Venetian? Because it's got a reasonable (by Vegas standards) food court, and it's close by - I really don't want to walk too far just for breakfast, in this nasty desert heat.

Browsed through the Peter Lik gallery - some cool surreal photography, with some incredible shots of rock formations that had perhaps been photo-shopped, giving them an array of unnatural-looking colours. Visited the Kenneth Cole shop, which I will probably forever be banned from. I was upstairs browsing, and dropped my almost full and much-needed coffee, spilling it all over the carpet. I felt bad and was going to tell the salesgirl, since she was quite nice to me earlier, but then I saw the carpet soak it up like a sponge. Where's a "Sham Wow" when you need one? It was too late, so I quickly ducked out of the store, trying to hide the slightly crushed and dripping coffee cup in my hand ...

Some more aimless wandering, and back at Tintoretto's for some quick lunch - their pizza looked pretty good yesterday, and I hoped it would be better than their breakfast offerings. Wrong!

Back to the hotel to find the boys - off to the Las Vegas Premium Outlets. First order of business was lunch, as no one else had eaten yet. The food court offered some fairly typical eateries. After, it was time to brave the heat - hot, hot, hot! This is an outdoor mall, perhaps to encourage you to shop, as the stores are the only places offering some respite from the temperatures. There are a number of misting towers outdoors to cool you down but they don't do that great of a job, as the mist felt quite warm.

None of us are big shoppers but after today, we all ended up very close to the allowable limit imposed by Canada customs. We only planned for about 1.5 hours here, but a few of us could've easily used another hour or two to finish up. Particularly good was a small, secondary branch of the Kenneth Cole store - not so much for the clothing on offer, but for the Mexican salesgirl

We all met at the food court and were off to Fry's, a giant electronics store. Kind of bizarre, as they sold cases of their own brand of bottled water, and even had a coffee shop/cafe inside. In a way, it's not that great of a place for a bunch of guys to visit, because we ended up staying there for FAR too long. But this wasn't a bad thing, as it gave us plenty of time to build up an appetite for another buffet gorge fest!

Le Village buffet at Paris - this morning, Justin ended up going over to one of the ticket brokers to pre-pay for the buffet, as this ends up saving you a few bucks per person. We lined up and got our table, but Justin and I went off in search of Lenotre, a branch of a famous French chain of patisseries, and the only location outside of France. On a couple of occasions in Paris, I have sampled their fine pastries (they make a wicked peach tartelette) at the Rue Cler store (see blog entry entitled "I re-kindled an old romance today ..." http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/pwong/europe_2006/1161139080/tpod.html?tweb_UID=pwong )

Being the dutiful husband, Justin immediately thought of Ann when I mentioned Lenotre the other day. Justin felt a bit bad for leaving behind Ann and the newborn to come on this stag, so he wanted to buy some croissants for Ann, something that she loves. The plan was to buy them tomorrow, but we wanted to see tonight if they looked anything like the ones from Paris, otherwise Justin would have to come up with an alternate plan.

Unfortunately, they were completely sold out of croissants and pains au chocolat, as any good French patisserie should be at this hour. No matter, as we decided to come back here tomorrow morning for breakfast. Even if their pastries turned out to be nowhere near as good as ones made in France, they would still very likely be the best ones you could get anywhere in Las Vegas.

Back to the buffet - the interior is modeled after a cobble-stoned French street. Kind of nice in a way, but also kind of tacky and overly Disney-fied. It's supposed to be a gastronomic tour of all that France has to offer, with dishes from every region, but it falls well short. I didn't see how it made sense that a French buffet started with four different Italian pastas and a risotto ...

Tagliatelle with pesto, rigatoni with bolognese sauce, penne alfredo, gnocchi (very powdery), and mushroom risotto (very mushy and bland, more suitable to grout tiles than to eat). Only the rigatoni was any good, of these dishes.

Sushi doesn't seem to fit in either, and I avoided it completely since it looked pretty dodgy. Overall, the buffet was decent and excellent value at $22 USD (with the discount). A much better buffet than Rio's seafood version.

I was really looking forward to the desserts, as you would think the desserts at a French buffet would be the best in all of Vegas. Unfortunately, it wasn't as great as expected - the dessert offerings at Rio might have actually been a bit better.

