Our Vegas Trip- The Final Days

 By Mark Rodriguez

Things are winding down but we were still able to hit a few sights and hang out with Tasia before our trip was done.

Day Six-

We started the day with breakfast at the hotel and hitting the slots. We met up with Johnny and some friends at Seafood City, and despite the name, we had some fried chicken at the JollyBee. We also hit Daiso, an impressive shopping center with some interesting goodies. We grabbed some anime-inspired drinks and Wendy got herself a Hello Kitty 2026 calendar. 

We then went to the Bouvelard Mall, mostly to see the theatrical re-release the 1995 Casper movie in the Galaxy Theater. We had some time to kill so we checked out some of the shops. One of them was Poor Boy Comics, which wasn't around the last time I visited. They had a cool collection of comics, new and old, as well as Funko Pops and anime prints. I found an issue of the 90's Detective Comics run I am collecting.

I also wanted to revisit the Pop Shack which is full of Funko Pops as the name implies. I noticed that it has expanded with an entire second room full of anime figures and sports memorabilia. 

Soon it was showtime, so we went to get our tickets to see Casper. It was one of Wendy's favorites and she wanted to see it in theaters again. Apparently it was the first movie to have a fully CGI character be the main character. The Galaxy Theater is really something else though. Not only can you get actual food and alcoholic drinks, the seats can lay back and recline. It's pretty much the most comfortable theater to watch movies in. Wendy and I both got different types of Piña Coladas.

After the movie, we checked out the rest of the mall including The Mercado which is full of small stores and amazing Mexican food. We had other plans but we definitely want to check it out some day with more time. We then found out that Tasia was available to hang out, so we decided to check out another arcade bar, Player One.

Before we went there though, we needed some food to prepare for all that alcohol, so we were going to go a Thai place but it was closed on Sundays. Instead we headed to a cool place called Izakaya Shun. I wasn't that hungry so I got different types of chicken and pork skewers. They were very flavorful and had that 'fresh off the grill' taste. I did get this cool Melon Ice Cream Float. It tasted amazing and it was my first float not involving root beer. 

Wendy had quite a bit of dishes which was shared between the rest of us, including Cold Tofu, Tsukemono (Assorted Japanese Pickles) and the A5 Wagyu Tataki. Tasia had the Takowaza (Octopus and Wasabi) and Karaage Mayo Don. 

Johnny had the Ground Chicken with Poached Egg. He also enjoyed it a lot. Later on, Wendy ordered the (Nasu No Age Dashi) Fried Eggplant in Japanese Radish.

The place had a great ambiance and we enjoyed the food. They also had Japanese songs playing and I got a real kick out that one of the songs was 'Don't You See!' sung by the music group Zard, which also happened to be the second ending theme to Dragonball GT. It was a wonderful time and we definitely want to go there again.

After that we hit Player One. Similar to Draft Cade, you pay a cover charge and can play all the arcades for free. Locals get a discounted rate, while tourists (which in this case I guess I would be considered one) pay the full ten dollar price. While the arcades are free, there are places where you can rent the console games in booths and you still have to use quarters with the pinball machines.

One thing Moore previously mentioned were the Weeb Wednesdays where there are free raffles for anime-related merch and cosplayers can get in for free. Too bad it wasn't Wednesday. And too bad we left out cosplay outfits at home.

Player One has a full bar with a huge selection of beers, ciders, ales, liquors and sake. Wendy got the Key Lime Pie Cider, Tasia had the Peach Party Cider and I had the Vanilla Oak on Nitro cream ale. Johnny wasn't feeling it and just went for a Fanta.

As for the actual gaming, we tried to go for the games that we don't already own. Johnny, Wendy and Tasia did play a bit of the original Ninja Turtles arcade game. Wendy, Johnny and I took turns playing the classic Ninja Gaiden arcade beat-em-up which was not as fun as I remembered it being when I played it as a kid. It's particularly cheesy when you're fighting in traffic and the bad guys are completely unaffected by the cars. 

Johnny and I also played Beast Busters Second Nightmare, a 2-player gun game made by SNK that was not for the Neo-Geo. Wendy and Tasia tried out another gun game called CarnEvil. There's also a vending machine that has several mystery bags based on different fandoms. Tasia scored some Hazbin Hotel merch and a new outfit for one of her Labubus. After some gaming and walking off the booze, we packed it in for the evening.

