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Hi Friends,
I know its been long time I have written and made you bore. Well its been long time I have gone to any place too. So could not write much.
The planning for this was all started a month back. We have had loooong weekend ahead of thanks-giving here in US. We have had four days of holiday. So we all decided (we all means me and my friend Nikhil) to visit worlds most fun place i.e. Las Vegas(LV here onwards) and Los Angeles(LA here onwards) by taking one more day off i.e. in five days. Many people suggested that, we shouldn't just give five days for both the days and do only one place out of these two.
But hum bhi kuchh kam nahi. Hum TCS ke developers hai, kam time main jyada cheeje karne ki aadat hai. J. So we scheduled these two places in just five days and wished to cover almost everything from both the place..
It all started with seven people in first shot, and slowly count went to thirteen people. Ohh man!!!
Anyways, after doing lots of planning and mails, the day has arrived, Wednesday, 21st November 2007. Yeah, we all started on Wednesday by evening 6 pm flight from Seattle to Las Vegas (LV).
You all must have heard of LV, Its a place to be for great casinos, great hotels and lots of gambling everyday.
We realized that the minute we arrived on McCarran international airport of LV at 9.00pm. Ohh man, We saw gambling terminals on the airport itself.. Can't believe it na!!
Anyways, after landing, we took two full size SUV cars (Chevrolet Suburban (click on title) on rent. Nice car as usual. You know I am crazy for driving new and different cars).
After taking rental cars, we went and checked in hotel. The hotel name was Circus-circus hotel on 'The strip'.
Those who don't know what is 'The strip' - The Las Vegas Strip (also known as The Strip) is a 4 mi (6.7 km) section of Las Vegas Boulevard South, where possession and consumption of open containers of alcoholic beverages are allowed year-round on the street. Many of the largest hotel, casino and resort properties in the world are located on The Strip. Click here for more details.
Hotel Circus Circus, was the name of the hotel where we stayed in Las Vegas. One of the awesome hotel in Las Vegas. What a hotel it was. Really great hotel. Click here and then you will understand the greatness of the hotel. We checked in around 10.30pm.
After that, we started roaming around at 12.30am. Yes, in the night, because Las Vegas 'wakes up' in the night. We roamed on 'The strip' and saw some amazing hotels and casinos including 'Treasure island' and 'The Mirage'. Really awesome hotels to see at least once in lifetime. Came back to our rooms at 5am. J Went to bed.
The next day, we all got up around 10am. Yes it was too early for people who slept at 5am. After all, it was me, after people , who 'helped' people to get up. Because we wanted to cover 'Hoover dam'. Yes, a dam. Now you will ask, why the hell you wanted to cover 'a dam' in gambling bay? Well, its a dam which is very old, huge and one of the seven best construction masterpieces in USA. Its a dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Arizona and Nevada states. Its a 40 minute drive from Las Vegas. Nice dam. Due to thanksgiving holiday, we were not allowed to go 'inside' the dam. But it was really nice dam. The largest dam I have ever seen in my life. Click here for more details. Really awesome dam. Saw this masterpiece and came back to our rooms at 3pm. Slept for couple of hours. And then again got ready for enjoying the nightlife.
That night also, we roamed around various hotels like Bellagio, Caesars Palace, Hotel Paris (it has Eiffel tower inside the hotel) and few other hotels. Among these, Bellagio was the best hotel.
Now its 2.30am in the night. And we all sat down in one of the restaurants of hotel Paris discussing about the road ahead which was very crucial, atleast for drivers (me and Paddy). Because, in last two days we had only 4 hours of sleep. And today, we didn't even sleep for a single minute. And we were supposed to drive 4 hours for LA. My god.. But all knew, we can do it. We checked out from hotel around 3 and then started for LA around 4am. It was me and Paddy, who’s driving skills and will power which was being tested, as we were the main drivers for both the cars.
Anyways, When we started to drive, it was already 4am and behind us there were nice memories of LV and ahead of us it was challenge to drive without sleep through the road where there is nothing around other than long desert. But we tried hard and made a great success out of it in spite of faulty satellite connection of our GPS which ditched us sometimes and gave us wrong directions.
We crossed California border around 7 in the morning, and got an idea about the traffic and driving skills required in CA. Ohh man, people are driving like 90mph when the limit is 65mph. And no lane sense. It really sucked first time. Then I thanked.. because it was of my style.. J So we reached our hotel around 9-10 in the morning. Got fresh and started to visit first attraction of LA
Universal Studios -
What a place it is. I always heard about its greatness. If you want to experience the real world experience of Jurasic park, Mummy, roller coaster etc., If you want to see the behind the scene experience of various movies like The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" and "King Kong" then this is the place to be.
Here you will get a reality behind those hunky funky scene like water flood, rain, huge oceans.
Also there are awesome 3D and 4D shows of movies like Terminator, The Shrek, Special effects etc..
I would recommend, everybody on this earth to visit Universal studio at-least once. You will see how Americans enjoy life. Click here which will try to tell you what I have experienced. Anyways, it was really nice experience. Even after driving 5 hours throughout night, I enjoyed like anything. Came home around 9pm. Had some TP food and went to sleep early (at 1am J ) since had to go to Sea world on the next day.
Sea world - where the whole world under sea is.