After stuffing ourselves, we did a bit of aimless wandering - John suggested checking out an adult-style revue like Folies Bergere, Crazyhorse, or Jubilee. Unfortunately, Folies Bergere no longer exists, and it was too late to get tickets for the other two. Instead, Justin, Tri, and I grabbed a drink at a lounge in Paris, while waiting for the rest of the boys to finish up some gambling.

We all met up later, and went off to do some good male-bonding activities - next thing you know, we're getting back to the hotel at 4 in the morning. That's one good thing about Vegas - there's always something to do at all hours of the evening.

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Got a call from Justin at 9:30, saying that my help was needed - I was intrigued ... a quick shower and up to their room to finalize some details for today, John's official stag day! We spent some time combining our creative talents, but became quite famished after all of our creative juices were drained. Off to the Venetian for some grub.

We wandered around the Grand Canal Shoppes, in search of food. It's quite beautiful inside, but seemed quite bizarre that you would take something as beautiful as Venice, something that still actually exists, and make an Americanized copy of it in the middle of a desert. It seems a lot like a Disney-fied re-creation of Venice.

Our first thought was to try Tintoretto's, which sounded like a great Italian bakery/cafe, according to my guidebook. We didn't find anything better, and so returned there. It was a simple, but over-priced, and so-so breakfast

Back to the hotel to get John ready for the day's festivities. We realized that John was hurrying to get ready and leave the hotel before we could dress him up, so we rushed up to the room for an ambush. We simply couldn't let this happy and joyous occasion pass without commemorating the event properly. After all, what are friends for?

Other than a nice meal and an evening out on the town, there was no real plan for today, other than to embarrass John. We got him dressed up and paraded him down to the lobby, then the hotel pool, and finally over to Caesar's Palace, where we stopped for lunch at the Cheesecake Factory.

Over lunch, we laughed at some of John's all-too-frequent mispronunciations over the past few days - calling Buccaneer Boulevard "Boo-ken-ear boulevard", calling Neimann-Marcus "Marcus Newman", and the crustacean station at the Rio buffet last night "Crusty Ocean". If you're going embarrass and laugh at a guy on his stag, you should make sure you do so about EVERYTHING!

We finished up lunch and headed back through the Shops at Caesar's Forum, and over to the gardens at the Bellagio. We thought this would be a suitable location to take some pictures of John, as a garden is the natural habitat for a rabbit. But apparently, not everyone knows this, as some random tourist commented "Well, I've never seen THAT before!"

After that, we headed back to the hotel - but not before having John complete one final task. As friends, we're not as bad as you might think - our first thought was to postpone this task until things cooled off, but we happened to find a nice, shady spot for John to conduct his business. The task was completed, and everybody went back to the hotel, except for Jason, Tri, and I - we headed over to the Wynn to try and get on a guest list for a nightclub tonight.

Everyone did their own thing back at the hotel, I grabbed a quick nap before dinner, as last night's sleep was quite crappy. Back to Caesar's Palace for dinner at Spago, a restaurant recommended by Yolanda. Upon arrival and seeing the gorgeous hostess, I thought "Yup, excellent suggestion by Yolanda." Exactly how gorgeous was she? Well, with the exception of me, this group is a bunch of guys that for the most part, find only Asian women attractive. But I think they were all as impressed as I was.

For those that remember the beautiful Andrea, the Chilean hostess from Puerto Fuy in Santiago that I raved about, this hostess could have been her blonde, American cousin. For those that don't remember or don't know, see blog entry entitled "A small bladder can be a good thing" http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/pwong/7/1231210200/tpod.html

Despite having a reservation, we waited about 20 minutes for our table. None of us seemed to mind, as our waiting spot was immediately adjacent to the reception area, and afforded a lovely view of the even lovelier hostess We finally sat down, amid a buzzing and boisterous dining room. Definitely not the place you go to for quiet, intimate conversation!

A few of us noticed the heavenly-smelling pear-scented soap in the bathrooms at Spago. Normally I wouldn't, but after experiencing how divine my hands smelt after using the washroom, I almost felt like licking them. Yes, I DID just write that!

Our original after-dinner plan was to go to Blush lounge in the Wynn, but they're closed Sundays. Next choice was Tao, which was also closed Sundays. At the recommendation of a bellhop over at Wynn, we got ourselves on the guest list for Lavo, at Palazzo. BIG mistake.

