Las Vegas

Placing electronics, electrical wiring and hydraulic controls in a huge lake demands regular maintenance – we’ve seen workers out on the lake every morning, starting as early as 7am, so they are done before too many crowds are out watching them (or maybe just before the sun gets too strong). I counted as many as eight workers in the water, and took pictures – they’ve raised all the lighting units this morning, and appear to be cleaning lenses and changing bulbs …

Their “tool boat” is interesting, no doubt equipped with the needs of many years of maintenance – and in the close-up you can see that everything is labeled too!

More workers at this end, too; the closer worker has a screwdriver in hand to release and lever open a light unit; I watched them clean the lens, and inside the unit; the other worker changed a halogen bulb while I watched (that must be tricky, when water is everywhere and the bulb needs to stay clean and dry!):

And as a reminder, all this is happening in the lake in front of the lovely Bellagio hotel!

The Bellagio, Las Vegas

We’ve seen many Cirque Du Soleil shows, from Mystere that we saw on our first Vegas trip back in the 1990s, through O, Dralion, La Nouba, Love, Corteo, Quidam, and today’s show KA (that we’ve now seen three times):

This afternoon before the show, we paid for an “Insiders Access” back stage tour – which was unexpectedly much more entertaining because there was a variety of on-stage practice performances (not in costume). Photo opportunities were limited, but at least more chance than in the show!

Here’s the theater; the many climbing platforms and towers are used at various times as the rival tribes fight against each other; and a view of the stage area; the green lit platform weighs 35 tons and can raise and lower, spin, and tilt up to almost 90 degrees – it’s used extensively in the show with performers on it in all it’s orientations!

 
During the back stage tour, we had this view out to the theater looking across three different levels of stage; in the foreground the gold platform has the “Wheel Of Death” standing on it; during the show performers make this double wheel structure spin while they leap and jump within and outside(!) the wheels – this stage can move forward to the front of the stage when the other platform is moved away:

In front of the gold platform you can just spot the yellow platform, this is the one that can raise/lower/spin/tilt and it’s currently lowering, with performers fighting on it. In front of that, nearest the seating, is a narrow platform which can only raise and lower.

The show is incredible and unbelievable and obviously these few photos don’t describe it; you have to see it for yourself! To give you a tiny grain of an idea, here’s a very short clip “borrowed” during their practice:

People go to Las Vegas for various reasons – for me it’s nothing to do with gambling and everything to do with admiring the fantastic hotels on the strip; so this morning we walked (most of) the strip, and I took some photos:

Mirage hotel

Caesars Palace

The Bellagio

Luxor hotel

The Strip, with New York New York on the left and MGM on the right

The Mirage hotel and it’s “volcano” (which we watched from our 44th floor room in the Palazzo, last night); Caesar’s Palace hotel, one of the “oldies but goodies” on the strip; the beautiful Bellagio (still my favorite hotel) – the lake helps make it look so good (and of course the fountains later in the day and evening) but it’s overall design is perfect with the trick of four rooms sharing one “window” so the hotel doesn’t look as big as it really is; the Luxor, the first hotel that we ever stayed in, on the strip – and the most famous one when we still lived in England (“… they built a big black pyramid in the middle of the desert …”).