Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Happy New Year!

To friends and family across the globe... Happy New Year!

Hyunjoo and I had a lovely evening last night. We were originally invited to a $400 inclusive package deal at a local country club with Scott, Nayoung, Winston and Julia, but we decide to explore the Strip on our own.

Hyunjoo really wanted to see the Stratosphere Tower on the Northern end of the Strip and I was excited since I've never been up close. We arrived around 7 and easily found parking. That's one thing great about Las Vegas. It's easy to find free parking in all the best locations. We walked around the casino and quickly decided to head down the Strip.

Our first stop was the "Worlds Largest Gift Shop". I doubt the moniker was true, but it was loaded with goodies only black-velvet art collectors could love. That's being a little harsh, but it was a scene to behold.

The cops had already blocked off the Strip to pedestrians only, and we were in a group of some of the first to walk down the middle of the road. It was kinda strange being the first ones. I kept looking around the usually busy street for some crazy car to some careening through, but of course nothing of the sort happened.

We walked on for about a mile in the brisk cold to the Fashion Show, across from the Wynn, and found a great place for dinner... the Capital Grille. We might not have had the view early reservations might have given us, but the setting was perfect and the food was delicious. 

Around 9:30, we headed back up the Strip to the Stratosphere. It was colder out then, but we survived. We milled around the slot machines for an hour or so and listened to some live music playing. A little before midnight we head up to the Pool deck for the count-down we had bought tickets to earlier. There were a bunch of folks up there listening to a DJ and at the stroke of midnight we saw one of the most interesting fireworks displays I'd ever seen. From on the top of the tower, we were almost sprayed with explosives almost 115 stories directly above us. It was an incredible sight.

So, I hope you had a wonderful celebration and may all your resolutions come true!

2 comments:

Casey said...

happy new year kent and hyun joo! can you elaborate on the term 'cold' please? cause i'm sitting here in niigata, and there are about 5 feet of snow on the ground, and i'm just wondering what it's like in las vegas ;-)

Kent Matsueda said...

Heh, I guess it's all relative. I'm embarrassed to say, but I suppose "warm"? would be better? Hope you enjoyed the snow!