Home Now

Came home this afternoon. It was a long flight home since we
had to transfer twice - once in Memphis and once in Amsterdam.

Will share some more photos once I've walked through them.
Sleepy...

Grand Canyon Pics

Still magical after all the times I've been there.

Vegas Buffet @ The Mirage

Here are some pics from the buffet we had at the Mirage two days ago.

I think I'm allergic to crabs and shrimps, but I don't think a little will hurt.
And as for dessert, there's always place for dessert. ;-)

Grand Canyon

Oh... Public free wifi at Grand Canyon Café.

OK. What have we done the last two days?

We left Las Vegas this morning for Grand Canyon. The buffet at
The Mirage was great. I guess I went up 10 kilograms after that.

We went to see some Vegas freebie shows - Fall Of The Atlantis
@ Caesars Palace, the Bellagio fountain, the Mirage volcano.

We stayed at Harrah's. Breakfast and check-out was chaotic this 
morning. Breakfast was included and we were entitled to only certain 
things at Starbuck's. First we got only two out of four breakfasts. 
Then we got charged for extra stuff. The front-desk was really 
unfriendly and wouldn't let me explain. They kept on telling me that I 
didn't listen to what they said. They wouldn't help us but a nice guy at 
Starbuck's helped us figure that out. He gave us some refund and
even let us keep the fruit. That's what I call service and since he
made me happy he got some of our refund as tip. All in all we
were two hours late when leaving Vegas.

We came to Grand Canyon at around four, drove towards the
east entrance and got to see the sunrise. We got plenty of time
after all.

Later...

Thank God For McD

Free wifi. ;-)
About to drive into Grand Canyon but need to fatten up first.

Hollywood Sign

We drove on narrow and winding roads that goes through
residential areas to come closer to the Hollywood sign. And
we did indeed. We weren't the only ones knowing the location
though as there were already some other cars, but it wasn't
crowded at all. We even got a good view of the Hollywood
reservoir.




After the sign we moved on to the Griffith Observatory. We even
tried to hike a few hundred meters but quickly turned back to our
car to continue to Hollywood Blvd where we had lunch.



We ran into a lot of traffic on our way to the Getty's Museum so
we turned and stopped by the Westfield shopping mall in
Westwood instead. It was nothing special there, in fact quite
boring. There was a Sony store though and they had some of our
very old products there. I had some good chat with a friend of a
colleague (M. I.) back in Lund.

We'll be out of internet connection the rest of our trip. Vegas
hotels have only wired internet access. :'(

The plan looks like this:
* June 24: Leave LA around 9 AM tomorrow so we arrive in Vegas
around 4 or 5 PM. Have a nice buffet dinner in The Mirage. Go
see some free shows like the Bellagio Fountains and the Caesars
Palace's Fall Of The Atlantis laser show.

* June 26: Leave Vegas very early (around 6-7 AM) for Grand
Canyon. We want to see something before sunset. Stay a night at
South Rim.

* June 25: Leave Grand Canyon around lunch time. Arrive in
Vegas around 7-8 PM. Pack our bags.

* June 26: Return our rental and leave the U.S.

Universal Studios

Today we went to Universal Studios. Once again it was quite
cloudy in the morning. It got better during the day and not too hot.
In the evening it got cold again.

King Kong 3D was part of the Studio Tour. Mom had fun. :-)

New attraction was Transformers 3D - a flight simulator. God
I hate simulators! Both SMI and I got very dizzy afterwards. Our
ride got interrupted near the end due to technical issues and we
got stuck. Some people in my cart asked for an immediate ride.
I just hurried off the cart. No more simulators ever! Despite my
21 years, I'm simply too old for that kind of stuff.

We took the single rider line all the time saving us a lot of time.
We ended up on different carts sometimes but it was still worth
it.

We had a lot of fun in the House Of Horror. All five of us
screamed like little girls. I don't know what happened, but I
started first and ended up being the last letting SMI lead the
pack. I saw how someone jumped out of position and chased
them and how they backed away. Haha...

I'm Fat I Know

Just a little whipped cream...

The Grove & Santa Monica

It was a little bit cloudy this morning. We were afraid it would be
cold but it turned sunny quite fast.

We went to the Grove in the morning and left for Santa Monica
at lunch. We went to Santa Monica Pier first and then 3rd Street
Promenade. Said that I wouldn't shop anything but couldn't help
breaking that promise.

It was quite cold in Santa Monica although it was sunny.

Leaving Milpitas For Los Angeles

This morning we took SMN to SFO. We went into some traffic
and the trip took about 1 hour. I helped her find the check-in desk
before leaving her for herself.

The trip back to uncle R took 15 minutes less and we left Milpitas
around 11.30. As the Pacific Coast Highway would take forever to
drive, we drove to LA on I-5 instead. It took around 6 hours including
resting. SMI drove a part of it and I went into toddler mode.

We are staying at a hotel two blocks from The Grove. We just
came back from dinner.

I Think I Need New Shoes

Great Mall

Today we went to an outlet called Great Mall, 10 minutes from our
hotel in Milpitas. Everything was almost for free there. ;-)

In the evening everybody went to San Jose to visit a friend of our
aunt's. I went to Santa Clara to visit W and his family. They took
me out for dinner and generously gave me some gifts from their store
http://www.naturalmomgear.com. They really had some smart and cute kids.

Cold And Foggy San Francisco

Today we drove to San Francisco. Uncle K and his two kids joined
us today. They were not shy at all today and talked a lot with us.
Cute and smart kids.