Day Seven-

Our last full day in Vegas, and boy are we feeling it. We slept in a bit and then went for breakfast at the hotel cafe for the last time. We went to hang out with Johnny and film our reviews on Spider-Man 2, Casper and our experience at the Player One arcade bar. Once we were ready, we headed out with Tasia to check out China Town which has expanded quite a bit since my last visit.

We started our excursion at Shanghai Plaza and checked out the China Town Outlet where we found a lot of goodies. Wendy got more Hello Kitty stuff and I got myself a Ninja Pikachu keychain. The place had a lot of cool clothes, jewelry and other stuff worth checking out.

From there we checked out other shops including 888 Collectibles that sells anime figures and trading cards. We also found another anime shop with lots of cool Dragonball figures. We even found a Sanrio shop, though they sold other stuff too, including a figure of Upa, one of the more obscure Dragonball characters. 

We also found a place that served Taiyaki. It's almost like a fish-shaped waffle that they serve either hot with filling, or with ice cream with the fish serving as the ice cream cone. Tasia was nice enough to get us several flavors to choose from red bean, cheese, nutella, black sesame and macha custard. I chose the macha one and it was a unique taste. 

I first encountered Taiyaki in some of the episodes of My Hero Academia, when Midorya trained with the guy that once trained All Might. Now I got to actually eat the fish-shaped snack for real. 

Afterwards we went to the Kura Sushi Revolving Sushi Bar. Basically types of sushi run beside you on a conveyor belt, and you choose which ones you want. You have to choose carefully since it's a little over three bucks a plate. You can also place orders for specific sushi and it gets zipped over to you when done. 

As you eat the sushi and empty your plate, there's a place to dump your dishes. If you dump 5 dishes (which was easy since there were four of us), you get an animated story played for you, but it ends on a cliffhanger, so you gotta eat more. Once you hit 15 plates, you can get a free toy. One thing that stood out to were the little server robots that serve drinks and refill. I know this would seem so futuristic if we time traveled from the 90s and saw these robots.

We hit a few more shops, including a cool retro and import game store called Pink Gorilla Games. They sold anything from Atari and NES games to Super Famicom and even Famicom disk games. I managed to find a copy of Tetris for the good ol' NES. The funny thing is, Wendy and I were watching a Tetris documentary during our trip and I said if I ever found a copy of the NES Tetris somewhere, I'd definitely buy it.... and here we go. We also found another shop that was half market, half anime goodies store. I found some cool Dragonball Daima blind boxes.

Finally Tasia took us to a classy coffee shop called Gabi Green that serves expensive gourmet coffees and macha teas. Tasia had the Mugwort Forest, I had the Macha Mugwort Mango, Wendy had the Taro Latte and Johnny had the Cookies and Cream. 

The place has a chill and relaxing atmosphere, but the drinks are so good it eventually got packed with customers. Other than the usual booths, they also have this sort of wooden structure where you can sit with your legs crossed over a small table for your drinks. Hopefully the photos help show you what I mean. You do have to take off your shoes before you step onto this area. There's also some games you can play while your order is ready, so Wendy and I got to play some checkers.

Afterwards we headed back and chilled out with a Tasia for a bit before we said our goodbyes. Then we watched M3GAN 2.0 the unrated cut since Johnny never got to see it, and we did our review on it. We filmed ourselves unboxing the anime goodies we got related to Sailor Moon, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood and Dragonball Daima. Then it was time to pack up and head back to the hotel for one last time. Before heading to bed, I needed to do one last thing to end our Vegas trip. Get some hometown pizza. I ordered Joe's New York Pizza and it was amazing!!! I will always love that natural mom-and-pops pizza over the franchise ones.

As things wind down, we start packing up and get set for the long flight back home. It was a fun trip, naturally it's always good to see my brother Johnny again, and I'm glad that Wendy got to meet Tasia, Peter, Moore, Wicka and Jack Knives. We made a lot of fond memories, saw a lot of cool stuff and scored a lot of awesome geek merch. From Fremont to China Town, Wendy had a blast. Thanks to all of you that might be reading this as you all made Wendy feel welcome and well at home in Las Vegas. We can't wait to return some day.

As for the day of the actual flight, Wendy got to try one more thing that only seems to be available on the Vegas side of the world... Port of Subs. She enjoyed it and says it's better than Subway (though that's not too high of a bar, but she noticed the difference). All that's left is actually getting home. We're gonna miss those Buffalo slot machines. They helped fund some of the trip.