Trip To Las Vegas And Los Angeles Essays Example

Once fortune smiled to me and I was really lucky to make a trip to the city that never sleeps, to Las Vegas which is in Nevada. But I decided not to stop only on this city and visit Los Angeles which was my another adventure. I with my friends decided to go to trip during our spring break, bought tickets and one bright spring morning went to our local airport and already in three hours we were in sunny Los Angeles, from where we decided to start our trip.
We took a 5-hour drive in a limousine to Las Vegas from the airport of Los Angeles. I thought it would be a smart idea to rent a limousine with fruits and music. In reality, we all were tired and wanted only one thing – to lie down, or even sit comfortably with our legs outstretched. But, alas, in the limo it was virtually impossible.
That was perhaps the only bad experience during our trip to sunny California. And then, finally, Las Vegas. City that never sleeps. All the lights in neon signs. City where jackpots are won and fortunes are gambled.
We lodged in a luxury hotel "Bellagio". There I was impressed to see mosaics "Flowers of Lake Como", created by world-renowned artist Dale Chihuly, who made that masterpiece of 2000 flowers made of Venetian glass on the ceiling of the lobby. We did not even unpack our baggage, we fell asleep.
The next day we had a planned excursion. It began with a brief examination of the hotel. On the ground floor there was a chocolate waterfall – a paradise for the sweet tooth. I must admit I would like to have the same waterfall in my house. After a brief inspection of the hotel, we were taken to the south of the city, where the sign welcoming guests to Vegas is located.
Right behind the sign the main street of Las Vegas – Las Vegas Boulevard begins, where the majority of hotels and casinos are situated. The first hotel we saw was "Venice". I never was to Italy, but I thought it was the way Italian streets looked like. Channels filled with water. Gondolas with tourists and gondoliers singing songs. And all this was inside the hotel!
At the same hotel I enter the casino for the first time in my life. Actually, I did not have another chance but to enter it. The first floor of the hotel was occupied with the casino. Actually, this is rather clever: you need to go through half of the casino to reach the elevator. The casino had no windows, no clocks. This does not give the players the sense of time and people can spend hours and sometimes days squandering their money at the gambling tables or slot machines which are known as "one-armed bandits".
After a while the tour flowed smoothly into visiting souvenir shops. We were interested with buying souvenirs at that moment the least. So we did not spend much time and went further.
On the street I was amazed with that quantity of casinos and five-star hotels: "Palazzo", "Venice", "Caesar's Palace", "Mirage", "Treasure Island" and many more. There, on the street, I saw casino "Sahara" which was closed, perhaps even forever. The Management Company had recognized that this casino had been loss-making. But I hope that it would resume its gambling process, since the building of it was fantastic. From distance I saw a tower which was the hotel-casino "Stratosphere". I used to see it in many movies, but then it was so close to me, it was fantastic.
Another thing that stumbled me was a large numbers of boxes, inside of which there were catalogs with photos and telephones of the girls of easy virtue. Generally, prostitution in Las Vegas, though prohibited, but is thriving. Later I saw in abundance special cars, driving around the city, advertising prostitutes on their sides.
I was impressed with the number of marriages I saw during my stay in Las Vegas. This city is very popular for weddings. From the locals I heard, that up to 120,000 wedding ceremonies take place in this city.
Suddenly night fell at Vegas, and it was time to get back to the hotel. In front of the hotel "Bellagio" at night every 15 minutes a fountain show happens. I watched similar shows in Dubai and in many Saudi Arabian cities. But the fountain at the "Bellagio" impressed me greatly as well.
With darkness city became lit by millions of lights of all colors. Neon signs were beckoning to go to the casino. But rules of my religion and fatigue forced me, as well as my friends, to go to sleep upstairs.
My next morning started with a rather interesting picture. There were two guys, dressed in a decent clothes, but were begging for money! As I found out, they lost all their money and then were raising some to travel back home.
Then my eyesight was caught with an image of the hotel-casino "Luxor" which was made in Egyptian style and was a black pyramid. The pyramid was hollow. The rooms are located in the walls, elevators move diagonally. Inside the "Luxor", there were even some art exhibitions. I was really impressed to see an automatic train on the monorail between several hotels belonging to one owner. I suppose this was made with a purpose to ensure that players, even if they decided to change the place for gambling, still bring a profit to the one casino owner.
