Zarkana by Cirque du Soleil

We recently went on a day trip to see Cirque du Soleil's ZARKANA at Radio City Music Hall in NYC. The acrobatic stunts were breathtaking and the stage design was grand and mesmerizing! As the show's director, Francois Girard, describes it, "Zarkana was meant to be a grand acrobatic show. I would call it an acrobatic rock opera."

Some fun facts about the Zarkana stage:

• The largest of the three Zarkana arches has more than 150 feet of "snakes" which were created by carving the snake forms out of styrofoam, covering the 8- to 12-foot sections in plaster to create molds, filling the molds with resin and hand-painting the molds.

•  The two Eagles' head bandstand that house the musicians on either side of the stage are 28 feet tall and weigh more than 9,000 pounds each.

• More that 3 million pixels make up the permanent LED wall that measures 90 feet wide by 40 feet tall. The LED arch is composed of 118 custom-built panels.

An early morning start at 30th Street Station

Philadelphia City Hall as seen through the panoramic roof of the Megabus

Baked goodies at Starbuck's Coffee off 38th St. and Seventh Ave., New York

The iconic Empire State Building

Chinese stress balls

Dim sum for lunch in Chinatown

Radio City Music Hall's Mezzanine level

Lobby as seen from the Mezzanine Level

Panoramic view of the stage

The Zarkana Cast at the end of the show.

One more train ride and we're home!