Dear Steemit Friends :
After an overwhelming response from what felt like the entire Steemit community, supporting me as I crossed a major milestone of 3000 followers (thank you so much!), I am taking the opportunity to celebrate the milestone by embarking on another one of my Sweet adventures.
I've packed my bags, and brought all my usual blogging tools with me. Camera, GoPro, Osmo Mobile, Drone, and my trusty laptop so I can work on posts and keep up to date whilst on my travels.
I never imagined that I would have the chance to visit this island. Growing up, I saw many pictures of this island in magazines, heard so many good stories about it, and thought it was out of reach for me. Yet, here I am in Bahamas, still in disbelief that I finally made it to one of my childhood dream destinations.
The Bahamas
For my first trip to The Bahamas, I will be staying in the capital city called Nassau, which is located on the island of New Providence. Actually, The Bahamas consists of over 700 islands, cays and mini-islands in the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of Florida, and north of Cuba and the Dominican Republic.
Flying to the The Bahamas requires a stopover at Miami, Florida and then another short flight takes me to Nassau.
As a Chinese National, I am exempt from needing a Visa to enter the Bahamas. This is a breath of fresh air since there are few countries in the world that have bestowed this luxury to Chinese passport holders.
This is me getting ready to board one of these American Airline planes at Miami!
Peace & Love. A good motto to follow.
One last look out the window at Miami and i'm off to Bahamas!
Even though I'm used to flying, I can never see enough of the clouds up close, and all around.
In no time at all, I could already see the many islands and islets that make up Bahamas through my window, up in the sky. The islands look so beautiful, like the earth's very own stripy and spotty patterns. Around them, are very light coloured sands, so fine, and so white that the water above the sand seems almost colourless.
Landing at the airport, I see many wonderful displays of Bahamian history as well as examples of arts and crafts made by the original natives of The Bahamas, the Lucayan people.
I was surprised to see BTC in big letters on the side of a plane. For a moment, I thought it was an advertisement for Bitcoin, and that The Bahamas were advocates of crypto-currency, welcoming the use of Bitcoin.
Roaming with BTC is indeed easy, after all, you are in control of your own money, and you can spend it anywhere in the world! So far, it sounds exactly like they're talking about Bitcoin..
Following the direction of the police officer, we pass a corridor showcasing the Bahamian Olympic Hall of Champions.
These are a hall of fame of all the Olympic medalists who have represented Bahamas.
Do you recognise any of these Champions?
The roof lighting in the immigration control reminds me of some tropical leaves. I suspect they took this design idea from the abundance of tropical leaves on the islands.
At the exit of the airport, we have a wooden statue called "The Family" by a local artist named Max Taylor. I believe it is suppose to represent Nassau and The Bahamas as a welcoming place for families.
As if seeing the mini islands and beautiful oceans wasn't enough to make me feel endless excitement, checking into my hotel was about to take it up yet another notch!
The hotel I decided to book is called "Atlantis". It is actually the name of the sprawling resort which occupies the whole of Paradise Island.
This incredible island is staffed by 6000 soldiers belonging to The Bahamian army.
Here you can see a scaled map of the entire Paradise Island resort.
The hotel uses gold colours as it's base colour theme. Everywhere you look is bright shiny yellow colours.
The hotel lobby reminds me of an under water palace.
No doubt, the legend of the city of Atlantis, features strongly in the design of this hotel.
The check-in desks are fit for a royal! So much space, and not a lot of clutter. Both the desks and the flooring are marble, giving that extra bit of quality and luxuy for prospective guests.
Even the painting on the wall retains the theme of Atlantis, you can see it has many shell creatures in the painting, they look so 3D as if they're popping out of the painting. Quite incredible.
Here are some more shots of the lobby from various angles. In the center, there seems to be this colourful peacock like model. It might be a phoenix but i'm not sure.
It looks pretty good from the lower section of the lobby too.
As we take a walk through the long passage ways, one direction takes us towards the restaurants, bars and Pâtisserie, whilst the other direction leads us to the Casino.
Much like the main hotel lobby, the passageways use marble flooring and have what looks like spiral lamps for lighting.
Atlantis was originally conceptualised by the ancient Greek philosopher, Plato. And this bar which is named after him, is a tribute to him as well as the legend of the city of Atlantis.
For those of us feeling peckish, the Patisserie provides us with a stunning range of French pastries, baked breads and cakes.
This is a really relaxing living room style relaxing area just beside the Plato bar. It's surprisingly empty considering how many people pass by this area.
I arrived at evening, so by the time I was checked into my room, it was already dark outside. I took this opportunity to try get some pictures of the nightscape here.
Below, the infamous Royal Towers at Atlantis. The two towers are connected by a bridge suite which is said to be one of the most expensive rooms in the world at $25,000 per day!
As a water city, Atlantis has no shortage of water surrounding it's main buildings, and what was impressive to see, was the incredible amount of fish they keep in their ponds.
These ponds are build all around the main building, and are home to hundreds of different species of fish.
The pond, restaurant and the Royal towers make for a very pretty picture at night.
And then finally, we arrive back to the main hotel lobby, except this time the view from the outside. If you look carefully enough, you can see the Peacock / Phoenix in the middle.
I'm still in disbelief that I've finally made it here to Bahamas. In up-coming posts, I'll be showing you more of Atlantis as well as other parts of Bahamas. I hope you're ready !
As always, I really appreciate your support through up-votes, follows and comments. Thank you and see you in the next post!