This place is 2 hours from LA near city called San Diego.
What does the word 'Sea world' suggest you? Yeah, right, it means entire world under sea. Here we saw awesome Dolphin show, Whale(shamu) show, Pet show, sky tower, rafting ride, some roller coaster rides, sky rides and many many other things. Dolphin dance show and Shamu show were awesome. Another great day. Really awesome, can't describe it in words.. Great one.. Click here to virtually experience some of great things of Sea world.
After sea world, in the evening we went to San Diego downtown. Nice place. Had indian food over there after loooooooong time. And again came back on our rooms by 1am. Another hectic though unforgettable day of my life!!
Disneyland... A home of fun.
Anyone who heards of Disneyland, always say that, it will be for small kids and not for big kids (like us). But you know what? biggies enjoy it more than kids do. Really. I am not exaggerating. Its an awesome place. And requires atleast two days to finish entire Disneyland. Yes... just to 'see' not to ride. But we tried to finish it in one day, Kyaa kare.. TCS ke employees jo thehre.. lol.. J
Disneyland is made of two different parks opposite each other.
One is called as California Adventure park and the other one is called as Disney theme park.
Adventure park, as the name suggest has all kind of adventure rides including roller coaster rides, and many other stuff. There was one ride called Over California, which was the best. In that ride, they put you on one seat and move you up. And on the Screen next to you, they show all kind of views (like golf course, desert, city area, artic, waterfall etc. Really awesome.
Then there was one crazy and baaaaaaaaaaaad roller coaster ride called 'California screaming'. As the name suggest, it is crazy place where every person screams due to fear. J Yes. The biggest roller coaster ride in US I guess. Had a lot of fun over there.. And really screamed a lot.. J
After that, we went to other park inside Disneyland called Theme park. There was one cartoon parade going, where all the big cartoons walk on the street and perform. That was really cute and nice. We really enjoyed it. After that parade, we went to 'Pirates of Caribbean' ride. Then there was one laser show going on. They were showing different cartoon characters through a story on water using Laser. Really mind blowing. Amazing. After that, there was fireworks show which happens there daily around 9.30 pm. Again another great performance. It was really like Diwali. Great show.!!!
Atlast, we finished most of the Disneyland and then came out around 12 midnight. Yes we roamed till 12 in the night. Came back on the rooms and went to sleep at 1...as usual.. J
Next day was supposed to be our last day of the trip. So we thought of relaxing on a beach of LA. You know, these are one of the beautiful beaches in US, and may be in world. We visited couple of beaches called 'Santa Monica' and 'Venice' beach. They are close to each other. And you know what, I did cycling on beachside. Yeah, after 7-8 years, I was riding bicycle and that too on California beaches. It feels amazing.
After that, we started our journey back from LA to LV around 5pm. Neha (my friend) had her flight at 11.30. So we thought in 5 hours we can easily reach LV (4 hrs of journey and 1 hour of buffer - typical effort estimation in S/W terms J ). But there was huge traffic on roads. It took 2 hours for me to drive just 20 miles. Oh my god. Our university road traffic was much better than that.
Finally we came out of traffic around 7.30pm. Ahead of me was 250 miles road to LV and all I had was 3 hours (technically we had to reach by 10.30pm). Here my driving skills was supposed to be tested once again. And you know what, We made it.. Yes we made it. in just over 2 hours. You can find out avg. speed = 250/2.5 = 100 mph.
Yes. that is 160 kmph. Haa haa.. All people except me in my car were tensed. I was pretty cool and enjoying it.. I Love Speed J
Anyways, enough of praising myself. So we reached LV airport around 10. Dropped her, and again we started to roam around some of the places we left to see, in LV till 4am.
Or flight was at 7.30am. So had to reach there by 6-6.30 after returning the rental cars on the airport. Fortunately, we got direct flight from LV to SEATTLE airport. Had enough sleep and landed Seattle at 10-10.30.
While coming back from Seattle to Redmond, when I looked back, all I had was nice memories of our trip, those mind blowing hotels and casino's of LV, one of the best construction masterpiece of USA(Hoover dam), Crazy rides of Universal studio and Disneyland, Mind-blowing dance shows of Dolphin and other sea-animals, my crazy driving of around 500 miles in California and state of Nevada, and lots lots lots lots of unforgettable memories of trip right from planning till that point. At that second, I decided to have one more funky trip next time and such a description which takes your valuable time of work. lol.. Till then good bye and get back to work.
Snaps -
Las Vegas and Hover dam
http://picasaweb.google.com/anup.net/LALV_LasVegas
Universal Studios
http://picasaweb.google.com/anup.net/LALV_Universal_Studios_LA
San Diego - Sea world
http://picasaweb.google.com/anup.net/LALV_SeaWorld_SanDiego
Disneyland
http://picasaweb.google.com/anup.net/LALV_DisneyLand
Beaches of California
http://picasaweb.google.com/anup.net/LALV_Beaches_LA
Videos -
Dolphin dance show in Sea world
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1165264177190390467
Sky-ride in Sea world
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3502325573504385048
Parade in Disney
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7042273723628759061
Fireworks in Disney
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3647958934203863614
Over California ride in Disney
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3471890211521492540
California screaming in Disney
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4292500402085712363
Aladdin show in Disney
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1150199505959256284
