Saturday, April 19, 2008

Grand Canyon National Park

Since I did not really visit Las Vegas and will do so during my graduation trip, I will skip that part for now. Grand Canyon in late winter was....cold. The scenery was great, but it got old after a while (especially true when you just walked along the rim without really hiking down). We were too unprepared to hike down anyway.

So what we did there was too see the sunset and sunrise. Hmm. Doesn't seem like there's a lot to talk about, or maybe it's because I started writing about this too late???

Anyway, I'm going to Grand Canyon again in less than 3 weeks. Hopefully it is going to be warmer then.

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Group photo

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Grand Canyon

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"Group" photo

Thursday, April 03, 2008

Having too much fun...

I don't know since when the jumping shot became a must in barren, rocky national parks like Death Valley, we had tonnes of fun doing so nevertheless. Finding the right time to snap the photo isn't an easy task though, and the following pictures tell a thousand words.

Voon Seng jumping in futility (tsk tsk tsk):

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                                    YATTA!!!!

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F4 - flying 4 (or fantastic 4? fabulous 4? famous 4? at least it's not futile*4)

Death Valley National Park

We did not visit the park in the strictest sense, we just passed by it on our way to Las Vegas. But well, there's nothing much to see really (the name tells you that it is not exactly very lively). The views were breathtaking though, and in my opinion, some of the photos that I am going to post below are the nicest taken in this entire trip.

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Long straight road

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Nice clouds...

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Reminds me of Artemisia tridentata (sagebrush I encountered during my Camp Davis trip), but don't think it is...

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Imagine if you're out of gas now...

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Check out the horseshoe vortex in the center of the picture

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Nice view, isn't it?

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Shadows of clouds....cumulus shadow

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My favorite photo of the trip (photographer: me, camera: VS's - have to make this clear lol)

Yosemite National Park

Yosemite was great, but not as great as it would be in spring-summer. Some attractions were closed (we didn't get the chance to see the giant sequoia), and the views were not as magnificent in some sense. A great example would be the disappointing winter-version of mirror lake; try compare and contrast the follow:





















Point taken?

Group picture in front of the Yosemite Valley...

Group picture in front of the Yosemite Falls (739-m in total height, highest measured fall in North America, 7th in the world, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosemite_Falls)

Closer look at the lower falls

What we did in this park was basically just "walk horse look flower" (Chinese saying). I will definitely revisit this place in the future if I have the chance.

Spring Break 2008

This is a long due post. Things have been going great the past few weeks…so, let me just start from where I left.

Spring break was awesome; we had had a great time traveling in California, Nevada and Arizona. So just let me make a quick summary of the trip, since the journey has already been meticulously detailed by Voon Seng in his dramatic trilogy complete with photos (lol).

Where: San Francisco, Yosemite National Park, Death Valley National Park, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon National Park

When: Spring break 2008 – 7 days

Who: The fabulous five (yeah I know the use of fabulous is a bit g…bad influence from sex and the city) - Voon Seng, Siew Gee, Ren Jie, Pei Ying and I

How: Good old rented full size Impala

In a nutshell, this has been a great trip, thanks to the good company :) I will revisit San Francisco, Las Vegas and Grand Canyon with my parents in less than a month's time (Gggoossh!!! Paniccking here....I'm about to graduate soon!!!!!)