Ok, first full day in Vegas and we start off pretty early, well relatively speaking at around 10am, which for some days is actually pretty late. We had roughly planned out where to visit today and it was quite ambitious but hoped to buy and see a lot of things, let’s see how today went down.

After some struggle we manged to go into the shoppes area within the Venetian resort and witnessed the bait ass gondala ride, we didn’t do it because it’s not really worth it but this photo is nice. You would never think this area is actually on the second level of the resort, not ground level or even in the basement, wow.

Among the many shops within the Venetian shoppes area they had this story selling what I can only describe as flavored air? Or very Pure Oxygen? Something like vape but not? I have no idea and it’s kind of strange. Maybe this will be a new thing one day? Who knows.

After exploring the Venetian area for most of the morning we decided to head outside and go back onto the strip, or rather one of the smaller roads which had quite a lot of restaurants and food places, such as this one. One of Gordon Ramsay’s Fish and Chips place. We didn’t eat here because have people said it wasn’t that great but it seemed busy enough.

What we had instead was In-N-Out burgers and fries/animal style as it was heavily advertised in the street and for good reason I suppose. As one of the west coast smash burger staples, it was solid and affordable. It was also the first time my sister tried In-N-Out so now was a good time as any other to try. The place was not that big but it was super busy, so busy that we had to eat outside in the hot burning sun because there was no tables available inside, only outside with no shade either. Good burger but in terms of quality and taste, I think Shake Shack is better still but for the price to value ratio, In-N-Out wins.

After eating our lunch we headed back onto the main strip and made our way to our various destinations that we had planned for today. However, because it was so hot, we often ducked inside random hotels and lesser known casinos like this one, the Cromwell, but it was a good excuse to get some much needed AC break and see what other casinos were like. The temps outside past noon were over 44 degrees C, shit man so hot.

After a long stretch of walking we decided again to duck inside the Paris hotel and casino to hide from the heat and burning sun. Very nice design and bootleg Eiffel tower.

We played a couple of slot machine games but had no luck again winning. The decor of this place was pretty swanky and french like, it’s called Paris after all so yea. Here my sister is playing Pokemon GO and owning some other kids or something in a poke battle EZ.

Paris casino also had a pretty interesting setup for horse racing and other sports related gambling. These guys like planted themselves with special screens and shit looking at spreadsheets and stats I think making bets. Some had like print outs or something, interesting.

Walking into some random gift shop chain called ABC gift I think we find some much needed Vegas Hello Kitty plush stuff, apparently this is exclusive to this chain of gift shop, noice.

And here we make our first planned destination of today, Vegas Bubba Gump shrimp gift shop/restaurant. Lest to say, my sister brought some stuff here as so did I.

Not to far from Bubba Gump shirmp is our second planned destination, the much rare and dying Rainforest Cafe store and restaurant. Least to say, my sister brought some stuff here too.

After braving the heat and walking more crazy ass overpasses and Vegas road/building design quirks, we got to our third planned location, Vegas Coke store. Least to say I brought quite a lot of stuff here, as did my sister to some extent.

Everywhere I go, I like my Coke. Gud shit.

Right beside the Coke store is also the M&M store, it has 4 floors of shopping and merch. I am not really a fan of their shit but sure, might as well take a look. Nice statues and stuff to see tho for photos.

For my sister, the words on the wall exemplified the feeling of “just like me fr fr” deep within her soul. To some extent, mine as well.

I am not entirely sure when it started but on this trip, on day 0 or maybe day 1 of today my sister started collecting this copper/fake penny squish stamp things. You have to crank them yourself manually at least at the start, hmm ok.

After a long ass journey back from the Coke store, we ducked into many other casinos and stores to beat the heat. We walked passed the Bellagio fountains again in the burning sun, dying and thirsty with every step we take but we eventually made it to our second last planned destination of the day; Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen restaurant on the strip, oh yea boi.