First stop was Twin Peaks, which gave us a spectacular view over
San Francisco. It was very windy up there and even some fog.
It was quite strange because it was very nice weather in Milpitas
and it looked like it could be a great day, but while we were up on
Twin Peaks we saw the fog coming at us and even covered parts
of San Fransisco. During the day it got colder and colder and I
doubt that it was ever higher than 15 degrees Celsius today.



Golden Gate Park was the next stop. We only had time to walk a
small part of it, but it was beautiful. We had lunch at New
Chinatown before continuing to Palace Of Fine Arts.





Last stop of today's sightseeing was Golden Gate Bridge. It was
so foggy that we couldn't see the bridge at all. See the picture
below for how much we actually saw of the bridge! We
considered a second vista point to the bridge but considering
how much fog there was and how cold it was we skipped that.
Uncle R told us that he has never experienced the same foggy
weather any of the times he had shown the bridge to someone.



Before returning home we stopped at Westfield's at Market
Street, San Francisco, for some power shopping. It was only
30 minutes before they closed. I even had time to try on 7
different items at Abercrombie & Fitch. B-)
We said farewell to our uncle K and his kids for this time and hoped
to see them soon again. We ended the evening at a Vietnamese
restaurant back in Milpitas where it was still warm.

Milpitas Surrounding

My parents' friends have the same mountain view from their home.

Our car

A Dodge Durango.

Chinatown

We are all staying in Milpitas, about an hour from San Francisco.
Yesterday we drove on Oakland Bay Bridge, made a short stop
on Treasure Island to get a view of the San Fransisco skyline. We
continued to Lombard Crooked Street via the steep streets in
San Fransisco. Next stop was Fisherman's Warf and then we got
to Chinatown where we met one of our uncles. He brought his
cute six years old kid with him. The kid was smart and very social.
He talked all the time in English and Vietnamese - no Chinese.

We had lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant there and spent the
rest of the afternoon in Chinatown. Our other uncle and his two
cute kids joined us. We got to see our uncle's apartment some
ten minutes from Chinatown and later on they took us to a
Hakka restaurant 15 minutes from Chinatown. We got home
quite late.

There was no need to use our GPS. Uncle R was great at giving
directions.

Hello San Francisco & Milpitas

We got up at 4.30 this morning. Left the hotel at 6 and

got checked-in at around 8. The flight left JFK for SFO

at ten and we landed at SFO around 1 PM. Uncle R and
his sister came to the airport to meet us. 

We picked up our rental car at Alamo, a full size SUV. 

"You won't fit five bags and five people in that car. You can 

upgrade to a van for $50 dollar per day."

Well, I must say I almost believed him but decided to go for the 

one we had booked. It turned out there was no problem at all. 

He also tried to sell me some extra insurances.

Uncle R showed us to our hotel. Our parents and aunt went home
with him. In the evening they took us out for a great dinner and after 
that they showed us Target.

Top Of The Rock

Today was our last day in NYC. Time to wrap up the East Coast
leg of our tour.

In the morning we went up Top Of The Rock to see Manhattan
from above. The rest of the day was spent on shopping at 5th Avenue 
and Soho. We bought lunch boxes and ate them in Central Park.

Uniqlo's store at 5th Avenue had a cool design and it was huge.
It was even cooler and bigger than H & M's store.

In the evening we had dinner at Red Lobster. It was good. Time
to stay away from shrimp for a while now though.

More Rain

Earlier today we went to The High Line Park - built above ground
on an old railway track. It was nice and calm there. Weather:
cloudy.



After that we went to Chinatown for some shopping and for
lunch. SMN and SMI left us after lunch and they went back to
Times Square for some shopping. We stayed longer than planned
in Chinatown and couldn't go to Central Park. Weather: rain.

We went back to the hotel to drop the shopping bags before we
headed to Times Square ourselves for some shopping. Weather:
nice evening weather.

The winners of today's shopping contest are.... our parents and
our aunt! What?! What happened to my shopping mojo?

Pouring Rain

Yesterday was such a bad day when it came to the weather.
Around lunch time it started raining. And it became worse in the
evening.

My sisters went shopping and I took the others to see the Statue
of Liberty and Wall Street. We met for lunch at South Seaport
and in my opinion spent a little bit too much time there due to
the heavy rain. As we had tickets to the 9/11 Memorial Park
with entry time we had to leave eventually.

I imagine the park is beautiful on sunny days and despite the
fact that it is in the middle of a construction site. The memorial
fountains were beautiful though even in the rain.

SMI and SMN went back to South Seaport again because
the glass of SMI's Ray Ban had popped out after Sunglass Hut
adjusted them for her. The rest of us went back to the hotel
after a loooong shopping at Century 21. Ey, what could we have
done instead in the pouring rain? ;-)

We met SMN and SMI again at the red steps by Times Square.
Because the rain was worse than during the day we had a quick
and bad dinner just around the area. Hungry, wet, and in a bad
mood.

Time to get up soon. More rain is expected...

They have closed down the Times Square Yoshinoya!!!!

We arrived one hour prior to estimated arrival time!
How often does that happen?
We took the AirTrain and LIRR to Penn Station and spent
an hour waiting for SMN. Her flight arrived half an hour before ETA.
We were all hungry and I was really looking forward to a beef bowl
at Yoshinoya. But guess what! They closed down my favorite junk food
restaurant! We had dinner at Macy's instead and spent the rest of the
evening there.
I bought some new sneakers. They already had some discount but I
had additional 10% off with my international visitor's card. :-)
Empire State Building was blue tonight.

Ugh for morning flights

I really hate morning flights but I hate arriving late even more. :-(

C U when I get there.