Celeste's Creations: 2010-06-06

Last May, I finally got a meeting in Vegas. For the past 3 years, my boss has continually scheduled and canceled meetings there due to the stigma that its a party town and most people wouldn't show up the second day of the meeting. So when I was asked to attend a meeting at the last minute I made my plans quickly and crossed my fingers.

The meeting went smoothly and everyone showed up the next day to wrap it up. The meeting ended at 2pm on a Friday and I was the only one who stayed an extra night. I mean come on it's Friday night in Vegas, you can't go straight home. I called my friend Kerri to let her know I was done with work and ready to enjoy a quick visit. Luckily it was also before the weather turned Vegas hot and was actually in the breezy 80s.
Before I left for the trip I hit up my co-worker who has always offered to get me free tickets to see Phantom at the Venetian as he knows one of the performers. He got us the hook up for great seats and a backstage tour after the show on Friday night. So my friend Kerri, picked me up at the car rental place (I was even good and returned the car a day earlier). We went back to her place that is only about 15 minutes from the strip. I got in the car and met her two newest additions to her family, Lucy and Dunkin. Two of the cutest, littlest and sweetest dogs.

Lucy is a 2 year old Puggle and has the face anyone would love.

And Dunkin is a 1 year old Dachshund/Chihuahua mix who is so sweet he is almost narcoleptic, as he instantly closes his eyes and rolls on his back when you pet him.

After loving on the dogs and taking a ton of photos of them, we went off to go see the show. We met Kerri's husband, Ron at the Venetian as it was closer to work for him and gave Kerri time to shop (within a half hour she had already bought a new pair of shoes).
We got into our seats just in time for the show to start. Now for those who have seen Phantom of the Opera, this is the abridged version. I've seen Phantom twice before and didn't notice any of the story or continuity missing in this scaled down version (the original production runs 2 1/2 hours while the Vegas production is 1 1/2 hours long). It actually seemed better as it included all the songs that make the Phantom famous. The theater was built for the show itself so there was no expenses spared in production. The famous chandelier circles over the crowd in the opening sequence and then crashes down in the middle. On the side of the theater they have box seats for a built in audience of mannequins.

After the show we waiting on the side of the stage like we were told, to meet up with Marcia who is in the production. There are a few other couples along in our tour, but it was great to go along with someone who was so friendly and knows the show inside and out. She gave us a fact sheet about the production which included the $45million budget for the show. We first went downstairs where the dressing rooms were and got to meet Tony who plays the Phantom and walk in on Andrew who plays Raul getting a haircut.

View of the theater from the stage

Kerri, Tony (aka the Phantom), myself and Ron

After the show and tour, we were starting to get a bit hungry and ending up at Gordon Biersch for some light night munchies.

After sleeping in and having a quick breakfast, Kerri and I headed off to the Luxor for the Titanic exhibit. Kerri worked her magic negotiating skills and got us an even bigger local discount. When you enter the exhibit you are giving a boarding pass with information on an actual passenger on the ship. My card was for a passenger named Mrs. Benjamin Peacock (Edith Nile). She was a mother of 2 traveling to meet up with her husband in America who had gone on ahead of her. I'm a 3rd class with unknown cabin number, so I pretty much knew right away I wasn't going to live to the end. At the end of the exhibit you can look up the name of the passenger you've been given to see if they survived or not, I did NOT. Kerri who was a 1st class cabin doctor who was traveling with her "friend" lived (no big surprise there).
As you walk through the exhibit they take you from the bottom of the ship, where my 3rd class bunk beds where, all the way to the promenade of the first class deck. They have a replication of the staircase and you get your photo taken on it (luckily no bow of the ship for people to yell I'm the king of the world on). It's pretty interesting though to see what made it after years at the bottom of the sea. In the end you see a large piece of the hull they brought up from the ocean. It's huge and it's only one small piece of the ship. It really gives you an idea of why they thought this ship would be unsinkable.

