Whooo! This is the long-awaited MEGA BLOG POST on my trip to the States! We went to so many different places, but I'll only be covering the main highlights of the trip.
Let's start with a few basic facts:
In all, my family and I went to 3 states of the United States.: California, Nevada and Arizona. You can just imagine how much time we spent on the road, driving from place to place. And did you know that Nevada and Arizona are made up of mostly desert land? Now that I think about it, Las Vegas was practically built in the middle of plain, rocky, sandy desert terrain.
Okay, that's enough factual talk for now.
(I put on a wise grandmotherly voice) Young child, I will now begin telling you the story of my great adventures in western America! (this is your cue to widen your innocent little eyes and squeal, "Oh yes, please tell me, Grandma!"). Hahaha! (crowd boos). Alright, alright, I'll start already, yeesh.
Please note: Due to the mish-mashed mixed-up memory cards flying all over the place, I am not able to recount my trip in chronological order.
After a long 13 hours of being confined to a scratchy seat on a stuffy airplane, and having to consume disgusting cardboard food, we FINALLY landed on sweet ground and could breathe in sweet fresh air. After going through security and retrieving our luggage, we rented a car and began touring at once (we were on a pretty tight schedule, and spent only a few days in each place).
The first place I will be talking about is Los Angelas. Surprisingly, it isn't as cool and glamorous as it sounds. Most of the buildings look kinda shabby and run-down on the outside. Even the malls look like old warehouses, although they do look 20 times better on the inside. And unfortunately we couldn't go to see Hollywood boulevard due to time constraint, but according to my dad (who lived in LA for a year), it's not too much worth seeing. After all it's just stars on the ground with names of celebrities on them.
We went shopping at the Beverly Center and guess what I saw at JC Penney? Glee apparel!
I spotted the big 'glee' sign from miles away and I was like OOOOOH! and ran over as fast as I could. And took a picture for this blog post.
This is an up-close. See the 'don't stop believing' shirt? (haha I can just imagine Ruthra going "urrrrghhh" and burying her head in her hands).
It was raining and my sis took a cool picture of the rain drops on her car door window. I knew she'd like it to be featured so here it is, Anneee! :]
This is us driving on the busiest highway in the world (well, my dad says it is). Oh yeah, and see that GPS perched on the window? It was our life support.
So you're probably wondering, 'OK, maybe most parts of LA aren't that impressive, but the downtown should be real good, right?' Eh, you be the judge:
Do I hear snoring in the audience? WAKE UP SIR! We're just about to get to the exciting part! The next stop is VEGAS!
There are these small little towns with outlet malls along the way to Vegas. We went on major shopping sprees there. It's impossible not to, even for those who hate shopping. There's great stuff for great prices, and the place isn't even that crowded!
One of the first things you'll notice about Vegas is that the hotels are enormous! Most of em are real fancy as well. We stayed at MGM Grand, your typical mega & fancy Vegas hotel. However it has a more modern feel to it than some of the other fancy hotels.
Huge, isn't it? (and so is that palm tree, I realise). I'm glad that I caught a good picture of it despite the fact that the car was zipping down the road at top speed. Oh yes, by the way, concerts and shows are regularly held at famous Vegas hotels. We missed Andrea Bocelli's concert at the MGM Grand by one day! 0_0 But we still ended up going to a show... I'll tell you about it later on!
And this is the hallway leading to our room. The camera doesn't show it very well, but it seems to stretch on forever and ever.
So it looks nice that everything's spaced-out and fancy but it takes ages just to get from our room to our car!
Like many other hotels, the MGM Grand has restaurants, shops, concert halls, and a ton of other things I didn't see (in such an overwhelmingly astronomic place, just the thought of exploring made me exhausted).
This is the Bellagio, a very high-class hotel. We went inside for a little walk-about. Just a few components of this hotel are:
Long hallways with glossy tiles and plush carpets,
Fancy chandeliers and flowers-in-a-vase everywhere,
Shops and cafes that make you wish you'd brought along more pocket money...
And a chocolate waterfall in one of those shops.
Not all the hotels are just about fanciness. Some have cool themes!