There was near hotel "Paris". Near the hotel there was built a replica of the Eiffel Tower. There was even personal hotel`s Arc de Triomphe like in Paris.
Next, we decided to visit another famous street of Las Vegas – Fremont Street. It is located in the downtown. On this street there emerged the first casinos in the city and up to the 90s there was a major entertainment center. But in the 90s enterprising businessmen began to build casinos in the southern part of the Boulevard and began to catch players entering the city. To increase the attractiveness of the area of ​​the entire Fremont Street a huge LED screen was erected. The length of the screen was about 450 meters.
Later in the afternoon we went to the observation deck at the "Stratosphere", which was located at an altitude of just over 300 meters. From its height we could see that most of Vegas was a typical one-store America with only towers of hotel-casinos along the central Las Vegas Boulevard.
It started rapidly getting dark, the sun went down. Vegas became full of lights. For that evening we had bought tickets for the show "O" by Cirque du Soleil. By coincidence, the performance was supposed to happen in the same hotel "Bellagio", where we lived. To say that we liked the show will be to say nothing. The show was great! It is considered the best show of this circus. And I totally agree with this after I saw it. One and a half hour of the show flew by like 15 minutes. Then the curtain was drewn and we felt wonder – “How, why is so few?”
The next day we took a trip to the Grand Canyon – one of the deepest canyons in the world. Its length is about 450 km and it reaches a depth of 1,600 meters. The trip was a full day one. We left at 6:30 am, and came back at about 10 PM.
Having approached the edge of the canyon, I was immediately “attacked” by a brazen squirrel. The squirrel was not afraid of me at all, it crawled on my knees, stained my jeans, and without hesitation ate a half of our hazelnuts.
Late in the night we came back to our hotel rooms where we had some time before going to bed. I stood still and started analyzing my emotions about this city. What to say in general about Las Vegas? I like travelling everywhere but, alas, Las Vegas was not a place where I would come back again. City left an impression of a fake, dummy. All this beauty in the form of sculptures and buildings – they are all like theatrical scenery. Hotel "Venice" is a counterfeit of the real Venice, and it cannot show the atmosphere of the real Italian city. Yes, it is interesting to look at many things in Las Vegas. Yes, the city looks gorgeous. But a few days was enough to explore the city and to understand that it was not the best option for me. It makes sense for gamblers that would lose their money and maybe hit the jackpot to come here.
  Our way back to Los Angeles was by limousine as well. I parted with my friends at the airport who went back home, and, as planned, went to explore the city. I decided to feel the atmosphere of the city not in a fabulous hotel but in a modest motel, which I rented in the central area of Hollywood where I went by subway. My shelter for the next couple of days was located within 150 meters from Hollywood Boulevard.
Avenue of Stars is a sidewalk on both sides of Hollywood Boulevard. Every five meters on these sidewalks I was pleased to see five-pointed stars with the names of famous artists, actors, singers and other famous figures of cinema, music and other industries. I thought it would be great if my name was immortalized there.
The next day I happened to observe the installation ceremony of a new star in the alley. There was the crowd of reporters, some invited guests and of course a crowd of onlookers. The police carefully fenced off the whole “performance”. I was really happy to be a part of history at that moment.
Next thing I saw was the Kodak Theatre which was built in 2001 and has since become an annual venue for the "Oscar" award ceremony. This Theatre along with the Chinese Theatre and the Avenue of Stars are the most recognizable and visited attractions in Hollywood and Los Angeles.
Parallel to Hollywood Boulevard there was another famous Sunset boulevard. Its total length is about 35 kilometers. Its part, which is located in Hollywood, is known for the abundance of located thereon guitar stores. As a huge fan of guitar music I could not but visit many of those stores where I tried several guitars and saw many guitars of famous artists with their own autographs.
For the next day I planned a trip to Los Angeles downtown – its Business Center and other interesting ethnic areas – Little Tokyo, Koreatown, Chinatown, Olvera Street. So I went to bed early right after the sunset. The next morning started for me from observing the City Hall of Los Angeles – a 32-storey building, with a height of almost 150 meters. I spend about an hour at its 27th floor at the observation deck.
