Thursday, November 01, 2007 Sinfully Vegas By Mae Jardiolin Mañacap
LAS Vegas is a relentless lover.
It persistently pursues the ravenous soul, lures it and ensnares it into a tangled web of guilty pleasures. It stalks at night, ravages the yearning heart and crawls beneath silk sheets to hound dreams. It tempts even the most pious and unsuspecting of globe-trotters to live in the moment and surrender, of all things, to long repressed desires and worldly irreverence.
In Sin City, beguiled by its promise of extravagance, I caved in to the clutches of temptation.
“What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” former Sun.Star editor and now LA denizen Cathy Viado playfully dished out a cliché in an unmistakable Vegas-is-a-place-to-swing tone. “So let’s roll the dice, order a salt-rimmed glass of Margarita, or go for a third helping of that decadent triple chocolate cake!”
Ah, bless her hedonistic heart.
With so much to revel in yet so little time, we let our vagabond soles take us to where our heart throbbed. After all, Vegas is a place for spontaneity stripped from itineraries and timeframes.
Not long, we found ourselves waltzing across the very same street that the “insanely” rich, famous and infamous tread on.
The Strip, a mile-long stretch of mega-resort casinos and upscale dining, is in celebrity semantics Paris
Hilton’s (or any well-oiled nocturnal creature’s, for that matter) glitzy playground. But who’s to fault the party animal? Since Studio 54’s heyday, swing doors of Las Vegas’ most exclusive bars have opened solely to the bold, rich and beautiful.
Today, although the coveted all-access pass is no longer as elusive as in the disco days, the city’s appeal lingers among the upper-crust. In fact, Tao, tucked within the Venetian Hotel, is one of the “see and be seen” hotspots frequented not merely for its Zen-inspired interiors or house cocktails but mostly for its celebrity “namedrop-abbles”: Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Nicole Richie, to name a few. In showgirl style
And Vegas, akin to its guests, is pompous and flamboyant. The Strip, for one, parades architectural marvels evident in its rows of billion-dollar resorts and casino hotels. Some mimic the look and feel of old-world Europe. Others flaunt fashionable minimalism. Still, a few more draw inspiration from the dusty pages of bedtime tales and legends.
MGM Grand Hotel-Casino for instance, seen in its not-so-subtle Dorothy touches like rainbow-splashed carpets, pays tribute to the classic children’s tale, Wizard of Oz.
Excalibur Las Vegas, stunning with its Camelot-inspired façade, evokes the golden days of chivalry and King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table. From the mystical land of genies and golden lamps, Alladin Hotel spruces up its interiors in Arabian Night theme while Treasure Island Hotel gives a swashbuckling pirate vibe. But who can possibly miss out Luxor, an imposing pyramid structure that effortlessly stands out among conventional skyscrapers?
Apart from the conspicuous Stratosphere Tower that unmindfully sticks out at 1,149 feet and offers the most breathtaking view of neon-dressed Vegas at night, Paris Las Vegas is one of the city’s more popular landmarks mostly for its detailed replicas of the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe and the Montgolfier balloon. In fact, for a traveler like me who has yet to experience a real walk on Paris’ cobbled-stone pathways, this little nook and cranny was the closest I could get to romancing France.
With a landscape as extravagant as this, it’s hardly a surprise why Hollywood remains smitten. And Ocean’s 13, a star-studded revisit to the glorious days of rat packs, is a case in point. The film not only succeeded in giving escapists like me an excuse to be “orgasmic” at the sight of gorgeous George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Andy Garcia outwitting each other— all while parading crisp designer suits and Rolex timepieces — but also offered a taste of sparkling Vegas that included the ever-famous Bellagio waterworks. Infatuated
For a fleeting ethereal moment, standing a stone’s throw away from where Brad Pitt and George Clooney once stood, showers of water dancing to the lucid voice of Placido Domingo, swept me off my feet.
A steady stream swayed, swirled and pirouetted like lovers in a slow dance.
Color-changing submerged lights flooded the ominous Bellagio lagoon. As a fitting climax, sprays of water spewed from beneath in a passion so intense that, for a moment, it appeared like trickles spilled onto the star-mantled night sky.
A few happy skips from the Bellagio is Caesar’s Palace which offers tourists a slice of Europe. Dressed in Renaissance-inspired interiors owing to classical paintings that adorn walls and ceilings to gigantic marbled sculptures, the modern-day “palace” is incidentally a shopaholic’s paradise too.
In the Forum Shops, a gathering of signature names, one glimpse of peep-toe stilettos behind Jimmy Choo’s display window or a wishful stroke of those diamond-encrusted Cartier watches left me wobbly in the knees, like a recklessly infatuated 15-year-old.
A similar obsession took over me as we sauntered about the Grand Canal Shoppes at The Venetian, a romantic uber-posh hotel that evokes vivid images of singing boatmen, canals, moored gondolas and yes, opera houses where fabled Phantoms lurk behind draped curtains.
With thoughtful engineering where ceilings are painted and illuminated to perennially cast an afternoon sky dotted by puffy cumulus clusters, the ambitious indoor complex, where a gondola ride is a staple as gambling, is nothing short of bite-sized Venice.
Wooed by an Italian gondolier singing love songs in his spoken dialect and in naked acapella while rowing the little wooden boat we were in, I began to drift into a dreamy place, unfolding reasons why Vegas is a place to elope in. Despite its carnal façade, its irreverent exterior and its sinful reputation, the city — at the heart of it all— is a hopeless romantic.
And like one fixated lover, I am wrapped in its capricious embrace.