We showed up and of course, the guest list doesn't really do anything for you, so we still waited in line. Being relatively early (11:30 or so), it didn't take long to get to the front. The doorman asked if we were on the guest list, and asked us if we wanted to do bottle service for $100 a head. No thanks, we said. Then came the kicker - yes, we know that a group of 7 guys will have trouble getting into any club in the world. But we were told "They really should've told you when you called up that you need some ladies in your group. I'll be honest with you, you're not getting in unless you do bottle service."

WTF??!!?? We couldn't believe how blatant the guy was with his response. It wasn't even about the money, just the principle of being extorted like that - we left and headed down the strip in search of something else, a little pissed off and a little dejected. This totally put a downer on the evening.

We wandered and wandered down the strip, through Paris, and finally found a club that was open at MGM Grand, Tabu - hooray! We were told that cover was $20, and there was no mention of us having to do bottle service, so we were overjoyed! Once inside, we did a round of shots and grabbed a round of drinks, and then realized that .... none of us were really into this scene, anyway. Too funny! An hour before, we were so dejected over at Lavo, then so elated to get into Tabu, but only to realize that none of us really cared in the first place.

We had a few more drinks, and hung around for a while. This geeky-looking Asian guy hopped up onto a coffee table, and a few of us thought "This should be good, this guy's going to make an @ss out of himself!" But then he started busting out these incredible dance moves, gliding across the table, and pulling out some hip-hop tricks. A few random girls even took out their cameras and started filming him. The guy was at the club with this cute little Latina, and I thought to myself "Sigh ... if only I could dance like him ...."

We soon left, and at this point things got bizarre. Though Jason really didn't drink all that much, he got out of hand, lap dancing Tri, and actually chasing after him! I don't even know what to say, you really have to look at the pictures and see for yourself!

John was quite relieved at the turn of events - all the embarrassing moments from today were magically wiped out in an instant by Jason's shenanigans. John can never complain about his stag, EVER again, because it's like none of it ever happened. Jason needs a nickname - from this point forward, he shall be known as "The Eraser".

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3:45 AM - the alarm goes off ... crap ... time to get ready for the flight! Over to Tri's house, where his mom gave us a ride to the airport. The last time I saw Tri's mom was when I helped Tri move some of his old furniture to his parents' place. All I remember is his family complaining non-stop about Tri's gas problems (a very common topic amongst all his friends, also), and his mom complaining about Tri's old bed frame missing a bolt. Tri responded "You don't need that bolt, I've never had it and it was always fine", to which his mom replied with a wink and a smile "It's because you don't use that bed as much as we will!" I kid you not! Too much information!!!

4:30 AM - the rest of the crew arrived at the airport. All week, we had been emailing each other about the embarrassing outfits that we were going to force John to wear while parading him up and down the Las Vegas Strip. We had all decided that the choice would be the Borat Mankini - who knew that such a tiny piece of fabric would give us so many hours of jokes and fun, all at John's expense?

Check-in was quick, while customs and security were not. We still arrived at the gate with plenty of time to relax, have breakfast, and make more Mankini jokes at John's expense, before boarding our flight. Nothing of note happened on the flight except for even more jokes at John's expense, which only lasted for about 15 minutes, because we soon all passed out. The other passengers were quite happy about this, as we were all being pretty loud and obnoxious - but hey, it's John's stag so it's expected!!!

8:30 AM - the plane landed and we headed over to the rental car centre. What would be the perfect car for a boys-only trip down to Vegas? Something sleek, something sporty, something sexy ... a ... Chrysler minivan??!!?! That's what you get when there are 7 cheap Asian guys looking to get a good deal on transportation!

Off to the strip - some of the first big name hotels we came across were Mandalay Bay, Luxor, New York New York ... first impression - tacky! All of the construction taking place didn't exactly make for the best first impression, and Vegas definitely didn't seem as glitzy as movies and TV would lead you to believe. Hopefully this changes when the sun goes down, and the neon lights brighten the desert sky.

