Las Vegas Trip!

Even though they said, "what happened in Vegas, stayed in Vegas", I still would like to share the nice trip I had there. :) It was really a good and necessary relaxed trip for me. The weather was incredibly nice and sunny. The temperature was around 70 degree during the daytime and upper 50s at night time. Perfect for people like me who live in the cold north. Local people were wearing sweaters, wimps! LOL.

I got to Vegas on Sunday afternoon and just had enough time to check in the hotel and walked around. I stayed in Mirage this time. There was this huge fish tank behind the check in counter as you can see in the picture here. Lots of tropical fish swam around when people checked in. It did attract attentions of lots of kids since they would refuse to leave when the parents finished checking in.

The reason why I stayed in Mirage was because I would see "The Beatles LOVE by Cirque du Soleil" show there. It has this very cool entrance decorated with a British flag on the ceiling and the colorful light changing floor. The show was a sold out. The stage was designed like a flat plate. The stage was at the center of the arena and four big curtains cut the arena to be 4 parts at the beginning.

My seat was on the back higher location since it would allow me to see all the shows going on in the air, on the stage, off the stage and in the audience. It was a very interesting show to use the Beatles' songs as the storytelling background and expand all the amazing visual imaginations. You can see an official trailer of the show here.

The stage design, costumes and puppets of "Love" were wonderful.However, you would be disappointed if you were looking for great circus acrobats because this show was really not about that. I would recommend "O" and "Ka" if that's what interested you more. There was also this new bar called 'Revolution" outside the "Love" theater. Very interesting big signs with seats that people could sit in between letters.

After seeing "Love", I have seen all the currently running Cirque du Solei shows. I would rate "O" to be number within all based on the performance, stage design, and costumes. There were still lots of constructions going on there. The Aladdin casino was changed to Planet Hollywood and the desert palace shopping center in Aladdin was renamed as "Miracle Mile Shop" but most of the shops inside were almost the same.

The latest addition of the luxury casino/hotel is Palazzo on the strip. It has an indoor waterfall which is as good as the outdoor waterfall outside the "Wynn" casino/hotel. All these hotels/casino feature great shops and restaurants as long as you have enough cash to spend. In this trip, I actually spent quite some money on eating the buffet in Wynn. I think it was one of the best buffet in Vegas. Especially, it has the best desserts for a buffet anywhere.

Overall, it was a great visit. It was not crowded in the casino, restaurants, shops or the airport. The spring weather was nice and the flowers were blooming in all the gardens. Really a great trip to Vegas.

Vacation To Vegas!

Finally, it is vacation time! I am going to Vegas for a 3-day vacation to enjoy the warm weather and some fun (no gambling for me). Think about all the nice food and good swimming pool!

Spring Is Here! Finally!

Finally, it seems that the spring is here. The temperature rises to 50s and the sun has come out. After spending half of my time in Florida so far, it is nice to see that some of the flowers in the garden start to wake up and grow. The crocus has started to bloom nicely. All the nice different colors. Hope that the spring is really here. It seems that it is going to rain for the rest of the week. But I guess it is better than snow.

Today, I went to the new gym I joined at the beginning of this year. Due to all the traveling, this was my 2nd time to go there. All these work trip wastes my expensive gym membership. And I am not happy to find out that I lose so much strength already since I could not work out in the past 3 months. I used to be able to bench easily with 110 lb dumb bell but I even felt 70 lb was a little bit heavy today! Really need to go back it and build up again!

Back From Another Hell Like Work Trip to Florida

I would never imagine that this post 101 would take so long to happen. Yes, I am finally back from another hell like work trip to Florida. I have been down there in the past 2 weeks and worked at least 11 hours per day. I got so tired after work and most of days that I just had dinner and went to bed at night time after work. Never really got any time or energy to get on line. The worst part of the whole thing was that the weather was so nice/sunny/warm outside in Florida but I had to stay in a no-window room to work my ba**s off.

Of course, I was so busy that I even forgot my own birthday since I only had only 35-minute break including bathroom break and all meals time from 7am to 7pm that day (last Tuesday if you really want to know). And I did not find out that some of my blogger friends sent me birthday wishes that day until much later. Well, it is all over for now at least. And I am back to the cold damp Wisconsin to face the never ending winter. I just cannot believe that it is still only in 20s, cold and windy in mid-April! Okay, I need to calm down and not complain too much.

We did get to the St. Augustine for one day during my work trip down in Florida. I have not been there for a while and everything changes a lot there. It is always one of my favorite towns. It is very charming and nice. Lots of shops and restaurants and great beach. The weather was sunny, warm but a little bit too windy when we went to there one week ago. The tides were very high and lots of people were doing surfing while the fishermen on the pier kept telling them that there were sharks in the water. Guess some people just like to live on the edge. We walked on the beach and hanged around the pier for a while then headed off to the downtown area of the St. Augustine.

There were so many new hotels and restaurants that I almost did not recognize the place. We parked in the whole new parking structure after the information center and found a place close to the Fort Matanzas National Monument (or Castillo de San Marcos) for lunch. We could see the Fort from the lunch. the food was actually not that good but they did make good non-alcohol Piña Colada. After the lunch, we went into the Fort and just caught on the demonstrations of cannon shooting. It was very interesting to see the reenactment of the whole thing. And I really admire those guys who wore 3 layers of wool dress in a hot day (88'F) to demo the cannon shooting.

We then proceeded to walk around the downtown area and did some shopping and had some drinks until the pouring rain started. It was nice to at least get a day off during those 2 hell like week. Now it is time to go back out to the cold weather and do some exercise to get rid of those extra fat coming with all the restaurants food.