Yosemite National Park - 2nd Day

The next day, we went for a short hiking in Yosemite. The place that we're going is Mirror Lake. It's a lake that one can see a beautiful reflection of the Half Dome (one of the peak). Too back I only have my Nokia camera phone, otherwise I would have try to take some nice pictures at the lake. Here's some pictures of mirror lake.




Then, we went back to the lodge to check out. After that, we went to visit the Visitor Center for a short movie that describe about the history of the discovery and forming of Yosemite. Inside there, they have a 3D model of the whole Yosemite, as shown in the following pictures.



Then, we went up to this Glacier Point, which is a place up high above that one could see the whole Yosemite. Here, one could see the Half Dome, North Dome, El Capito, Nevada Fall, Yosemite Fall, etc. It's really awesome to see how God has created this place (the fact said that Yosemite was formed in over millions of year, of which I believed that it's the other way - 40 days heavy downpour during Genesis?) Here's some pictures of Yosemite taken from Glacier Point.







Then, we visited this place in Yosemite called Mariposa Grove, where one could see the giant Sequoia tree. Unfortunately, my Nokia phone ran out of battery, so I'm not able to take a nice shot of the Grizzle giant sequoia tree. Sequoia is the tree that produce redwood. And, it's because of these giant Sequoia trees that started the foundation to make Yosemite a national park, because of one gold miner who spent 1 day walking in this area and discovered these big trees.

Yosemite National Park - 1st Day

When we're going to enter Yosemite from the south entrance, we're stuck in one part of the road as shown in the following pictures. The reason being that the road has been blocked because of Rock Slide. It's really serious for the rock has cover up quite a distance.



Once we entered into Yosemite park, we're amazed by the nature of the park. Below are some pictures from the park. The last picture is a hotel inside Yosemite, which is called Ahwanee, name of an Indian tribe that used to stay in Yosemite before the Gold Rush era.






The following are some pictures of 2 of the few waterfalls that one could see in this park. Most of the waterfall are the result of snow melting on the top of the point during Spring. The first picture is called Bridalveil fall, the second picture is called Yosemite Fall, and the last picture is the lower part of Yosemite Fall as seen in the second picture.





During our walk back to our lodge, as shown in the pictures below, we encountered a hard-working deer (claimed by my colleague, because it's Sunday) that crossing the road as shown in the following picture.




In Yosemite, all animals are still wild. So, 1 may encounter Beer, Deer, Mountain Lion, Squirrel, etc. They have instruction and warning regarding the wild animal like the Mountain Lion, which can be dangerous at some point.

Yosemite National Park - Mariposa Town

We departed early 6:00am in the morning to Yosemite National Park. The drive took us 4 hours 30 minutes in order to reach there. Before we enter Yosemite, we reached this small town called Mariposa, which is famous for Gold Mining. It is one of the place where many people come here during the Gold Rush era to mine for Gold.



The following picture is a museum located at the town center. There's a lot of things to see in this Museum, but we have to pay for it.



This is the interesting thing that we see. It is a Stamp Mill that the miner used to extract Gold. We're able to see the demonstration of this Stamp Mill.




This is the guy that do the explanation to us. He's very good in explaining the history behind the Gold Rush era, and the process of the Gold Mining, and how the Stamp Mill operated.

Monteray - Down South to go for whale watching

Today we went down south to Monteray for whale watching. Monteray is like Sausalito, a town by the sea. But the difference, is that this place has more marine life such as whale, dolphin, and seagull that frequently visited the bay. It's about 1:30 hour drive from San Jose.

We need to go to Fisherman's Wharf to board the boat for whale watching. The whole journey took us 4 hours. It's very cold and freezing (not as bad as Scotland) and big wave on the sea surface. Still, it worths to pay for visit because one can really see the whales and dolphins around the bay. The whale that we managed to see is Humpback Whales. We're not able to see Killer Whale yet. Each species of whales have their own season that they will visit the bay. The whale is magnificent, and most of them, actually came really close to the boat.

Here's some picture of the activities for Monteray whale watching. It's hard to get good picture of the whales.







