Vegas, Baby! Part 5: Cocktails, body parts and awesome shows

Lots of walking on vacation means the need for hydration, though, and we stopped in for a little break in Luxor's Aurora bar. This bar is located in the lobby near the front desk, and has a unique lighting feature that is based on the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights. I can highly suggest the Green Wave, a blend of Malibu rum, Captain Morgan spiced rum, Blue Curacao, pineapple juice, orange juice and Sweet & Sour). It's a bit pricey at $11, but it's a very tasty beverage indeed!

After eating lunch at Gordon Ramsay's BurGR, we waddled on our way to the Luxor, an Egyptian-themed black glass pyramid complete with giant sphinx in the heart of the Las Vegas Strip. This hotel is known for the light that shines at the tip of the pyramid at night, called the "sky beam".  While the rumour that you can see the Sky Beam from space is a myth, it's still an impressive, and expensive, piece of technology, with each of the 39 7,000 watt bulbs in the fixture costing $1,200!

After our relaxing break in the lobby bar, we moved on to the Bodies exhibit, which offers visitors a unique view on the intimate workings of the human body by using meticulously preserved and dissected corpses that were donated to science. As morbid as this may seem, the bodies are treated with the utmost respect and displayed tastefully so that others can learn from the process. There is no photography allowed during the exhibit, so I used a few pictures from the Bodies website, which you can find here.

A human specimen stripped of skin and separated to show innards. Photo by Premier Exhibitions

A learning experience. Photo by Premier Exhibitions

Full sized human specimen used to show the digestive system. Photo by Premier Exhibitions

After a fabulous and magical show, we took one more hop over to Cafe Gelato for a night cap, indulging in another tasty sphere and coffee, this time choosing the raspberry cheesecake. It was amazingly creamy and wonderfully balanced between rich and tart. To sum up indulgence in Las Vegas in a nutshell, this is a place where gold is not only purchased and worn, but eaten as a garnish on elaborate sweets, as you can see in the photo.

After so many sights, sounds and sweets, we headed back to our hotel for a very long, much-needed sleep.

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Our final activity for the night was to see the wonderful aquatic O by Cirque du Soleil, which has permanent residence at the Bellagio. Unfortunately, there is no photography allowed in this show, either, for the safety of the performers. People learned this lesson the hard way, however, by receiving fines for trying. O takes place in and around a 1.5 million gallon (5,700 cubic meter) pool of water with moving platforms, and every member of the cast is scuba certified. The story isn't so much a storyline as it is a theme that pays tribute to the beauty of the theater, and it focuses on a young man, Philemon, who is transported to a magical land. Acts you can expect to see are aerial hoops and trapeze, contortion, clowns, high diving, synchronized swimming, Russian swing, fire acts, and much more. You can see the official trailer for the show below.