VivA Las veGAS

In this city that never sleeps, I, too, feel compelled to hurry my footsteps to keep pace with the rest. The big signs and bright lights - they lure you to spend more and more. And as I keep walking, in my half-run-walk, the buildings - they only grow bigger and fancier.

Yet beyond the opulence that dazzles, I see stories of poverty and ruin. Homeless people on the streets. Abandoned properties that have run out of funding. And it is interesting how this continuum between rich and poor runs along the same street, the Las Vegas Boulevard. From the valour of the lion thath stands proudly outside MGM Grand, to the plaza of The Venetian, to the direlect Sin City Hostel, to the motley crowd that waits at the Downtown bus terminal. The landscape changes, so does the human geography.

I was walking through the Fremont Street Experience just now, with Don MacLean's "American Pie" playing, and a thought struck me.

Only in Vegas...
.