My Amazing US Trip 2006/2007!

(Cities visited: Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington DC, Niagarra Falls, and New York City)

Amidst the stress of cramming 2 days of work with full time uni (an overload of 4 final year law electives), I felt like the holiday was never going to come.

But finally, it did. December 3rd 2006. I set off, in good company, with my fellow travel buddies - Vanessa and Daisy, on our well-deserved post-university/pre-full-time-work/just-an-excuse-to-travel trip to the big US of A.

After planning most of the itinerary and booking most of the accommodation for the trip (with huge help from my sweetheart friend Suzie), I was a little worried that it may not live up to the standards of the girls. But, thankfully it all turned out okay in the end.


~New York City~

NYC was the last city I visited, but I am putting it on top of my travelogues because it is by far my favourite city.

I have often being told that it is impossible to take in the entire New York City on a holiday because it is unfathomably big and in a constant state of change. Well, after spending 3 weeks there, I'd have to agree. There is so much going on everywhere any time of the day, it is quite overwhelming at times.

I am truly grateful that I was able to spend 3 weeks there. It meant that there was no need to hastily dash from one sight to the other. Instead, I was able to do things at my own pace (having split up with the group at that stage)– enjoying a cup of coffee at Tom's Restaurant (as featured in Seinfeld - my favourite TV show); taking my time eating at Tao Restaurant (as seen on SATC); getting my photo taken with a spunky shirtless Abercrombie & Fitch model (though I was just as embarrassed as he was annoyed at being treated like a token animal from the zoo by all the tourists); spending an afternoon at the Wolfman Rink at Central Park to learn how to ice-skate backwards with the help of some lovely local youngsters; eating the famous kosher hot-dog in NYC's best deli – Katz (where Meg Ryan faked that infamous orgasm in Harry Met Sally) and following the footsteps of Bill Clinton, SJP and many other celebrities in having my photo taken with its owner; watching not one, not two and not three, but four amazing Broadway shows (Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, Beauty & the Beast, and Chicago); chilling out at a comedy show in the World Famous Laugh Factory where comedians like Ray Ramano, Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock launched their careers; and sometimes just sitting idly by the window at MacDonalds in Times Square to watch the millions of tourists and locals passing by.

Almost everyday, I was able to make fascinating discoveries that was not featured in my itinerary, and more than once, the things I saw/did/experienced when I made unexpected diversions/detours ended up becoming the highlight of the day. It is true when they say that the real New York City is in the details.

My travelogue of NYC is not complete without the mention of SHOPPING! and not because I'm a girl but shopping was really THAT GOOD!!!

I'll list some of my favourite areas for shopping:
- 5th Ave: people ask - can a street be an attraction? OF COURSE it can but only if it is THE 5th Ave. It is jam packed with designer stores - my favourite's gotta be the Ferragamo store *droooool*
- Woodbury Commons: a massive factory outlet (has brands like Chanel, CD, Versace, Ferragamo, Coach, Kenneth Cole and many more) with genuine savings of up to 75% off. I have never bought so many things / spent so much money in one day. It has officially replaced Disneyland in my books as the happiest place on earth :)
- Soho: very trendy little area with unique and exclusive boutique stores.
- Greenwich Village: there are 3 Marc Jacobs stores in a row
- department store wise, Bergdorf, Barneys, and Bloomingdales all deserve a good mention.
- also loved the 2-storey Victoria's Secret store opposite Macy's.

My favourite food experiences (some of which I may have already mentioned):
- Tao Restaurant (SATC) near 5th Ave - nice ambience, good service and decent food portions
- Katz Deli (Harry Met Sally) in East Village - love their hotdogs
- Tom's Restaurant (Seinfeld) in Upper East - the real Kramer goes there every Saturday
- Dean & Deluca in Soho
- Republic in Union Square
- Buttercup (Magnolia's sister bakery - and I SWEAR their cupcakes taste better than Magnolia's - you can hold me to this!) - I think there's one in Upper West and another one in Upper East - google the address
- last but not least, Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square, I had the perfect all-round meal experience there in the company of some superhot guitars, highly recommended!

bla bla bla .........

~Los Angeles~

Now I've gotten NYC out of the way, let's go back to the beginning, the very start of our trip ...

As we touched down safely on the LAX runway, with sleepy eyes, skin break-outs (this applies to Gloria only) and a very sore back from the 14 hour United Airlines flight, it finally hit us, that we were in the US and that our holiday has well and truly begun.

For some reason, my luggage did not feel as excited as I was as we waited a good 30mins after everyone else has claimed theirs before it decided to show up on the conveyor belt.

After about 1 hour, we were dropped off by the airport shuttle at the door of Celebrity Hotel in Hollywood. We were too excited to worry about our level of fatigue and immediately went out to check out the area. It so happens that our hotel was located right in the heart of Hollywood, less than 5 minutes walk to the Kodak Theatre (think Oscars) and the Chinese Mann Theater. There was also a lovely shopping centre in the area with a distant view of the Hollywood sign.