Take for example, this castle-themed hotel with a sleek limousine in the foreground (please ignore the ugly shrimp van).
We visited one of those themed hotels, Caesar's Palace, and by it's name you can tell that he theme is ancient Rome.
This is the casino, which without all that opulent architecture, would look like an ordinary arcade.
There were statues of the ancient Roman gods and goddesses here and there:
This is an indoor promenade, so to speak. It's got high-end shops and stuff.
Isn't this THE coolest H&M you've ever seen??
After going around to see all the magnificent hotels, we went to see this fountain show that's free for the public to enjoy. We saw the night view of the Eiffel Tower replica on the way.
Now, ready for some water works?
It starts off with some mist rising ominously from the water's surface... then suddenly...
BOOM! Massive jets of water fly towards the sky, and for the rest of the show, the fountains just go freestyle.
The show, which lasted for about 2 minutes, ended with a final vertical blast. I thought it was a terrific show, considering that it's free and all. Plus, the wind was extra-strong that night and so clouds of mist from the fountains were blown towards us. It's fun getting sprayed in the face.
It's time for a short 'cool sites in Vegas' reel!
Now I shall address that show we went to see at the MGM Grand. It was a very special show indeed. The tickets for the 4 of us cost a few hundred dollars in total. But in other countries like Singapore, tickets would probably cost a few hundred per person.
I do not own this image
The show we went to see was... CIRQUE DU SOLEIL's KA!!! It's the first time I've gone to see a live show, but I think it's probably the best one I'll ever see
. The acrobatics and special effects... wow. Thrilling, bedazzling, mind-boggling.
Outta-the-blue story: We were at Walmart, just hunting around for some good & cheap buys, when all at once, this rather elderly man approached us and began speaking to my mom and dad. On instinct, my sister and I ran off and watched warily from behind a shelf of cosmetics. "You are good people. We Americans don't belong in Asia," I heard him say. While my sister and I started freaking out, thinking of all the terrible scenarios that could follow. "What if he's severely senile and he pulls out a gun and starts shooting?" I hissed, panicking, not knowing what to do. On the other hand, my parents handled the situation quite well. They put on their 'I totally understand' faces and nodded as he rambled on and on. Thankfully, he eventually finished his speech and sauntered away. I'd never felt so relieved.
Okay, now I'm going to totally flip things around. We leave the hustle and bustle of the city and enter the serenity of America's national parks.
Ladies and Gentlemen - The Grand Canyon!
It's only when you start trekking down the Canyon when you realise how massive it is. We only made it about 1/8 of the way down (we turned back when we found out that it takes the entire day to hike to the bottom and back up).
I'd only been walking for 10 minutes when I looked up and suddenly felt like a tiny ant.
We made it back up just in time to see the sunset.
Let's quickly hop to our next destination, Yosemite National Park!
Yosemite is a winning combination of mountains, forests and waterfalls. An ideal nature sanctuary, really.
We visited the biggest tree on Earth in the Sequoia forest. It's a General Sherman tree. (Look how wide it is compared to the stranger standing in the middle).
Next, we're off to San Francisco!
I really liked San Francisco. It's not just any plain ol' city, it's unique.
SF is famous for its extremely steep roads.
We took a ride on this trolley, which was really fun because I got to stand on the side of the trolley. I stood on that metal ledge and hung onto one of the three white handles. The middle one, to be exact. It was especially fun going downhill!
Outta-the-blue story: We were riding the tram when suddenly, a rather burly man who was evidently drunk stumbled onto the tram and bellowed, "I GOT THAT BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!"
Ah yes, the Golden Gate Bridge! We took a stroll there at night, and made it about halfway across. It's an invigorating experience, being high up above, looking out onto a sparkling sea of water and enjoying the steady night breeze.
I realise this post is getting really long and it'll probably take ages to publish, so I will now close with pictures of the beach in Carmel, California.
My near-death experience. I almost got hit by a wave!
Well, we've come to the end of this blog special! I hope you've enjoyed reading about my trip. Although I had a wonderful time in the U.S., I can safely say that it's great to be home!
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