While I was photographing the views from the observation deck, at the town hall, there started some conference. I was asked to speak. Of course, I could not refuse and briefly outlined the vision of the situation, the ways out of this situation, made suggestions for modernization and innovation. The speech was greeted with thunderous applause. Of course, I am joking, but as far as I understood, the right to talk at similar conferences is given to any person from Los Angeles.
  Then I visited Little Tokyo in the downtown area. There were a lot of Japanese, Japanese stores with goods from Japan and sellers, as well as Japanese cafes with Japanese cuisine. I tried sushi, and must admit I loved them. At the same district in Little Tokyo I saw a monument to the American astronaut Ellison Onizuka, who died in 1986 in the crash of the shuttle "Challenger". I stood still for a minute near it thinking over human place in this world and moved further.
The next area that I visited was Chinatown. I need to mention a very interesting contrast of it with the rest of the city. As long as I was walking on the streets of Los Angeles, I could see a variety of faces, mostly Americans of course. Once I went through the archway marking the entrance to Chinatown, everything changed dramatically – everywhere around there were the Chinese.
The next place on my agenda was a visit to the California Science Center. It is a museum of science and technology. Unfortunately, the museum was not quite what I expected to see. In general, it was more focused on children. There I could touch everything, press the buttons and see how the one or the other mechanism words. In general, if I were a child, I think I would have been overjoyed.
  The next day I had planned to visit three places in Los Angeles. What was surprising, was that I managed to visit them all, although it was quite difficult because of the huge size of the city and the lack of personal transport.
The first place I sent my foot was a hill in the park Runyon Canyon in Hollywood. Locals use this place for dog walking and jogging. In the middle of the slope of the hill there was a place for panoramic views. Mainly this site was my target, from which I could see the beauty of skyscrapers of downtown and Hollywood.
The next destination, where I went on foot, was a well-known to all Hollywood sign. It is located in Hollywood, on the slope of Mount Lee at an altitude of 491 meters above sea level. It was somewhat strange to find out that it was so difficult to get to such a well-known sign. Moreover, it was rather strange not to see any normal site for viewing it. While I was photographing this site, I got acquainted with a couple from New York City and they easily agreed to bring me down to Hollywood Boulevard when they heard that I did the way up on my own two feet.
  Now I went to the downtown in order to get to my next scheduled place – Venice. Yes, Los Angeles has its own Venice. And this area was named so because of the system of canals built in the early 20th century. I liked that cozy area with its canals instead of streets at the first sight. Small cozy houses with gardens Channels with floating boats and The place of my destination. It was the area just a few hundred meters from the coast of the Pacific Ocean of the fantastic beauty. Tired, but happy that I managed to visit all the places that had been planned, I went back to the motel.
  I decided to devote the next day to the trip to the Universal studio. I went to the studio in the morning, expecting that at this time there would be not much visitors. But expectations were not realized: at that time there was already a crowd. Right in the very beginning I went on a sightseeing tour. I was really impressed seeing a small town, consisting of sets of buildings where movies are shot. I saw the hangars of the Warner Brothers studio, one of the biggest concerns for the production of films and television series in the United States. I saw the whole streets of such fake houses.
The greatest adventure during my travel was the “King Kong 3D” attraction. The train pulled us, viewers, into the darkness of the cave and the gates were closed. For a few seconds we found ourselves in total darkness. But here on screens on both sides of the cave, there were jungle. We saw a few dinosaurs, and they noticed us and gave chase after our train! But it was only the beginning. Next, a giant lizard appeared which roared in my face and wagged its tail right in front of my nose. And then from somewhere in the trees our savior – King Kong – jumped off the vines. He beat his fists on his chest and tossed the lizard away from the train. The fight started, in which King Kong was the winner. But our adventure continued, and our train literally fell down into the abyss! The cars got stuck in the vines, a huge spider was trying to get us with its terrible claws. One of the dinosaurs jumped on our car, and we fell down again. The adventure was over, the train left the cave. 
So, a few days in Los Angeles passed. I liked the city, it was really big and a lot of things I could see there. There were mountains and the ocean. There were lots of interesting places. If I ever get a chance, I will be happy to be back there. Before the dinner I took my flight back to my city where after three hours of flying I met my friends and where I got back to reality after perhaps one of the best spring break in my entire life.