And here are some pictures of the whale. You'll have to look carefully into the pictures. One of the pictures show the tail of the whale.





Lastly, we came back to have our lunch at the Fisherman's Wharf. For the first time that I can't finish the food because of the motion sickness, of which even though I'm not heavily affected by it, but I just felt tired. Noticed that the scallop is really big as compare to the one that we have in Malaysia.

San Jose - Westfield Valley Fair Shopping Center

There's a lot of shopping complex and outlet mall in California. Here's some pictures for Westfield Valley Fair shopping center. The shopping mall over here occupied a lot of land space (which is not surprise since there's a lot of land). This shopping mall has only 2 floor. It's pretty near to another shopping place called Santana Row, which is a more up-scale place like Star Hill Gallery.

Here's some pictures of the place (without Santana Row, which I don't really have time to take photo).





Oh, thinking of putting this picture. We ordered a fast food called Jack-in-the-Box. It's a 24 hour fast food chain restaurant that will only serve the burger when we ordered. I ordered regular combo meal, and the size of the soft drink cup turn out to be the large size of Mc Donald. I managed to get a picture of the large size. I'm not sure how to describe it, just that it's REALLY BIG!!!

Rented Car - Ford Taurus - A USA car that we drive

Been thinking of putting up pictures of the car that we drove daily. It's Ford Taurus SE. The size is comparable (probably bigger) with Honda Accord or Toyota Camry. It's very spacious. The only complain is that it's a 3-gear auto transmission, so it'll actually consume a lot of petrol if we're extensively accelerate. Here's some pictures of the car.

San Francisco - Ferry Plaza, China Town, Japan Town

First stop, we went to this place called Ferry Plaza. It is a place where during Saturday, you would be able to see a farmer market, selling fresh vegetables and fruits. The strawberry is very big. Today, we stop by this place while we're on our way to Pier 33 to go to Alcatraz (prison island), but ended up we're not able to do so because the trip to Alcatraz has been fully booked until tonight. The next available time slot will be tomorrow, Monday morning 9:30am. But, in Ferry Plaza, there's nice place to eat fresh oyster (like the one in the picture below) and some nice custard bun as well. Here's some pictures of the place.




Next, since we're not able to go to Alcatraz, we decided to go to China Town instead. Along the way, we came to this Levi's Plaza, like in the following picture. It is like a exhibition center for Levi's current trend and history, with testimony of people who wore it. They even have the first Levi's 501 being hang for exhibition! Here's how the place looks like.



And, here's a picture inside the building.




Then, here we are in China Town. To be honest, if you're going to walk to China Town, please don't be shocked by the things that you might see along the road, for when we walk there, we actually bypassed some red light district area (you know what I mean). Then, there's China Town. It's really is very different from other part of the city - it looks really Chinese (I don't have other word for it). In this part of San Francisco, you will notice that the sign board will have Chinese Wording. Along the way, we spotted a Malaysia-Singapore cuisine restaurant called Penang Garden! Where we could see people making Roti Canai!!! Here's some pictures of China Town.




Then, we decided to walk over the hill (San Francisco is basically on hill) to go to Union Square, which is a famous spot like Bintang Walk (probably bigger, but not good for shopping 'coz it's costly). But then, we spotted the direction to Japan Town, so the whole team decided to visit that place instead. It took us about 30 minutes just to walk there 'coz it's really up hill and down hill. Unlike China Town, it's not really busy, and it's more organized. Probably it's a new place, of which I don't really know. We have our lunch there in a restaurant that serves Teppanyaki. The chef is really good in terms of performing some tricks with the cooking, like flipping only the egg yoke in the air, spinning the egg and flip it for a few times in the air, and tossing the prawns' tail into his hat. One thing I like is how he made a small volcano with the Onions ring. Of course, the food is nice as well. Too bad, I couldn't take any video of it because I don't have my DVD camcorder with me. Anyway, here's some view of Japan Town.

San Francisco - Golden Gate Bridge

Golden Gate Bridge is a must to visit. It is a prove to show that we're here at San Francisco :-D It's really is a huge bridge, much bigger, much wider, and much more space compare to Penang bridge. Here's some pictures of Golden Gate Bridge.