Las Vegas!!!!

What better way to end a vacation than a weekend trip to Sin City! One short Southwest flight and you're dining in Paris - or playing way too much poker at Bellagio, as the case may be.

Some pics from the Miracle Mile shopping area. We got a kick out of trying to imitate the talented acrobat models in the giant advertisements.

I didn't buy anything, but I did try on some cool Tag Huer sunglasses that had a rubber band from race car tires or something like that.

I also missed out on the indoor skydiving experience, machine gun shoot, and the outdoor "man park" where you can play with heavy machinery, demolishing cars on a 10 acre park. :-o maybe next time...

We did check out lots of sweet vintage rides - almost all available for sale!

O was amazing! It was the 3rd time I've seen it, but it was still awesome! We got cheap "bad" balcony seats that turned out to be fantastic!

And, of course, the buffets were something else!

I'll have to make another trip sooner rather than later...

Japan Trip #2

I really suck! Here are pics from recent Japan trip #2 back in January. I even wrote things to blog about then never got around to it. Now I forget many of the interesting details.

We'll go through a photo tutorial of the quick 4 day trip with my friend Heather.

We started off like nutcases going to the world famous Tokyo Tsukiji Fish Market at 5AM. Tired as we were it felt hard core to fight the rain at such hours!



It was an incredible experience! You feel like you're in a movie, except very much in the way.

It's also a little strange because you almost feel sorry for the poorly dressed, diligent, fish auctioneers who pull their little wooden carts loaded with a fish or two by hand - that is, until you learn that they may have paid $50k for it! My, oh my!

My first Sumo match was interesting enough. My friend didn't think it was "sumo season", but we managed to get tickets.


I always like running around Japan at night. The crowds of people and lit buildings are distinctly Tokyo. It has a different feel from Seoul. Cleaner, lower highrises, yet more activity with similar amounts of over the top lighting.
Tokyo tower was entertaining - I have this thing for heights. The other tower in Roppongi absolutely sucked because it was too windy and rainy to go outside and you couldn't see a thing! Chuck and I went to 4 different towers in Japan (Osaka, Tokyo, Yokohama, and ugh??) on the last trip.

And there was a guy with a monkey outside! Yay!



Some famous, nice temple that was closed! :(

The 4 days came and went quickly, but, truth be told, I was ready to go by the last day. Not like the last 7 day trip where we felt rushed traveling between cities.

Hot 'lanta

Fort Benning is in Columbus. This is a picture from the part of town I'm staying. The good news is that my friend Chuck flew in to Atlanta to come visit me for the weekend - what a good guy! Neither of us had been around the city much.



The Olympic Park area was very nice. I had no idea that there were so many attractions in such a small area. It was pretty much a zoo of people.







We went to the aquarium first, only to find that our tickets were could only be purchased several hours out. No worries, there was a lot to see in the adjacent park and CNN building. The aquarium was interesting, but hardly the "best in the world". They did a nice job with 5 major themed areas and the props that surrounded the tanks.

Next we walked next door to the "World of Coca Cola". They didn't advertise it, but military got free admittance - sweet! I enjoyed all the old authentic Coke advertising that they had on display. The bulk of the exhibit was informative, but pretty dry.


Their grand finale was lots of fun, albeit sickening. They gave you a plastic cup and had 64 different taps of drinks from around the world. Surprisingly, most of the Asian ones weren't that bad - I'd had several already. There were a few served in Europe and South America that were disgusting! One in particular from Italy - the name escapes me - was atrocious. It was like a foul soda version of grapefruit juice that burned your throat with a disgusting aftertaste. Ughh! I really liked some of the exotic fruit Fantas.


A little more wandering around the Olympic Park area, then on to a Braves game. There were other things to do, but we'd pretty much filled our Saturday.





That night we went to a Braves Games. Chuck really wanted to go to a baseball game in Asia. We couldn't find one in Korea and missed our chance in Tokyo - our stop at the Kirin Beer factory tour on the way back from Yokohama put us back too late.


The game was pretty eventful. The middle was pretty slow, but the Braves made an exciting comeback against the Mariners in the 9th.







Chuck's one of those guys who can find a historic site, monument, or landmark anywhere. I had never heard of Stone Mountain Park, but he insisted on going before making it back to the airport. I was a little nervous because I had to be back for "manifest" or supposedly I wouldn't be able to jump and graduate.

Take a pool of magma, wait a couple hundred million years, then a few more for erosion and you get Stone Mountain. Eventually some dude chisels Southern Civil War generals in the side and there you go.





We took the gondola up to the top to enjoy an Italian Ice and a (foggy) view of Atlanta. Chuck and I have had a "Tower" theme to our travels so this was a reasonable substitute. He's afraid of heights, but that didn't stop us from Skydiving in Vegas last August.