4th of july week

since we got both mon and tues off for 4th of july, we decided to use 3 of our vacation days to take the whole week off!

we went down to LA last friday afternoon, not really that much traffic. we had dinner at houston's. saturday we went shopping at south coast plaza (my favorite place to shop in LA!) all the stores were having some good sales, so i bought some stuff. had dinner at gina lee's bistro with some of julian's friends and watched superman afterwards. i thought it was ok. sunday we had brunch with some of julian's friends and went to visit the korean friendship bell. (yes we couldn't think of anything better to do haha) we drove by palos verde and every time we drive by i think about how nice it would be live there (they have nice houses next to the beach). ahhh maybe one day. monday we had lunch in alhambra, and went to the santa anita mall. at 4pm was the wedding for my coworker joe at the san gabriel hilton. the bride looked beautiful and she's so so skinny but she's only 22! it was incredibly hot outside, i was so glad the ceremony was short. sucks for the guys who had to wear pants and long sleeves! hehe. the reception was indoors thank goodness but the chinese food wasn't that good. the centerpieces were very nice though. it was more of a chinese wedding vs american wedding because the MC spoke in chinese mainly and translated into english occasionally. they played A LOT of games and the bride and groom didn't get to eat much at all!

tues morning we left for vegas!! woohoo! it took us about 4 hours. when we arrived it was overcast and wasn't as hot as i expected. we met up with jody and heeyup for lunch and ate at mgm at wichcraft - a sandwich place. it was ok. we gambled a bit and i lost $50 playing blackjack. jody and heeyup went back home and julian and i walked through cesear's palace and looked through some of the shops. it's changed so much since i last went there, there are so many more stores there! it's kind of crazy. then we walked over to bellagio and looked at some of the stores there. had some gelato at a new store with a huuuuge chocolate fountain in the front, don't remember the name.

we met up with jody and heeyup for dinner at mesa grill. essentially the 2 couples ordered the same dishes, except we chose 2 different appetizers. we both got the pork and a coffee encrusted filet for entrees. the filet was not very good but the pork was. julian was disappointed. afterwards we went to shadowbar where girls dance behind screens to create a shadow. there was one girl who was topless and had very large boobs. yikes! afterwards, julian and heeyup played bj for a little bit until julian lost $100 and heeyup won $100.

on wed we went to the las vegas outlet center at the end of the strip and it sucked. i definitely would not go back there again. we had lunch at a bar & grill in Rio which wasn't that great. went back to the venetian and wanted to go to the pool but it was closed due to lightning! bummer. i ended up taking a nap and then we went over to mgm. we went to the m&m store and looked around and then played bj a bit before dinner. i broke even but julian ended up losing another $100. for dinner we went to craftsteak (tom colicchio's restaurant from top chef - he also owns Craft in NY which i want to try one day) i got a roasted corn soup as an appetizer which was really creamy and yummy. for entrees i got a petite filet and julian got a kobe beef flat iron steak and we got 2 sides, white corn and potatoes au gratin. everything was good but the kobe beef was the best. for dessert julian got a cinnamon pull apart bread that you dip in caramel which was very tasty and i got some pineapple sorbet. we were quite full afterwards. we were going to check out tao afterwards since it was in the venetian and we could get in for free since we were guests, but we were too tired so we just went back to our room.

on thurs we had lunch at the bellagio buffet, it was ok. i like their sunday brunch buffet much better. we then walked over to the fashion show mall (took 30 minutes, but it wasn't TOO bad) we walked around a lot because we needed to work off all the food we were eating!! most of the time it was overcast, so it was warm, but at least the sun wasn't pounding down on you. fashion show mall is huge! i'm so jealous of jody, she'll have some great shopping and food on the strip! anyways, we didn't walk through the whole mall just the major dept stores - neimans, saks, macys, nordstorms. i want to buy some rock & republic jeans but none of them had a good selection i loved look at the shoes and bags they had though! afterwards we went over to the wynn hotel across the street. the hotel was ok, i loved looking at the shoes at manolo blahnik. for the ferrari display you have to pay $10 each so we just browsed the store. we walked back to venetian and were finally able to go to the pool! they have 3-4 different pools and one of them is just filled with lounge chairs. it was cool, i should have taken a picture. but the lounge chairs are in the water and the pool is maybe like a foot deep? so you can sunbathe but cool yourself down with the water. the water is pretty warm though.

that night we went back to bellagio and had dinner at olives. jody told us not to go because she said the boston one was much better, but we decided to try it anyways. the food was OK, we probably wouldn't go back. we got a tuna tartare appetizer and for entrees julian got halibut and i got the pea & mint ravioli. the service was incredibly slow so we didn't have time for the vanilla bean souffle that jody recommended!!! i was so sad. after dinner we went to see O, i didn't like it as much as other cirque du soleil shows, but julian's parents went to see Ka and really enjoyed it.

fri we had dinner at burger bar in mandalay bay which has pretty good kobe beef burgers. for dessert we stopped by chocolate swan and got a chocolate eclair and ice cream. the chocolate eclair was really good! then we drove home from vegas back to SJ!! took about 8 hours. we hit a little traffic about an hour into our drive because it was pouring and we saw an overturned truck and a section of the highway was flooded. other than that it was relatively traffic free. we went to pick up tofu from my parent's house and she was so so dirty haha. they let her roam around in the backyard so gets really dirty i guess. we gave her a bath immediately when we got home.