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.

Santa Monica

Yesterday we went shopping at Westfield Fashion Square. We bought a lot from American Eagle.

Ww continued the rest of our day in Santa Monica. We walked the pier (warning for Swedes!) and the 3rd Street Promenade. It is prolonged nowadays.

We had dinner at an Italian restaurant at the promenade and after that we went to see 50/50 at a nearby cinema. It was good.

Today is our last day. All the bags are packed. We're just having brunch somewhere first before leaving.

Six Flags Magic Mountain & Universal City Walk

Today we spent the whole day at Six Flags Magic Mountain. Seems like the holiday is over. There were only about ten minutes line in average for each ride. It was hot today but not unbearably hot.

After that we went to a Best Buy in Burbanks for some electronics shopping.

We went to Universal City Walk to have dinner at Bubba Gumps. It was real cold this night.

After dinner we saw Drive with Ryan Gosling at the City Walk cinema. It was good.

I Do Believe

Yesterday morning we had a big fat breakfast at IHOP. After that we went to the International UFO Museum in Roswell to be enlightened. I believe now. Do you believe?

We left Roswell for Santa Fe after the museum. The weather in Santa Fe was colder than all the other places we had visited so far. It rained a little on our way in. Santa Fe is a very small town with some touristy shops. Shortly after check-in we drove downtown and walked around. We went inside a beautiful church.

As it was early still we went to a cinema in town to watch Moneyball with Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill. The theatre was big and the movie was OK. We were back at the hotel after 10 PM. We had to go to bed early as we had to take a 14 hours' drive back to Los Angeles today.

We got up at 5.45 in the morning today and left Santa Fe at 7. We took a detour along our way to see the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest national park.

We're back in LA now. A little bit tired after a long day's driving.

White Sands National Monument And Roswell

We left Lordsburg this morning for the White Sands National Monument. Magnificent views of white sand dunes everywhere.

We continued to Roswell after the national park and arrived at around 17.30. Almost all shops were closed in town at that time this Monday! We went into some souvenir shops where they sold alien stuff - even alien meat. ;-) You all know that an alien aircraft crash landed near Roswell 1947, don't you?

With nothing more to do we went to a Walmart and then to a cinema to see Contagion after supper at Applebee's.

Biosphere 2 And Tombstone

Yesterday we visited Biosphere 2. The facility where scientists were locked in for 2 years to study biology etc...

Then we drove to Tombstone - the western town where Wyatt Earp and other roamed.

Leaving Sedona For Phoenix

We left Sedona today for Phoenix. We drove out from Sedona and then back again via a very beautiful scenic route - Arizona's most beautiful route according to many travel guides.

Before leaving Sedona we visited the Chapel of the Holy Cross. Out of Sedona we took a detour to see the Montezuma Castle national monument.

We drove along the scenic mountain roads through Jerome and Prescott before coming to our destination in Phoenix at around 10 PM.

Driving To Sedona

We left LA at 10 o'clock today. The plan was to drive 8 hrs to Sedona, Arizona. I was the first driver. Marie took over after our stop at Oatman.

We made a small detour to Oatman, an old mine town that was used at several film sets. We had some near burros experiences there.

We're staying outside Sedona tonight. Came in after 19. Dinner was free because they failed to make my salmon. First it was half-cooked so they had to make me a new one. Then they forgot to take off the strings from the second one. The waitress was embarrassed and felt so bad about it so she took care of our dinner. We tipped her 20 dollar. After all it wasn't her fault.

Outlet and Cirque de Soleil

Yesterday we went to Camarillo Premium Outlets for some shopping. It wasn't ass good as the New York one. I could only find some shirts.

We went to the Cirque de Soleil show Iris yesterday at the Kodak Theatre - the same theatre where the Oscar's is the held every year nowadays. I guess the show was OK. I mean, how would I know. I slept at times...

Leaving LA today for our eastbound roadtrip.

C U!

First Day

Well... My flight from Copenhagen was 7.55 which meant I had to take the 4.51 bus from Stefan's. Everything went smoothly except when I at Heathrow went to get my boarding card. In order to get that every passenger had to be "interviewed" with a couple of questions for security reasons. I got two or three questions in different variations regarding who had packed my baggage. Crazy! And by the way. Terminal 3 is still my all-time favourite terminal. NOT! Low ceiling, crowded, hot... Here is where the cattle travels... ;-)

The American Airlines flight to LAX was cold. Brrrr... And they served pizza with a lot of cheese as meal before landing. How american...

I had to wait for Johan, Marie and Linus at LAX for two hours as planned. The lady at Alamo gave us a standard sized SUV if we gave her a free dinner, which we did. We had to. Otherwise our four luggages won't fit in our booked mid-size SUV

Britt and Jeff took us to dinner tonight...

That's about what happened today. Later...

UT Tubes

I love how the T-shirts are packaged in tubes. Here is my collection. :)

Yokohama

Today we went to Yokohama. The weather forecast said that it was gonna rain a lot today. Sure it was a little bit cloudy in the morning but we decided to go anyway. The express train took us to Yokohama in 18 minutes. From there we took another train to the Minatomirai station.





We went up the Yokohama Landmark Tower. The observatory deck is on 69th floor and the world's second fastest elevator with an impressive max speed of 750 meters per minute took us there. Here are some views from the observatory deck.









The tower itself to the left.



The Akarenga Sōko





China Town



After China Town we took the train back to Minatomirai for some shopping. When we were done with the mall we continued the evening with some more shopping in Shibuya.