Travel with me #69 : The Bahamas, here I come!

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.

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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!

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首先，真的很感谢Steemit上一直在背后默默支持我的朋友们，让我成功越过了3000粉丝的里程碑，给我动力继续起飞。今天我背上装备，准备开始一个旅程，我从来没有想过，会真的来到这个海岛，这个我曾经在杂志网页上读过过无数次的国家----巴哈马。

巴哈马是位于大西洋西边的一个岛国，全国包含了700多大大小小的岛屿和珊瑚礁。这里有碧蓝的海水，淳朴的民风，更是中国护照为数不多的免签国家之一，所以我跺跺脚，就飞来了。从迈阿密转机，飞不到一个小时，就可以到巴哈马的首都拿骚。没想到曾经遥不可及的美丽海岛现在就在我眼前。从飞机上都能看到这片海域清澈见底的水，不知道你们会不会和我一样无比兴奋和期待。一下飞机就看到很多巴哈马历史上的土著留下的艺术品和古董展览。窗外BTC Everyday吸引了我，原来是巴哈马最大的电信服务商，我手机上的信号也自动转换成btc，人生真的离不开电子币呀。应该改成有了btc，生活更轻松。顺着巴哈马警察蜡像指引的方向一直走。就来到了巴哈马奥运会历届的冠军墙展览。有不少女生都在比赛中夺冠，好厉害呢。过关的地方，屋顶的灯好像热带的树叶。机场的出口有木质的雕塑，看样子是一家四口，好像预示着拿骚是家庭度假的天堂。如果说能亲眼看看拿骚蓝的发亮的海水，已经让我兴奋不已，那我将要入住的酒店更是让我心跳加速。这次我选择的就是岛上最有特点的亚特兰蒂斯度假中心，这个酒店我曾在无数个地方看到过介绍，也听过无数人赞不绝口，原以为远在天边的酒店，现在我却已经走进了它的大门，真的有些不可思议。亚特兰蒂斯位于天堂岛，酒店几乎占了整个岛屿，并聘用了6签个当地居民作为员工，是我住过规模最庞大的酒店。这是整个酒店的俯视图。整个酒店以金色作为基调，到处都闪闪发亮。

现在就请跟我一起去探索下酒店吧。酒店的大堂像是海底神殿，毕竟亚特兰蒂斯这个名字取自于柏拉图笔下那个神秘的落寞帝国，所以酒店建筑里都带着历史残留的味道。前台的装饰非常精致，很有皇家宫廷的味道。墙上的绘画和当地土著文化的摆设颜色特别相称。因为到的时间是晚上，所以进了酒店第一个任务就是去找吃的。这里有各式各样的吃的，法式甜品店还有酒吧。当然还有一个图书间休息室，装扮的象家庭影院一样，让人看到就觉得亲切。接下来带大家出去看看酒店的夜景，酒店模仿失落的帝国，用碎石做装饰，池子里的鱼被蓝色的灯光打着，好美。今天就在这样一个美丽的地方睡去了，明天起来谁知道会有什么惊喜在等着我们呢。希望大家喜欢我开启的巴哈马旅程，我们明天再见吧。