Dec 24th, 2006 - In the evening, we decided to go out onto the other side of Las Vegas Boulevard to The Bellagio. The Bellagio is one of the fanciest and most expensive casinos in Vegas. One of the popular free attractions in Vegas are the Fountains at Bellagio. The Fountains show uses lights and water fountains that are orchestrated to sounds of popular music. The shows start every 15 to 30 minutes and run for 5 to 10 minutes. They run during the day and night, but its best to watch it at night. Apparent the fountain cost $40 million to build and is equipped with 1,200 nozzles and 4,500 lights. I liked the show.

We then went inside the casino to see the Christmas decorations and it was a complete madhouse inside. There was no space to move. We saw some of the decorations and then headed back to Ballys. The decorations were really cool and probably the best I have seen across all the casinos I had been to.

We had dinner at the Asia restaurant in Ballys. I tried some Fried Rice for the first time in my life.

Acrobatics at Aladdin Las Vegas

Dec 23rd, 2006 - The two nearest casinos to Bally's are Paris and Aladdin. Paris and Bally's actually share the share and one can walk across the casinos without stepping onto the street. We spent some time walking around Paris on our way to Aladdin. I seemed to be very happy with all the lights and sounds of the slot machines. Too bad, I am not allowed to touch them till I am 21 years old. The Paris Casino was nice. Does adding a "Le" in front of everything make it French? Le Elevator, Le Toilet.....maybe...who cares.

We then crossed the street to go to Aladdin. It was pretty cold outside. Winter in Vegas can be quite cold. It was about 50 degrees, in sharp contrast to the 110 degree when I was here in the summer. The Aladdin casino is well laid out with lots of shops. We spent some time at the shops there. We also saw a small shows (see video), where this family from Argentina did some acrobats. These two boys 13 and 15, did this amazing stunt where one boy tossed the other boy around with his feet 19 times in a row.

We then returned to Ballys, had dinner and headed back to the room. I was quite tired and went to bed. What a day!!!

Back to Vegas

Dec 23rd, 2006 - How many babies do you know that have been to Vegas twice in their first year of life? No many I suppose

. My parents decided to go to Vegas for the Christmas holiday this year. Vegas is pretty close to Los Angeles and so its an obvious destination. We started off around 8 in the morning from home and go to Vegas around in the afternoon. Thankfully it was a nice smooth drive with no traffic or accidents. My mother and father shared the responsibility of sitting with me and entertaining me during the ride.

Once we got into Vegas, it was a complete nightmare. The Las Vegas strip gets really crowded and it took us about 45 minutes just to get into the hotel. Once there, it took another 45 mins to check in and get to the room. This time we decided to stay at Ballys which is somewhere in the middle of the strip. The room at Ballys was nice and spacious and I had plenty of room to run around. I was very happy and excited about the space after being shackled in the car seat for 6 hours.

In the evening, we went out to the casinos nearby.

Bath Time

Dec 9th, 2006 - Its Saturday morning which means my father will be home all day. He woke up early this morning (thanks to my jet lag) and went out to get some work done on the car. Once he came back, it was time for my bath. When I last had a bath in the US, I was not able to sit upright and so I used to get my bath in the kitchen sink. But now I am able to sit upright and so my parents placed me in my bath tub, filled it up with water and some rubber duckies. I really enjoyed this tremendously. I sat there splashing the water and played with the ducks. My grandma had given the ducks for me. After about 15 minutes, I had to stop playing. I am really looking forward to the next bath.

Click through to see the Video Blog.

The longest day

Dec 4th, 2006 - December 4th, 2006 is the longest day in my short life. It never seemed to end. We left for Singapore at around midnight and reached Singapore at 6 in the morning. We had a three hour stopover and we walk around the airport looking at the Christmas decorations. My parents had breakfast at the Indian restaurant, Karavalli, which offers good Indian food at Changi Airport.

After that we were on our way to Tokyo, which was a 7-8 hour flight. I slept most of te way. It was a fairly pleasant flight and so I could sleep. The Narita airport was pretty nice and we got in around 5 PM. Our flight was leaving in about 1 hour so my parents had to do a rush job at changing my diapers.

From Narita, it was the last leg onto LAX. We took off at around 5 PM on the 4th and it was a 12 hour flight. The pilot said he would cut the time by two hours. It was nice flight too and we finally arrived at LAX at 10 AM on the 4th,. Take off at 5 PM and arrive at 10 AM on the same day. How did I travel back in time? Guess, a geography lesson awaits me in the future.

The Boy is back in town

Dec 5th, 2006 - I am finally back at home. My body clock is all messed up due to the time difference changes, but I think I will recover soon. Its been a quiet day for the most part. I was sleeping for most of the day. Since we had gone to India for the last few weeks, the refrigerator was empty and we went to Albertsons, the local grocery store in the evening. This the first time, I have been to this store and its also the first time I sat in a cart too. When I went to India, I was not able to sit upright, but in India, I learnt to sit up and crawl as well. My parents took precautions to sanitize the cart using Purell. I seemed to dislike sitting in the cart. I think I got spoiled in India with everyone lifting me up. As you can see from the pictures, its a little cold here in LA and my cheeks have turned pink.