Asian Las Vegas Pilgrimage
By wchung | 22 Feb, 2025

For better or worse Las Vegas is an irresistable attraction for SoCal's Asian Americans.

How many times have I vowed never to return to Las Vegas? This time I managed to keep the vow for two years. But the year-end break finds me back, along with what looks like a third of Southern California’s Asian population.

Every time I find myself jostling through crowds in this Asian mecca, I run through the checklist of the things that I dislike about Vegas: (1) having to wend my way through countless smokey casinos to get anywhere; (2) hour-long buffet lines that snake out into those smokey casinos; (3) the sense of being trapped in a man-made refuge devoid of indigenous natural sights.

So what could possibly induce me to break my vows to stay away?

First are the accommodations. For the price of a three-star hotel virtually everywhere else, Vegas offers four- and five-star luxury. In recent years we have been moving toward the north end of the Strip where the Wynn, Encore and Signature offer rooms with amenities that surpass even the superdeluxe hotels in great hotel cities like Hong Kong, Seoul and Singapore. The level of service in Vegas has become uniformly world-class, up to par with what I expect in great service cities like Bangkok and Tokyo.

You can’t beat its proximity to the L.A. area. Especially in an era of tight airport security during the season of interminable weather delays, being able to hop into the SUV and drive to your vacation means not only a saving time and money but retaining control over your itinerary. Nothing ruins a short vacation like spending a day stuck in some miserable airport lounge or even the cabin of a widebody. When it comes to destinations within easy driving distance, Vegas glitter can overpower the laid-back attractions of Palm Springs, San Diego, Santa Barbara or Big Bear, at least in the mind’s eye.

There’s magic in the flashing, whirling neons of the Strip that rivals those of Shinjuku, Nanjing Road, Tsimshatshui or Myongdong, even when you know it’s only a facade for smokey casinos and long lines for shows and buffets. That magic hypnotizes and pulls in throngs from all corners of the world. Watching that river of humanity flow by is probably Vegas’s most genuine attraction. Vegas is the new Babylon.

For many reasons that drawing power seems to work disproportionately on Asians. At least 60% of the faces I pass in Vegas seem to be Asian. And we can’t spend a few days in town without running into friends and extended family. Over the years the swell of Asian visitors have left their residue in the form of numerous Asian restaurants and Asian-themed clubs in the major hotels. Even the decor of the newest luxury hotels includes dragons, calligraphy and other Asian accents.

That brings me to one of my favorite Vegas attractions. Starting three blocks west of I-15 and extending over a mile along Spring Mountain Road are a series of bustling Asian malls. They offer dozens of Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean restaurants, bakeries and cafes. There are even several Asian markets, including even a Ranch 99. I haven’t seen a higher concentration of Asian establishments anywhere except possibly in the L.A., New York and San Jose areas. Visits to Spring Mountain Road for a meal or two is one of my antidotes to a stay on the Strip.

The other is skiing at the somewhat unfortunately named Las Vegas Ski Resort. The resort is only an hour’s drive from the Strip but its base lodge sits at an elevation of 8,510 feet. Its four lifts and 11 runs can’t compete with the scale of Tahoe, Mammotha or even Big Bear, but it gets 120 inches of real snow each season. By this year’s holiday season there was enough natural snow to idle the snowmaking equipment. We enjoyed a nice snowfall as we were finishing up to start the downhill drive back to town. Unfortunately, there was a Nevada Highway Patrol officer positioned near where Highway 156 meets Highway 95. He gave me a ticket for doing 80 on a 55 mph zone though I was only doing 75. Despite that unpleasant interlude, a day up at the LVSR is the best respite from Vegas crowds.