Souvenirs, Stratosphone and Super Shopping!

Worlds largest Souvenir Shop
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A fairly low key day today with the rain continuing-again. We started late and headed on the free shuttle over to the Rio Hotel and Casino. Here we decided to go to their International Buffet for breakfast but missed the breakfast as it is only available up to 11am. So it was brunch instead. After our fill we went back to the Paris and decided to get on the Deuce bus and go down to the Stratosphere as we had not been there before. We stopped off at the largest Souvenir shop in the world. This I found a little disappointing as the items seemed even cheaper and nastier than normal. So we left here without any purchases and walked the two blocks down to the Stratosphere.

The birthday group together for dinner at Mon Ami Gabi
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A quick walk around the shopping precinct and we headed for the access to the sky-tower. Up top of this tower are thrill rides and an observation desk. Due to the rain, a number of the rides were not running and we decided the view wasn’t going to be that great during the day, so we decided to give the tower a miss and head back to the bus. We headed back and stopped off at the Fashion Show Mall as Joe needed to buy a new pair of walking shoes. The pair he has been wearing didn’t keep up with the rain and all the walking we were doing. This completed and a warming coffee in our bellies, it was 3pm and I wanted to go to the Outlet shopping mall at the opposite end of the strip.  A very long hour or so later we got off the bus and found that the others in our group that were at this centre were actually heading home.

This rain has really got to go!

I spent two hours here in shopping heaven and came away with two large bags full of clothes. Who knows how I am going to fit these into my baggage!! During this time I’d had a call from one of the ladies in our group to say we had the opportunity to get discount tickets to a Vegas show at 7.30pm. We jumped at this as it was the one other Vegas show I wanted to see while in town. With only an hour till the group were meeting, we dashed out to the taxi stand and luckily were back in our room 15mins later. On the way back the taxi driver said it had not rained like this in Vegas for 15yrs. We seem to be encountering these 15yr events on this trip!

We headed with the group for the show and it was fantastic. The Jubilee show at Ballys is a true Vegas girl show with lots of half-naked women walking around stage in outrageous colourful outfits exploding with feathers and bling.  Unfortunately we were not allowed to take any photos. Once the show was over, the group headed back to the Paris Hotel for a dinner booking at the Mon Ami Gabi Restaurant. Here we enjoyed massive steak meals that did not leave any space for dessert.

It was nearly twelve midnight by the time we left the restaurant and most people decided to head back to their rooms, with only the die-hards heading out onto the strip for a drink. Joe headed back to the room to help out a mate back home who was having network problems in PNG, and I joined those going to one of the other guest rooms to wait for midnight and wish our birthday girl Happy Birthday. Intense discussions went on regarding baggage limits on the return trips and how to minimise excess baggage fees for those who had gone shopping mad. The day finished for me at 1am.