Grand Canyon

It was a beautiful day to drive into Grand Canyon. Words can't describe the beauty of nature. I especially love seeing the golden weeds being blown by the strong wind. 

The ever changing colors of the Grand Canyon. Depending on the time and the location of the day.

Decadence

Do you love chocolate? Then you MUST visit the world's largest chocolate fountain, here in the Bellagio Hotel. Everything in Jean Philippe is mouth watering. Especially the breakfast pastries... yummy but we decided to go for the crepes. We had the  berry mix and exotic fruit crepe Souffle. Yummss...nothing beats sweet delicious crepe and aromatic coffee in the morning! 

For lunch, YC treated us to Julian Serrano in Aria. I love tapas, when I saw the menu, I couldn't really decide what to order, in the end, we decided on the non-alcoholic sangria, ahi raspberry skewer, octopus on potatoes, fried calamari, cheese plater and coca vegetarian. Coca? It's spanish pizza.

You would think such small portions would not be sufficient but surprisingly, we were very very full at the end of the meal. Makes me miss Spain for all the tapas. Nonetheless, thanks YC for the lovely lunch! :)

Vegas Vegas!

I love glitz, glamour and glass. Haha... I love everything that is shinny, colorful and pretty.

This is Vegas during the day.

 

 

 

 

And this is Vegas during the night, I think it's more mesmerizing at night with the colors and lights!











 

So much to see yet so little time, o Vegas I must return! :)

Mon Ami Gabi

What could be more fashionable than sitting at the patio basking in the warm beautiful sun in a cold cold winter day? Being new in town, we Yelped for a good place for lunch. This place had over thousands of review for having good food in a good location with a good view. Even with reservations, we still have to wait a tad over 10 minutes for a table but it was worth it. The place was beautiful, we were having lunch in Paris, the hotel in Las Vegas, right on the strip. *chuckle*. Look we even had the Eiffel Tower view!

 

My lunch at Mon Ami Gabi was yummy, I had the scallop gratinees and endives salad. I was a little shocked when I saw that I was only served 3 scallops but it was so rich you wouldn't want more than 3 scallops! It was cooked with caramelized fennel, onion marmalade and mussel cream. The salad came with bosc pear, blue cheese, watercress and celery. It was very satisfying without feeling guilty at all! The rest of the party had the seafood crepe, spinach quiche, and shrimp and crab salad sandwich topped with avocado! Oh I forgot to mention, they serve warm fresh baguette with homemade smooooooth butter! To die for! :)

Happy Birthday Rrotrrot!

There's nothing I can get for a friend who's constantly giving and not interested in receiving. So the least that I can do is make her a birthday dinner and buy her a cake! Both of us have been craving for Nasi Lemak for a very long time so I decided to make Nasi Lemak for her birthday and made sambal from scratch (recipe courtesy of Omar Food Channel). Oh boy the sambal was so spicy that I couldn't take more than a bite but thank goodness Rrotrrot loves it. So looks like the sambal is a winner and I shall make more in the future to share it with my friends who misses sambal! :)

Ps: Birthday girl also cooked 2 dishes if not the rice plate wouldn't be complete!

Snowy Tahoe

Summer was late, so did fall and suddenly from summer hot days, it became winter overnight. It was forecasted to be raining over the weekend, which means it might snow in Tahoe. So we packed up our winter gear and drove to Tahoe for a day trip. The day started kinda gloomily but when we stopped for lunch, the day became so beautiful, it was so breathtaking.

 

If only I could write as well as I take photos. I'm so lucky to be able to take photos of my favorite subject matters: blue skies, puffy white clouds, horizon, sea and the pier.

Is this the road to Paradise, it sure looks like we're in Paradise.

One of these days, I'm going to stay at these waterfront cabins and enjoy the scenery all day long...

We were lucky that the sun came out once again when we arrived at Emerald Bay, we were just lamenting at how dull the water looked like on the way towards Emerald Bay.

Emerald Bay

Then the day turned gloomy again, and it snowed briefly. I always think that colored gloomy snowy days are gloomy but they look beautiful in black and white, don't you think so?

Then I met this little fler who was just absolutely elated to be able to run on fresh snow of the season!



What does this remind you off? A thriller movie? Some of the cabins were covered in amazing looking icicles but I didn't stop to take photos of them and only got these.

 Tahoe, I'm definitely coming back for more! 

Labor Day Weekend

Where did summer go? I don't know... time flies and it's already the end of summer. I haven't really done much during this summer and I felt like I should be spending more time outdoors, closer to mother nature than the four walls of my home, so my friends helped me organized these wonderful trips over the long Labor Day weekend. 

Day 1: Beach hopping.

We thought Santa Cruz would be the warmest when the weather was cold but a few days before the temperature suddenly dropped and it became cloudy and foggy. When we reached the beach, it was cold and nippy.

Ooh look! What's going on here? There's a Sand Sculpting event.  Everyone was just going around the beach checking out the sand sculptures. They were really cool and awesome!

Look at the waves! So much for a sunny day by the beach. Despite the strong waves, the brave boy marched on unflinching.

After Capitola we went to Half Moon Bay. Isn't this view beautiful? 

From Half Moon Bay we drove up to Pigeon Point lighthouse.

And finally, Moss Beach, the coldest of them all. We didn't even stay because it was so cold and windy.

Day 3: Redwood Regional Park

Ooh hiking? Where should we go? Easy trail? Yes, let's go! So we chose this easy 4 miles hike at Redwood Regional Park. The trail wasn't bad and not busy. Although there were signs saying expecting to see colonies of ladybugs and trout spawning but we didn't. Probably because it's not the right season.


 

Aren't the redwood trees amazingly tall?



After the redwood forrest, we came out to this clearing where we could see Lake Chabot ahead. The weather turned nice and it was truly a beautiful day to hike!

What happened to Day 2?

We decided to take it easy and stayed home. All in all, it was a very beautiful weekend and I really had a great weekend with my beloved friends! :)