~Las Vegas~

4 December 2006
LA to Vegas – casino-hopping

We caught the subway to Union Station in LA and changed to the Goldline to get off at Chinatown. Our coach to Vegas arrived at 7:35am. We made a stop-over at Barstow Station around 10:30am. Out of pure serendipity, we bumped into Mayz and her family (and thank god for her mother's diahhrea pills haha).

It took about 4 –5 hours with a couple of stops in between before we hit Las Vegas (aka the Sin City), Nevada. The Hotel is Aladdin, located right at the centre of the Strip, opposite Bellagio and next to Paris (big thanks to Suzie who found us an unbeatable deal). The passageway filled by shops and restaurants were full of Arabian flavours and decorated exotically under a manmade/fake blue cloudy sky – it was magical. We filled up our tummies at Max Café - lovely food and excellent service.

After going back to the hotel room for a quick rest, we went to check out the rest of the Strip.

Just walking on the Strip and gazing at the gaudy, garish, absurd wonder of it all can occupy quite a lot of time. I soon came to understand that Vegas does not embrace the concept of "subtlety" at all. These buildings/structures are like nothing I have ever seen and everything is so grand and flamboyant, it is overwhelming, especially at night with all the neon lights.

My favourite hotel-casino is The Venetian (they couldn’t have done a better job replicating St Mark’s Square – I felt like I was in Venice – it felt magical).

Ceasar's Palace had amazing forum shops. They call it the most unique shopping experience in the world. It's like taking Rodeo Drive, marrying it to Rome and dousing it all in Spielberg.

Paris has an excellent buffet – highly recommended. You could score a free Paris jumper if you sign up as a member and spend $10 in gambling (it makes for a great souvenir). I tried my luck on the Blackjack table. At one stage, I had doubled my initial pot but ended up leaving at break even.


5 December 2006
Vegas – shopping day

We slept in this morning and got woken up around 10:40am when the room-attendant tried to come in to clean the room.

Daisy and I went down for buffet around midday. Aladdin’s buffet is probably amongst the best in Vegas. We also received an insider’s tip – Aladdin’s buffet is the only buffet in town that offers freshly squeezed orange juice - that was by far the most refreshing drink I had in Vegas! Food wise, I loved the lobster risotto and the pork ribs – yummmmmmmmmm!

After going back to our hotel room to get changed, we headed out to go to the Preimum Outlet. The bus (known as the Deuce) costed $2 1-way or $5 for a 24 hour pass. It was annoyingly slow, as it stopped every few minutes to collect and unload passengers in front of casinos. We got off at the bus stop in front of Sahara, crossed the road and went around Denny’s to take bus 108 which took us directly to the outlet.

The highlight of the Outlet was the Coach store with massive savings up to 50% off on a whole range of bags, wallets and accessories.

On our way back, we took bus 103 to the downtown terminal and hopped back on a Duece. We stopped at the Bonanza to shop for souvenirs and in front of Mirage for the volcano show.

I was starving when we got back to Aladdin around 10pm, and went straight down to Zanzibar with Daisy to try the Pink hotdogs. We ordered "the Lord of the Rings" – it had onion rings wrapped around the hotdog – very cute and super tasty. That was probably the most expensive hotdog I have ever had - $USD8.95 plus taxes and tips.


6 December 2006
Grand Canyon, Arizona

The 7am pick up for the Grand Canyon tour was a bit of a killer but we managed to get there just on time.

We left Vegas city-centre around 8am and drove through the outskirts of the city, passed Boulder city (which has the lowest crime rate in Nevada, but only 5 new houses can be built per annum and no casino/gambling is allowed – quite strange given its proximity to Vegas).

The driver/tour-guide Brendan pointed out the holiday abodes of Julia Roberts and Barbara Strassand somewhere along the way.

There was also some beautiful ragged terrain scenery as we approached Hoover Dam which is located across Nevada and Arizonz (there’s 1 hour time difference between the states– the latter does not have day-light savings).

We hit Kingman, Arizona around 10:20am (Vegas time). The Star Wars movies have been filmed here and it is part of Route 66.

As we travelled towards Williamstown, it was not difficult to discern the change in scenery. There was no longer rugged brown/red terrains. We started to see green pine trees on the mountain hills.

Brendan dropped us off at a lovely little place called Max & Thelma in Williamstown for buffet lunch. I loved the setting/ambience – cozy fireplaces, with country-style furniture, exotic-looking paintings, and a toy-train circulating the ceiling.

Fate made us bump into Mayz & co again.

After lunch, we drove on Route 66 for a while before turning off it and driving past 2 dormant volcanoes and as Brendan said, let’s hope they stay dormant, because some guy has built a house right on top of one of them.

bla bla

I'm getting tired ... will pad out the details and the rest of the trip another day.