They had a pre-set meal for a slight discount so both me and my sister got the same course set. The first dish as 3 scallops with prosciutto which honestly was probably the best scallops I’ve ever had. They were cooked perfectly, perfectly seasoned and fresh with excellent balance of flavor with all the other elements and the sauce. Good shit.

Our main course was as one might guess is the ever famous signature Beef Wellington, made famous by Gordon himself in various TV specials and spotlights. This dish was excellent and met pretty much all my expectations, it was perfectly cooked tender fillet minon with a nice mushroom layer and crispy savory pastry. Good shit. The demi glace sauce was great as well as the mashed potatoes. The veg was a bit weird however, I wasn’t sure what the white balls were, they were kind of biter tasting but I ate everything regardless. Lives up to the hype, I get it now what people and Gordon loves this shit.

The last meal of the course is dessert, sticky toffee pudding with some ice-cream on it, pretty good shit. I’ve had this dish before elsewhere and I think this is probably the best version/incarnation of it, especially with the ice cream on top. Good shit.

The restaurant is loosely themed after the show of the same name with the red and blue teams although here it’s just a set piece. It’s cool that you can technically see all the workers and people working behind the scenes tho, just like on tv.

So then, is Vegas Hells Kitchen good? Absolutely, is it worth it however? I would say so yea as well even tho it’s cost is quite high. It’s not exactly a budget dining experience and more fine dining but the quality, presentation and overall polish of the food and service makes it’s high cost well worth the experience. The set meals cost like $105 USD and after a couple of fancy bottles of water and tip, this meal cost almost exactly $300. If you like Gordon Ramsey or his food, this is definitely worth a visit. I wouldn’t say that I would put this over the Bacchanal however, as they are both very different dining experiences, but I must say at least, I don’t feel like I overpaid for my meal and experience, it was fully justified where as for Bacchanal, I feel it should be much less in cost. Good shit overall.

After a great meal at Hell’s Kitchen we went back to our hotel at the Venetian and rested for a bit. We had a long day but we had one last thing that we needed to do, visit The Sphere and see it’s show that was inside. The Sphere is technically part of the Venetian resort and property so there was special pathway from the casino/hotel to get to it which is great. Outside the main bridge entryway from the Venetian you can get a good view of the Sphere in all of it’s glory.

Once inside you get to wander around for roughly 45 minutes before the show starts as they have like AI robots that you can talk with and stylish artworks/installations to observe and take pictures of. Cool shit, proof of sphere existence indeed.

The Sphere itself has very long escalators going up to 4 levels where people can navigate and go to their seats. Most floors have some different kind of art or thing to look at, this floor 3 which we have tickets too have these nice blue sphere things above, cool.

The seats for the Sphere are very very step, you can easily get hurt of if happen to stumble and loose your footing getting to your spot, damn man, not very safe for seniors or those with disabilities.

For roughly 15 or so minutes before the show started me and my sister just watched this glowing box with gradient colors.

My sister and myself were not exactly amused with the white rectangle being our area of focus but what can you do. When the show started things got alot better and the graphics/visuals were very cool and made full use of the Sphere’s gigantic circular screen, not just the placeholder rectangle box. The story and message of the 50 minute movie we watched, “Postcards from Earth” were very mixed however with conflicting narrative goals and conflicting messaging/themes. A good 75% of the movie was great and on track but the remaining last 25% was very questionable and just seems like the Director was forced to make certain choices by producers or financial backers of his film in order to not make certain groups of people upset and force a “Happy” ending that quite frankly, panders towards certain political and religious demographics and it just feels really off, as if it was written and directed by committee or someone else entirely that last 25%. While the experience was great, the storytelling at least in my opinion leaves much to be desired in it’s ending and half baked.

After leaving the Sphere, we take another look at this giant ball of screens. It’s a gem now, noice.

Well then, that was quite a busy and tiring day planned. We did so much and are pretty dead, but we can’t be because Sunday is EVO Finals, gotta get up early to watch some fighting games and buy some nice merch. Let’s Go!