My Notable Itinerary: January 2005

USA - California and Las Vegas

I, P.Ou and Noon went to USA during December 20, 2004 to January 3, 2005. We landed at LAX, Los Angeles. As usual, we booked hotel via internet from Bangkok so we had fixed itinerary. We drove like a loop from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, Yosemite National Park, San Francisco, Monterey, Solvang, and back to Los Angeles. At Los Angeles, we visited many places, such as UCLA, Chinese Theater, Kodak Theater, Hollywood Blvd., and Santa Monica.

See all US trip photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/arthivon/USA2004#

Las Vegas

Las Vegas was so cold at night during our visit, but it was worth to go out at the Strip and saw lights, Bellagio’s dancing fountains, and Mirage’s volcano, etc. We stayed at New York-New York and went to Aladdin, the Venetian, Madam Tussauds’ Wax Museum, Caesars Palace, Glitter Gulch, and Hoover Dam. No gambling in this trip.

I was on the Hoover Dam, Nevada side, the other side is Arizona.

Yosemite National Park

There was snow at Yosemite National Park by the time we were there. We took lots of photos with El Capitàn, snow field, creek, and waterfall. El Capitàn is the world’s largest exposed granite rock standing at the western entrance of the valley. It is named by US soldiers, who in 1851 were the first white Americans to visit the valley. El Capitàn is the Spanish phrase for capitain. We stayed at a hotel western side of the park on Christmas day.

P.Ou and El Capitàn.

Mii, Snow, Creek, Tree, and Mountain.

Yosemite Waterfall.

Small Mii and Big Trees.

San Francisco

We stayed in a boutique hotel in San Francisco and heard about Tsunami hit South of Thailand from CNN, we were stunned and thought about our dive master at Koh Phi Phi, how he was. We went to UC Berkley, Golden Gate Bridge and Golden Gate Park, Lombard Street, Fisherman’s Wharf, Palace of Fine Arts, and Museum of Modern Arts as well as ate at China Town and took a San Francisco’s Cable Car.

UC, Berkley.

Cold! Golden Gate Bridge.

Palace of Fine Arts.

Monterey

We selected a room with fireplace in Monterey. We went to see Monterey Bay Aquarium, there are many interesting exhibits, including hand-feeding live shows by diver, jellies, shark, etc. It is a big aquarium, we wish we should have more time to appreciate all the exhibits. We walked along Cannery Row which used to be the famous location of sardines processing in the past, currently the factories turn to be shops and restaurants.

Jellies in Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Cannery Row, it name comes from its past popular fish cannery factory.

In front of Bubba Gump Restaurant, there is Forrest Gump's shoes, suitcase, and chocolate box.

The 17-Mile-Drive

We spent a few hours at Carmel-by-the-Sea, the city surrounds art galleries, shops, and restaurants. We drove via a toll road called the 17-Mile-Drive which offers spectacular views of Del Monte Forest, Bird Rocks, Spyglass Hill, Lone Cypress, and beautiful coasts, these attract wealthy people to have their houses in this area. Pebble Beach Golf Links is also in top rank of the world. We took many photos here, especially with the Lone Cypress, which it is said that it may be the most photographed tree in the world.

P.Ou and the Lone Cypress.

Way back to Los Angeles and Disneyland

We drove along Highway 1, and spent a night in a Danish Inn, Solvang, a small Scandinavian style town, and stopped at Santa Barbara before going back to Los Angeles. We celebrated 2005 New Year Eve here. I also had a chance to lunch with my relatives, ArTik and David, at a Thai restaurant on Hollywood Blvd.

Since the plane departed late at night so we decided to go to Disneyland. At Disneyland, we enjoyed Haunted Mansion, Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Indiana Jones, etc. P.Ou could join only kid adventures otherwise he said his organs would come out. We went to dine with one of my relatives, P.Nana, at her apartment in Orange County. We arrived at exactly 2 hours before the plane departed, the airport was crowd and I had to return the car, we almost missed the planes.