Doing Vegas

January 29, 2019 to February 7, 2019

There really is much to do here and it's a favorite place of mine. With an Airbnb and a bicycle a lot of costs could be saved as I got around and managed to meet the people and do the things that needed doing. The fact it was such great weather in the desert only added to the ease of getting around. I hardly saw any other bicycles but the infrastructure for cycling was very good I'd have to say. Even the casinos would have bike racks outside.

The only caveat I have with Vegas is that there's just too many things to do and my planning was haphazard for this trip that I couldn't really do it as efficiently as I'd have liked. Part of it was because of trying to get the lay of the land and more information from locals to figure out what's best done and not done.

It's pretty much a no brainer that Vegas will involve a lot of this

Some of the initial winnings from the slot machines. One of these days I'll get that handpay.

I was told about student massages on the order of $20 and I managed to find the place on the bicycle in some industrial park. While having the massage, the student was also a good source of information about nightclubs and other entertainment. I learned from her about 'dayclubs' actually which was a new concept to me, apparently after the nightclubs shut down around 6am you can have some shots at a Japanese restaurant. Then you hit the dayclubs shortly after with the windows blacked out. It sounded intriguing but I've yet to try it out. She also said people work all manner of shifts around here so food and alcohol is basically served around the clock. I asked about promoter clubs and apparently they exist but the system is complex. In Shanghai if you know promoters you can get into the clubs for free along with free drinks. It seemed like this might exist in Vegas too but my initial research and conversations showed it's like $40 to $60 cover charges which was off-putting and so I never bothered. This frustrated me as with more research I'm sure there could be deals found.

This is one of the clubs recommended but I have yet to figure out the promoter system. No way I'm paying $60 cover

The next day I met my brother and he was flying in from Singapore for a tech conference. He basically works for Google. I treated him for dinner at some casino then we walked around chatted and it was great to catch up. The whole bicycle parking thing was a bit frustrating as you couldn't leave them anywhere on the Strip so it had to be a case of getting creative and locking the bike to railings etc.. out of sight in back areas to all the major casino and hotel buildings. I did manage to win about $30 playing Buffalo Gold at a gas station on the way back so that was nice. My brother and I couldn't help but comment that Vegas was a bit wild for North America but it had nothing on some of the Asian cities. Pattaya. Say no more.

I also managed some free membership trials and classes at various gyms and fitness studios which was good. As a total side topic I'm exploring membership options for F45 and Orange theory fitness which are growing very fast all over the world. Vegas has branches of these guys for sure. In fact this whole fitness obsession began two years ago while trying out a small similar studio in Shanghai and not knowing yet about F45 or OTF. I would go to Vegas and think "Man there sure needs to be a fitness studio of this sort here as people eat horrifically unhealthy diets and lead very poor lifestyles.". Little did I know that some smart entrepreneurs also realized this problem and filled this much needed niche market with studios that are growing faster than McDonald's.

It goes without saying that Vegas has a crime problem and my hosts immediately said I must lock the bicycle to secure areas and keep it in the Airbnb at night. So the very first day I invested in a kryptonite lock and did as she said. On my first trip to Vegas last year I had lost a similar Tern bike due to poor streetsmarts and someone stole it. I wasn't about to repeat this mistake again.

The next day I met up with some Chinese American friends who own an investment business and inquired about life insurance schemes and/or condo investments. Vegas is next on my list after Pattaya but unfortunately the capital at this point just isn't there so I had to decline at this point. She was pushy as any saleswoman would be. At least I compromised and said "Alright well I'm probably going to need a US bank account to do any of this, can you help set one up for me?" She was happy to help and much to my surprise it was actually possible. This was really good to know because it was getting harder and harder and also more and more important. The reason is quite simple, the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) has a global reach and is trying to infiltrate more and more countries with their so-called tax treaties and global tax agreements. This means you can be liable to pay tax to the the Chinese government even if you make income from abroad.

The exception to this is the US thanks in part to President Trump's trade war with China. I'm not the biggest fan of Trump overall but this is one area where he's got it right. So thanks to that I opened my US bank account.

More stuff was done to be sure but there wasn't too much time on this tour so instead I put my bike on a bus to Barstow after all this and decided to start riding from there.

Today's ride: 130 km (81 miles)
Total: 145 km (90 miles)

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