Makino, Las Vegas

On Friday afternoon when George, Kathy, Dallas and Jordan were done golfing, Caroline and I picked them up in the car. We all stopped off in Mesquite, Nevada for gas and a quick lunch at Jack in the Box, which was kind of a treat, since Dallas and I very rarely ever eat fast food and never Jack in the Box unless we’re in Hawaii or on the West Coast. After that we hit the road and drove to Las Vegas.

In Vegas we checked into our hotel, the Four Queens. And then we met up at Makino with all of Dallas’ other family that was vacationing in Vegas. There were just over 30 family members, many were from Hawaii, but really, there were people from all over the country. Makino is away from the strip and downtown and is actually by the premium outlet mall. It’s an all-you-can-eat Japanese buffet with everything you can imagine: dozens of different kinds of nigiri, hand rolls, and maki, inari, the best tempura of every kind, udon, miso soup, noodles, teriyaki meats, mounds of crab legs, both raw and cooked oysters, salads, poke, and lots of desserts. Wow, we stuffed ourselves. Everything was sooo good, though. Best of all, earlier in the day Mark, who I think is Dallas’ dad’s cousin (?) won a ton of money, $50k, so no one felt bad when we stuck him with the bill.

After dinner, Miko, Gail, Laura, Kathy, Caroline and I had tickets to see Ka by Cirque du Soleil. We headed over to the MGM Grand and since we had some time before the show started, we watched some of the University of Hawaii game at the MGM’s crazy sports arena. Seriously, it’s like a sports-lovers dream come true with enough seating for 100+ npeople, and thirty-six 60-inch plasma televisions, eight 42-inch plasmas, six electronic display boards and 17 separate race and sports betting counters. There were a lot of Hawaii fans there and Dallas’ mom was cheering so excitedly that when we left for the show some people were like “awww, where you going?” We were having fun, but we had to get to the theater. We found out later on that Hawaii won, so all was good.

So.. Ka. It was really a great show. I had never seen a Cirque show so I didn’t know what to expect, besides some crazy acrobatics. Turns out that the stage was totally not traditional and moved and turned and went vertical, there was an actual story and plot about some twins being seperated, the music was really great and we had seats with speakers in the head rest, and some parts of the show happened around and above you. The tickets can be expensive, but I think it was really worth the money. Awesome show. See a trailer for Ka. Also, if you’re thinking of going, I bought the tickets without fees right from the MGM site, instead of getting raped by TicketMaster.

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