After the exhibit we headed over to the Bellagio as my friend Shelly was there a week before and said they had a really cool Bugs Life exhibit in the atrium. It was incredible the life-like bugs made out of plants. I think I took about 100 photos within half hour. It was like a real scene out of the movie and you felt like you were in their world.

Chocolate store next to atrium

The view from the front desk check-in

After exhausting all the pictures I could think of, we wandered into the surrounding stores. This time I was the one shopping. We went into the Chihuly store after I ooh and ahh over the ceiling piece he did and browsed all the books and posters. I first saw his work on an HGTV special in which he was doing a swimming pool piece for someone with a lot of money many years ago and have always been interested in his work. A few years ago I got a chance to see his work up close at the exhibit in SF. It was just incredible to see these large pieces of glass look so delicate and wonder how many piece they broke before ending up with the exhibit of the Mille Forest or Glass Boat (see my flickr page for photos from that exhibit) . I purchased a poster that I already had a spot in the house in mind for and found out that Chihuly himself was due to be in the store signing books that day, only to call in sick. I told the sales people I was disappointed to have missed and hope to catch him another time. I'm sure they passed on my message to him...

Chihuly ceiling at the Bellagio

Kerri and I headed back to her place for a great bbq dinner before my time in Vegas quickly came to an end. I'll just have to return now when the weather cools down and I can spend more time with my friend and take more photos of her new little additions to the family.

I know the title of this blog sounds like a bad D-list movie, but it was actually a great day in the SF city in late March. My best friend Sarah gave me 2 tickets to go see the King Tut exhibit at the De Young for my birthday back in October. We had gone to the exhibit a few years back in LA (a long action packed weekend that was). So I decided I should take my niece, Jasmine to see it as she just finished learning about the culture in school. Now everyone knows you can't go anywhere with Jasmine without her mom, Fonda, so her and our mom also tagged along, as I took a day off from work to avoid the crowds.
I don't have any photos from the actual exhibit as they don't allow photos of course. But for anyone who hasn't had the opportunity and it comes to a town near you, I highly recommend going to see it. I remember as I kid looking through the book of Pharos from when my parents (and I guess me too) went to it in LA in the 70s, when I was too young to remember. But I remember be fascinated by this strange world and not believing these people actually existed. I was attending a private Christian school at the time, so I never learned about this fascinating world that lived and worshiped the sun gods.
The extensive array of more than 130 extraordinary artifacts from the tomb of Tutankhamun and other ancient Egyptian sites features 50 of Tutankhamun's burial objects, including his royal diadem and one of the four gold and precious stone inlaid canopic coffinettes that contained his mummified internal organs. (ok I stole that from the website) and doesn't include many of the items shown in the original 1970s exhibit. It was amazing to see all that gold and ivory artifacts that existed back then and was included in the Boy King's tomb (sorry Jason, he is the original boy king). I couldn't imagine the excitement of finding all these gems hidden in the tomb. It was narrated by Omar Sharif, who has the perfect voice over for this world. You get to see items they packed in his tomb and others for them to take to their next life, such as games to play, mirror and makeup and riches beyond imagination.
In the last gallery (there are 11) you get to view five actual pieces found wrapped in linens with the mummified King Tut'6 layer coffin. It's on a grand scale that couldn't be imagined by today's standards at all.
At the end, you of course are lead into the gift shop where you can buy anything you can think of putting an Egyptian spin. I thought Jasmine and Fonda did a great King Tut impression.

Afterward we decided to head over to the Japanese Tea Garden. Of course it was another perfect day to visit one of my favorite spots in the city. The flowers were in bloom and the sky was overcast, making for perfect photography of this serene sight. I did think it's odd that they don't take atm or credit cards for the entry fee, but you can use them to purchase tea or soda inside. We scrapped together enough money to get us all in and then we wondered the grounds until it was closing. We hit NO traffic coming or going and had a relatively fight-free day between Fonda and Jasmine. Below are some of photos from the Japanese Tea Garden