We hoped to get a VERY early check in, and this was likely possible given how dead Vegas is nowadays, with the economic problems in the states. A few of us got confirmation from the front desk that this was possible, and the rest of us brought all the bags in. A VERY pushy bellhop started giving us attitude - "Where are you guys going?" We told him we were checking in. "Check-in isn't until 1 PM!" We told him we had an early check-in. "Early check-in isn't until 11 AM!!!" Dude, back off! Your friggin' front desk just told us to bring our bags up!!!

The room was quite luxurious compared to the hotels I've been staying in the past few years. A huge bathroom, dampers on the toilet seat that prevented it from slamming down, flat-panel LCD TV ... no time to enjoy the amenities, as we were supposed to all meet downstairs in a few minutes. We hopped in the van and waited ... and waited ... and waited some more ... where the heck were Jason and Tri? What could they be DOING together that was taking so long? A little foreshadowing, for events that would unfold tomorrow night ...

Finally, we hit the road for the outlet mall at Primm - first order of business was lunch. The rest of the guys opted for Japanese noodles, but Jason, Tri, and I went to the food court for some Philly cheese steak. Pretty small and blah ... I needed a Coke for a jolt of caffeine. Still needing to wake up, I grabbed a coffee over at Illy - not bad, but a cappuccino or something similar would've been a better choice.

After Primm, we considered checking out another outlet mall in Vegas, but decided to take it easy as we were all wiped out - back to the hotel. Everybody else headed over to the Fashion Show mall to grab tickets for a show tonight, and I grabbed a quick shower and an even quicker nap. My one complaint about the room is the crappy shower - I had to lean in very close to the wall to wash my hair, so that I was practically making out with the shower head. But hey, what happens in Vegas STAYS in Vegas, right?

I headed off to the Fashion Show mall on my own as I felt like walking, but didn't feel like doing so in the horrific heat. Ahh ... A/C ... it was a typical mall, so nothing special - but it was worth coming in just to cool off for a while.

Back to the hotel to get ready for dinner - we didn't have any big plans tonight, just dinner and a show. And what would a trip to Vegas be without gorging on a buffet? On our way down to the lobby, John and I ran into a couple and their daughter, who sat right in front of us on the plane ride over. They noticed the ball and chain on John's leg, and realized we were here for a stag. They made some comments along the lines of "So that's why you guys were so rowdy on the plane ..."

Off to the Rio, for their seafood buffet - pretty disappointing, I must say. Perhaps if you're a big fan of cold seafood (I'm not), and you don't mind spending 3/4 of your meal cracking open crab legs, sucking on them, and then spitting out little bits of shell (I do mind), this would be a good place to eat. We do have a few big seafood eaters in the group, but even they complained about the general poor quality of the offerings, like the rubbery oysters on the half shell. There were a few other decent dishes and the dessert selection was alright, but overall the buffet was pretty lacking. It's probably all the hype that Vegas gets, because based on what people say, the buffet should be about 10 times the size. The value was good if all you wanted to do was stuff your face with as many crab legs as possible, which is a very Asian thing to do But if you're looking to sample a number of other decent non-seafood dishes, this place is both a waste of time and money. Of course, the meal was almost worth the $38 USD just to hear Justin say "Sucking on heads is good, because you get all the yummy juices!" I hope he was talking about the cocktail shrimps! And let's not forget the hot Asian girl eating at the restaurant, that caused us all to salivate more than any of the food offerings did ...

Despite being mediocre, we still stuffed ourselves almost to the point of bursting our stomachs - it's the Asian way after all, and we're damn proud of it! Except for me apparently, as Tri has previously asserted on many occasions that I hate my own kind. Hate is quite a harsh word, it's just that my own kind aren't Spanish enough, and I really should've been born a Spaniard instead of a Chinese man!

Back to the hotel for Cirque Du Soleil's Mystere - most of us have all seen multiple Cirque shows, but there were still some impressive parts to this one. About halfway through, I realized that I had previously seen a good portion of the show before on TV. There was a VERY annoying group of girls behind us that kept squealing with glee over the stupidest little trick, and kept talking, and talking ... until Tri turned around and shushed them. Good job!

The evening winded down with some casino time - neither Tri and I are big gamblers, so John suggested we play some slots just to get some free drinks. So much for that - I lost $15 and the waitress never came by to take a drink order. We would've been better off just going to a bar and paying for a drink - we did try, but there wasn't much selection in the hotel. Off to bed ... wiped out, after such a long day - we'd all been up for almost 24 hours straight.

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